writing prompts
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Perfect Paragraphs If you’re writing an article or story for a magazine, think about your paragraph lengths. When you send your work out, your pages are A4 size. The lengths of your paragraphs may look short on a page that size but imagine them in a newspaper or magazine. You can fit about 16 words…
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Here it is – five-word challenge time again! For this week’s challenge, can you tell a story in five words, using the word Fine in it somewhere? Last week, your story needed to contain the word Mirror. You sent in some brilliant stories. Here they are: Christine Mallaband-Brown: Mirror maketh the woman glam. He saw…
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It’s five-word challenge time again! For this week’s challenge, can you tell a story in five words, using the word Mirror in it somewhere? Last week, your story needed to contain the word Email. You sent in some creative stories. Here they are: Christine Mallaband-Brown: Do we enter by email? My email broken, sending telegram.…
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It’s five-word challenge time again! For this week’s challenge, can you tell a story in five words, using the word Sulk in it somewhere? Last week, your story needed to contain the word Jump. You sent in some interesting and entertaining stories. Here they are: Trents World: Almost here! Time to jump…. Chelsea Owens: Jump…
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It’s five-word challenge time again! For this week’s challenge, can you tell a story in five words, using the word Scandal in it somewhere? Last week, your story needed to contain the word Aliens. You sent in some great stories. Here they are: Trent’s World: It wasn’t me! Really! Aliens… Sanandi-jacq: Aliens permeate fabric of…
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The TV – a source of inspiration for writing? In many houses, the TV is the focal point of the room and we spend a lot of our relaxation time watching it. Visit your local newsagents and you’ll see a lot of shelf space taken up with TV magazines. Most of these have letters pages…
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Holiday Writing Surely holidays aren’t for writing? Holidays are for relaxing and doing nothing. For some they are but for others, they’re a time to see sights and enjoy new experiences. This is excellent fodder for stories and articles, as well as fillers and letters. You could just take some notes and photos so you…
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Researching your market – analyse the publication as a whole You might buy a magazine to analyse because you have an idea for an article but don’t just analyse the articles. It’s a good idea to study the whole of the magazine. This will give you an idea of the readership of the publication and…
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Involve Your Reader Not sure how to open your short story? Try addressing your reader directly. It instantly makes them feel part of your story. Here’s an example: Just one more, that’s all I was going to take. You know that, don’t you? You understand. Well, they didn’t. And they wouldn’t listen. Looked at me…
Esther Chilton 