tips for writers
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Well, things were going quite smoothly this week until my cheekiest rescue cat decided to jump behind the TV and got stuck. After much aggravation, on both parts, he managed to break free, pulling a load of wires with him! So that put paid to internet connection for a while. Thankfully, I’m now connected and
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Page Numbers! With more and more publications accepting submissions by e-mail, it’s easy to get out of the habit of adding page numbers to your work but it’s always useful to include them. The editor may wish to print out a copy of your work. If the pages are numbered, he/she can clearly see the
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My tip for writers this week is to read, read and read. This applies to magazines and books. Not only are they entertaining, they can help you in your own writing including, how to structure paragraphs, setting passages of speech out, as well as grammar and punctuation issues. It was while reading an Enid Blyton
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Three dots is plenty! My top tips have included advice on not overdoing exclamation marks as well as dashes. Now it’s the turn of the three dots… An example of when this is used is where a character’s words trail off in speech e.g.: “I need some time to think about it…I’ll let you know…”
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Nowadays it’s so easy to capture anything and everything on camera. So if you see a sign that makes you laugh or a strange custom whilst on holiday, snap away. Or at home, perhaps your dog has fallen asleep in a funny position or your baby daughter likes pulling funny faces. Humorous photos, together with
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If you’re writing an article which is date/season/time specific, make sure you give yourself plenty of time to write your piece before the actual date/season/time. It may take you a while to research the person/event/subject and then to check all your facts. Then, having written your article, it needs to be received by the editor
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My name is? It’s so easy to fall into the trap of changing a character’s name half way through a story. For example, your story might start off being about a boy called Joshua only for him to morph into a character called Jason towards the end of the story. This shows that you’ve been
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Not many of us have the luxury of becoming a full-time writer as soon as we start out. Instead, it’s a case of snatching hours and minutes here and there in between the day job and all that life throws at us. The same can be said for where we write. A lot of writing
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Cringeworthy Clichés Building on my advice about short story endings yesterday, comes another tip about short story writing and that’s to watch your use of clichés. Over-used clichés such as, ‘Her skin was as white as snow’, ‘He looked outside and saw it was raining cats and dogs’ and ‘She looked as light as a
Esther Chilton 