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Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts

Friday, October 11, 2019

The 50 Best Writing Websites of 2019: For All Your Writing Needs

The 50 Best Writing Websites of 2019: For All Your Writing Needs:

The Internet is full of writing websites and blogs to help people reach their creative goals. If you’ve always dreamt of writing your own book, but don’t know how to get there — or if you’re in the process of writing, but feel unsure about what to do next — then it’s your lucky day! Here we have all the best writing websites of 2019 in one single place for your convenience. They’re also organized by category, and alphabetically within each of those categories, to make each one easier to find. Enjoy!

Monday, November 26, 2018

How to End a Novel: Writing Strong Story Endings | Now Novel

How to End a Novel: Writing Strong Story Endings | Now Novel:

1. Leave readers guessing: The open-ended story
2. Bring readers full circle: Ending where you began
3. Pull the rug from beneath their feet: Shocking twist endings
4. Create feel-good lingering: ‘Happily ever after’ endings
5. Build in ‘what next?’ – Cliffhanger endings
6. Create complex resolutions: Combining ending types
7. Avoid cliched and unsatisfying story endings: Ending ‘don’ts’

Saturday, November 24, 2018

Christopher Tolkien and the legacy of his father J.R.R. Tolkien: The Steward of Middle-earth

Christopher Tolkien and the legacy of his father J.R.R. Tolkien: The Steward of Middle-earth:

In 1975, Christopher Tolkien left his fellowship at New College, Oxford, to edit his late father’s massive legendarium. The prospect was daunting. The 50-year-old medievalist found himself confronted with 70 boxes of unpublished work. Thousands of pages of notes and fragments and poems, some dating back more than six decades, were stuffed haphazardly into the boxes. Handwritten texts were hurriedly scrawled in pencil and annotated with a jumble of notes and corrections. One early story was drafted in a high school exercise book.

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

C.S. Lewis And J.R.R. Tolkien: The Unpayable Debt of Writing Friends (Throwback Thursday) | A Pilgrim in Narnia

C.S. Lewis And J.R.R. Tolkien: The Unpayable Debt of Writing Friends (Throwback Thursday) | A Pilgrim in Narnia:

A now-famous literary pact between Tolkien and Lewis, “Tollers” and “Jack,” confirms how different their approach was. Here Humphrey Carpenter records Tolkien’s recollection of a conversation they had, with Lewis speaking first:

“Tollers, there is too little of what we really like in stories. I am afraid we shall have to try and write some ourselves.” We agreed’ (said Tolkien) ‘that he should try “space-travel”, and I should try “time-travel”. (Humphrey Carpenter, Tolkien, 190).
C.S. Lewis’ space travel story, Out of the Silent Planet, appeared quickly in 1938. We don’t get to see what Tolkien was working on until after he died.

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Hackers Are Targeting Createspace Author Accounts - The Book Designer

Hackers Are Targeting Createspace Author Accounts - The Book Designer:

Authors who have an account on Createspace should go change their passwords immediately — and while they’re at it, they should also double check their payment details.
Reports of Hacking

This story has for the most part been ignored by the press, but starting some time in March or April 2018, hackers began to target author accounts on Createspace.

I have read multiple independent reports in several closed Facebook groups, Reddit, and on Kbaords dated in April, June, July, August, and as late as the first week of November from authors who say that someone hacked their CS account.

Writers On The Move: The Three Most Important Components for Publishing Ebooks

Writers On The Move: The Three Most Important Components for Publishing Ebooks:

Formatting. I list this last because most e-book services like Amazon, Createspace, BookBaby etc. make it clear that formatting is essential and provide guidelines for getting it right. I included expanded step-by-step instructions for formatting your book for Kindle in the Appendix of my multi award-winning book on editing, The Frugal Editor.

Note:You should know that when a reader buys your e-book on Amazon, he or she gets to choose what reader format they prefer for his or her preferred device after clicking the buy button. When you use Createspace/KDP, you reach most everyone short of those who refuse to buy from Amazon and you save accounting time tracking different online e-book distributors. You will also saves time reformatting from a print version to an e-book and get distribution and marketing benefits when you use them exclusively.
PS: The fourth most important component of e-books is marketing. No e-book—no book!—is truly published if it hasn’t been marketed. It’s part of the publisher’s job no matter how it is published or who the publisher is. And if it is self-published, marketing is as much the author’s job as the writing of the book. Everything you need to know to market your book the way a professional would if you had the money to hire her is in The Frugal Book Promoter

Thursday, September 20, 2018

Six Pieces of Misunderstood Storytelling Advice – Mythcreants

Six Pieces of Misunderstood Storytelling Advice – Mythcreants:

When storytellers think conflict is defined by explosions and death, it can discourage them. Authors working on lighter stories often think their tales aren’t worth telling because no one dies in them. Worse, some authors reject the notion of conflict entirely because they think it needs to be spaceships shooting lasers at each other. That’s how we end up with stories where nothing happens for chapter upon chapter.

Friday, August 03, 2018

An Alternative Approach to Outlining For Writers Who Don't Outline | WTD

An Alternative Approach to Outlining For Writers Who Don't Outline | WTD:

Some of the best novels of all time are elongated answers to really good questions. A few examples: What if all evil in the world was condensed into a single piece of jewelry? Or, what would a future without books look like? Or, what would happen if a group of boys was left to govern themselves? These aren’t necessarily complex questions, yet they provide a foundation for some truly excellent works.

Likewise, I recommend starting your Junk Doc with a single question. It need not necessarily be a high-concept question like those mentioned above, though it could be if you’ve got one. If you don’t know where to start, try this: “What do I know about my novel?”

Saturday, January 03, 2015

Blogging highlights of 2014

Here are some of the highlights of my blog posts in 2014.

They are not necessarily the most popular, or the most commented-on, but the ones that I think were worth reading, and the ones I would most like to see comments on.

January 2014