Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 095: Friday 17th May
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: spies, recognize, spot, aunt, pack
- Random: hiding from a friend
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- One-word prompt: group
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 099: Friday 17th May
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: throw, hit, low, enter, blur
- Random: S/he’s spending Christmas with her/his ex
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- One-word prompt: eye
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, non-fiction, nonfiction, novels, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 094: Thursday 16th May
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: awake, free, fugitive, way, live
- Random: garden duty
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Thursday Title: Something similar
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 098: Thursday 16th May
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: pump, vein, dark, taste, obey
- Random: Her/his partner wants a threesome
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Mixed bag: surgeon (character 1), chocolate taster (ch.2), rabbit (object), library (location), phobia of kittens (trait), foot stuck in something (dilemma)
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, non-fiction, nonfiction, novels, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 093: Wednesday 15th May
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: sleep, fear, way, turn, forget
- Random: the corner of the room
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Sentence start: Out water…
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 097: Wednesday 15th May
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: gas, fast, tense, deep, reason, trace
- Random: S/he’s allergic to cats / dogs
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Sentence start: Every time I look at you…
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, non-fiction, nonfiction, novels, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 092: Tuesday 14th May
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: artist, tutor, Jane, unlimited, card
- Random: Tuesday Title: Fortune favours
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Tuesday Title: Fortune favours
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 096: Tuesday 14th May
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: strange, not, what, lightning, vein
- Random: S/he has frequent hiccups
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Tuesday Title: Please forgive me
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, non-fiction, nonfiction, novels, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 091: Monday 13th May
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: find, aloof, food, backwards, tuneless
- Random: write a sonnet about writing a sonnet
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Monologue Monday: Write a first-person poem about a neighbour
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 095: Monday 13th May
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: side, lose, other, act, forgive
- Random: S/he cries at the slightest thing
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Monday Monologue: It’s her/his first ever visit to…
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, non-fiction, nonfiction, novels, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 090: Friday 10th May
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: feel, consume, sand, easy, smile
- Random: treating an instrument as if it were a girlfriend
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- One-word prompt: remote
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 094: Friday 10th May
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: monster, find, better, babe, snack
- Random: She’s found underwear in the family car
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- One-word prompt: break
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, non-fiction, nonfiction, novels, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 089: Thursday 9th May
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: sweet, home, lady, tonight, thrill
- Random: in normal clothing
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Thursday Title: Thursday’s girl
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 093: Thursday 9th May
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: sketch, ill, new, hang, care
- Random: S/he collects something unusual
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Mixed bag: traffic warden (character 1), fruit picker (ch.2), cough sweets (object), bookshop (location), forgetful (trait), lost wallet (dilemma)
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, non-fiction, nonfiction, novels, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 088: Wednesday 8th May
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: judge, fish, baker, derby, drum
- Random: a party at a village hall
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Sentence start: Cross over…
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 092: Wednesday 8th May
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: office, drab, flow, feed, silent
- Random: S/he has no-one who cares about her/him
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Second-person sentence start: She won’t look you in the eye until…
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, non-fiction, nonfiction, novels, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 087: Tuesday 7th May
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: risk, worship, hall, transmission, table
- Random: learning something new
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Tuesday Title: Twisted
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 091: Tuesday 7th May
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: best, 2012, speak, customer, saying
- Random: S/he’s too shy to meet someone new
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Tuesday Title: Secret admirer
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, non-fiction, nonfiction, novels, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 086: Monday 6th May
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: result, tiger, crisp, same, mound
- Random: write a haiku about writing a haiku
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Monologue Monday: Write a first-person poem about going to a concert
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 090: Monday 6th May
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: unite, whatever, live, juice, belong
- Random: S/he speaks three foreign languages
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Monday Monologue: your character is painting a ceiling
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, non-fiction, nonfiction, novels, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 079: Thursday 25th April
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: tumble, naked, black, hair, soap
- Random: A family reunion
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Thursday Title: Famous for the young
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Story Writing Exercises 083: Thursday 25th April
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: power, surprise, take, new, Paris
- Random: S/he’s just been jilted at the altar
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Mixed bag: teacher (character 1), florist (ch.2), mobile phone (object), street (location), one leg slightly shorter than the other (trait), hiccups (dilemma)
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, novels, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 076: Monday 22nd April
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: brown, government, sweet, brothers, question
- Random: A white line
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Monologue Monday: Write a first-person poem about a trip to a new country
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 080: Monday 22nd April
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: impervious, position, check, burn, quick
- Random: His/her partner’s a clone of his/her mother/father
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Monday Monologue: your character is about to propose
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, novels, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 075: Friday 19th April
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: break, critical, outrage, cut, living
- Random: an old sixpence
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- One-word prompt: ghost
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Story Writing Exercises 079: Friday 19th April
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: laugh, skip, step, growl, light
- Random: S/he’s obsessed with the colour yellow…
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- One-word prompt: seat
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, novels, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 074: Thursday 18th April
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: bone, bore, bunk, budge, bend
- Random: Michael’s started crying
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Thursday Title: Rare and True
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Story Writing Exercises 078: Thursday 18th April
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: determined, ostentatious, notorious, alert, clock
- Random:S/he’s wearing head/earphones to avoid…
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Mixed bag: student (character 1), pilot (ch.2), bunch of primroses (object), café (location), stutter (trait), can’t speak each others’ language (dilemma)
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, novels, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 073: Wednesday 17th April
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: fail, trivia, master, touch, right
- Random: Old-fashioned party
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Sentence start: As it lay alone…
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 077: Wednesday 17th April
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: pale, dust, glass, sleep, old
- Random: S/he’s unwrapping a birthday present
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Sentence start: Sarah had always planned to…
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, novels, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 072: Tuesday 16th April
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: walk, face, crack, fall, spend
- Random: Sarah is sitting in the middle of the road
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Tuesday Title: Tim’s Top Ten
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 076: Tuesday 16th April
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords:
diocese, anthropologist, judge, drum, parliament
- Random: Two characters liking the same thing until…
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Tuesday Title: In charge
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: adverbs, author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, monologue, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, novels, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
Every weekday I post a set of poetry prompts on poetrywritinggroup.wordpress.com and a set of story prompts on the script, novel and short story blogs (and poems, script / novel extracts, stories at the weekends). As you’ll see by the headings, you’ve missed a few but they’re listed on the relevant group’s Exercises page so you can always find them there…
Poetry Writing Exercises 071: Monday 15th April
Here are your four poetry exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: dirt, swerve, memory, drive, bed
- Random: Scared and in a hurry
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Monologue Monday: Write a first-person poem about an old friend
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what it says on the tin. You can use it at the beginning of the poem or include it later, and being poetry it doesn’t have to be exact – just be inspired by it.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the poem but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- Single-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = an object, a location, a colour.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Title = The title for your piece.
- Haiku poem= 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
*
Story Writing Exercises 075: Monday 15th April
Here are your four story exercises for today. Time yourself for 15 minutes for each one, then either have a break or move on to the next one.
You can do them in any order.
- Keywords: sublime, anarchy, glasses, business card, headsets
- Random: She’s a self-defence teacher
- Picture: what does this inspire?
- Monday Monologue: your character is meditating
Have fun, and do paste your writing in the comment boxes below so we can see how you got on!
See below for explanations of the prompts, they do vary…
- Sentence starts = what they say on the tin. You can start the beginning of the story with them or a later sentence but they’re a great way of kicking off.
- Keywords = the words have to appear in the story but can be in any order and can be lengthened (e.g. clap to clapping).
- One-word prompt = sometimes all it takes is one word to spawn an idea. Sometimes it easy, sometimes hard but invariably fun.
- Mixed bag = two characters, an object, a location, a dilemma, a trait. Mix them all together and you have a plot… hopefully.
- First person piece or monologue (a one-sided conversation).
- Dialogue only = this is where you literally just write a conversation between two people. No ‘he said’, ‘she said’ or description, just speech and the reader has to be able to keep up. :)
- Second-person = some of you will know that I champion. The prompt can be in any style but has to be written in second-person viewpoint… oh, what a hardship. :)
- Title: This is the title of your story.
- Picture prompts = nothing other than a picture. What does it conjure up?
- Random = whatever takes my fancy!
Tips
- Don’t forget your five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell
- Show don’t tell: if your character is angry, don’t tell us he is, have him thumping his fist on the table.
- Colours: Include at least one colour in your story. It does add depth.
- Use strong verbs and avoid adverbs: Have a character striding instead of walking confidently.
- Only use repetition to emphasise.
- When you’ve finished the first draft, read the story out loud. It’s surprising how many ‘mistakes’ leap out at you when you read out loud… assuming you have any of course!
*
Pictures above courtesy of morguefile.com
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel, which is being serialised on Novel Nights In!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do. If there’s anything you’d like to take part in, take a look at Opportunities on this blog.
I welcome items for critique for the online writing groups listed below:
Morgen’s Online Non-Fiction Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Novel Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Script Writing Group
Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group
We look forward to reading your comments.
Tags: author, blog, books, competitions, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, exercises, feedback, fiction, film, five senses, flash fiction, free verse, haiku, haiku poem, hendecasyllabic, humorous, humour, iambic pentameter, literature, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, mystery, novels, pantoum, plays, poem, poet, poetry, poetry collection, poetry exercises, poetry magazine, poetry slams, prose, rhyming, rhyming poetry, romance, science fiction, scripts, scriptwriting, short stories, short story, sonnet, tanka, terza rima, thriller, triolet, tv, villanelle, writer, writing, writing exercises, writing group, writing poetry, writing workshop
The Shoulders of Giants (A Jake Abraham Mystery) is free on Kindle today / tomorrow, 17-18 January.
A missing girl. A ruthless killer. A rookie P.I.
Jake Abraham is a child of the 80s, brought up by Jim Rockford, Thomas Magnum and three beautiful girls who worked for a man named Charlie. He’s loving his new job as a Private Investigator and already has his first client – a disgraced former police captain whose daughter has disappeared.
When the girl shows up dead, Jake is drawn into a dangerous world of organised crime, police corruption, infidelity and serial murder.
With a terrified city in the grip of a killer who’s always one step ahead of the police, how can a raw young P.I. hope to make a difference?
The Shoulders of Giants is a fun, fast paced thriller in the mold of Raymond Chandler and Robert B. Parker.
Available from http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007RZBN3E and http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007RZBN3E.
Jim Cliff lives in Hertfordshire, England, with his beautiful wife, two brilliant children and an aardvark. Ok, so there isn’t actually an aardvark.
Thank you, Jim!
***
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do, and a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words (and post stories of up to 3,000 words), or posted for others to critique (up to 5,000 words) on the new Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group. Alternatively if you have a short story or self-contained novel extract / short chapter (ideally up to 1000 words) that you’d like critiqued and don’t mind me posting it online in my new Red Pen Critique Sunday night posts, then do email me. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry and Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group.
Four new online writing groups:
We look forward to your comments.
Tags: agent, Amazon, author, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, biographers, biography, books, characters, Charlie's Angels, children’s, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, feedback, fiction, free eBook, Goodreads, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, historical, interview, Jake Abraham, Jim Cliff, Jim Rockford, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mystery, mystery, non-fiction, Northampton, novel, novelist, novels, paranormal, pinterest, poetry, Private Investigator, publisher, rejection letters, rejections, romance, science fiction, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short story group, Smashwords, story author, story authors, submissions, Thomas Magnum, Twitter, vampire, western, writer, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing magazines, YA, youtube
The Ultimate US TV Quiz Book: The ’80s is free on Kindle today / tomorrow, 14-15 January.
Whose best friend was Mr Snuffalupagous? What was the name of Jessica Fletcher’s rather dangerous hometown? Who sang the ‘Family Ties’ theme tune?
The answers to these and 347 other questions on over 160 shows can be found in The Ultimate US TV Quiz Book: The ’80s.
What’s more, UK readers have just as much chance of answering the questions, as all the TV shows featured in the book have also been shown in the UK. Available from http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AU0YU92 and http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00AU0YU92.
Then…
The Shoulders of Giants (A Jake Abraham Mystery) will be free on Kindle from 17-18 January.
A missing girl. A ruthless killer. A rookie P.I.
Jake Abraham is a child of the 80s, brought up by Jim Rockford, Thomas Magnum and three beautiful girls who worked for a man named Charlie. He’s loving his new job as a Private Investigator and already has his first client – a disgraced former police captain whose daughter has disappeared.
When the girl shows up dead, Jake is drawn into a dangerous world of organised crime, police corruption, infidelity and serial murder.
With a terrified city in the grip of a killer who’s always one step ahead of the police, how can a raw young P.I. hope to make a difference?
The Shoulders of Giants is a fun, fast paced thriller in the mold of Raymond Chandler and Robert B. Parker.
Available from http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007RZBN3E and http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007RZBN3E.
Jim Cliff lives in Hertfordshire, England, with his beautiful wife, two brilliant children and an aardvark. Ok, so there isn’t actually an aardvark.
Thank you, Jim!
***
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do, and a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words (and post stories of up to 3,000 words), or posted for others to critique (up to 5,000 words) on the new Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group. Alternatively if you have a short story or self-contained novel extract / short chapter (ideally up to 1000 words) that you’d like critiqued and don’t mind me posting it online in my new Red Pen Critique Sunday night posts, then do email me. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry and Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group.
Four new online writing groups:
We look forward to your comments.
Tags: agent, Amazon, author, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, biographers, biography, books, characters, Charlie's Angels, children’s, creative writing, crime, critique, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, feedback, fiction, free eBook, Goodreads, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, historical, interview, Jake Abraham, Jim Cliff, Jim Rockford, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mystery, mystery, non-fiction, Northampton, novel, novelist, novels, paranormal, pinterest, poetry, Private Investigator, publisher, rejection letters, rejections, romance, science fiction, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short story group, Smashwords, story author, story authors, submissions, Thomas Magnum, Twitter, vampire, western, writer, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing magazines, YA, youtube
Tonight’s guest blog post, on the topic of villains, is brought to you by Y.A. fantasy, mystery novelist, guest blogger and interviewee TJ Perkins.
The Making of a ‘Good’ Villain
It is said that in order to create really great characters that your readers care about you must absorb yourself into their psyche; you must take a part of your own personality and place it into ‘them.’ I’m sure many of you have done that – think back – go on…ahhhh, so you remember how that damsel in distress was a part of you when you were going through a tough time, or how the great warrior in your latest fantasy novel resembled your thoughts and feelings on a matter. This is all great and wonderful for the good guys in a story, but what about the bad guys?
The same holds true for the villains – yes, the author’s darker side. Sure, everyone wants to see the hero triumph, but in order for that to happen you have to have a really good bad guy, someone that will challenge your hero, someone who will throw out all the obstacles that he can to make the hero really struggle. But to love the hero one must also love the villain.
It’ll take an exceptional villain, one with much evil, dastardly doings and underhandedness to capture your reader’s hearts. He or she will have to pull out all the stops and really be nasty to the hero, doing all they can to destroy him and thwart the whole saving the world thing. But how do you do that?
Unfortunately, my friend, you’re going to have to get evil. Yes, that’s what I said. You need to think mean and nasty, and allow the dark corners of your demented mind (and yes, I know you have them) to trickle out. You have to actually draw out from your being all the demented, twisted ideals from the very fabric of your soul and entwine these ideals throughout the story. The villain will challenge the hero from the very beginning and the storyline must have a balanced roller-coaster ride of really bad stuff happening, then a lull, then more bad stuff happening. All of which the villain is instigating.
If you’re having trouble coming up with great ideas for the bad guy to do to the good guy think of opposites. Example: In a store line someone may allow another person to cut in line. What’s the opposite? What mean thing could be done? I’ve found a lot of negative, dastardly stuff in cartoon movies, anime, or even by watching some of the best villains in current HBO shows.
There are actually a lot of great ideas out there, you just have to look. Once you find them you must embrace the dark side, allow your villain to be the most evil, scheming, conniving villain he/she can be, and make your readers love to hate him/her. Give them a twisted since of humor. Make them sarcastic. Make them a complete asshole. The choice is up to you.
Go, now, and create. Enjoy the dastardly events that will make your hero miserable and the reader cheer, yet cry, when you villain is defeated.
Happy Writing!
That was great, thank you, TJ. Great to have you back.
***
TJ Perkins is an award-winning author of the mystery / suspense genre. Her writing style has been compared to that of Mildred Wirt Benson A.K.A. Carolyn Keen (Nancy Drew). Mystery books for ages 8-14 are Mystery of the Attic, On Forbidden Ground, Wound Too Tight and the first 5 books in the Kim & Kelly Mystery Series.
TJ has recently expanded into the world of fantasy for teens. Publisher Silver Leaf Books has contracted to release Shadow Legacy, a 5-book series of fantasy. The first installment of this new exciting series, Art of the Ninja: Earth, is an award-winner and has been classified by readers and reviewers as a cross-genre of fantasy/manga.
TJ lives in Baltimore, MD with her 2 cats and an imagination that’s bursting at the seams.
You can read sample pages of TJ’s writing (www.authorsden.com/tjperkins), see the book trailer (www.silverleafbooks.com), check out TJ’s blog, follower her on Twitter, friend / like her on Facebook and find her books at Goodreads (all her books are available on Kindle, Nook, iPad – just look them up by TJ Perkins).
***
If you would like to write a writing-related guest post for my blog then feel free to email me with an outline of what you would like to write about. If it’s writing-related then it’s highly likely I’d email back and say “yes please”.
The blog interviews return as normal tomorrow morning with non-fiction author Yves Johnson – the six hundred and ninth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, bloggers, autobiographers and more. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further. And I enjoy hearing from readers of my blog; do either leave a comment on the relevant interview (the interviewees love to hear from you too!) and / or email me.
***
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do, and a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words (and post stories of up to 3,000 words), or posted for others to critique (up to 5,000 words) on the new Morgen’s Online Short Story Writing Group. Alternatively if you have a short story or self-contained novel extract / short chapter (ideally up to 1000 words) that you’d like critiqued and don’t mind me posting it online in my Red Pen Critique posts, then do email me. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry and Morgen’s Online Poetry Writing Group.
Tags: Aegir, agent, Amazon, anime, arts, author, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, biography, books, Brigit, Carolyn Keen, Celtic Gods & Goddesses, characters, children’s, creative writing, crime, critique, ebooks, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, feedback, fiction, Flidhais, Freya, Gods and Goddesses, Goodreads, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, Hel, historical, interview, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, Loki, Manannan Mac Lir, manga, Mildred Wirt Benson, Mjolnir, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, Morrighen, multi-genre, murder mystery, mystery, mystery novelist, mythic characters, Nancy Drew, Neptune, non-fiction, Norse Gods & Goddesses, Northampton, novelist, novels, Odin, Pantheon Characters, paranormal, pinterest, poetry, publisher, rejection letters, rejections, romance, science fiction, screenwriting, scriptwriting, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, shape-shifter, Smashwords, story, story author, story authors, submissions, Thor, TJ Perkins, Twitter, Valkyries, vampire, western, writer, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing magazines, Y.A. fantasy, YA, young adult, youtube
Tonight’s guest blog post, on the topic of blogging, is brought to you by mystery author Anne R Allen.
The Slow Blog Manifesto: 7 Reasons for New Authors to Blog Slowly
I’ve loved Morgen’s blog ever since I ran across it by clicking on a Facebook link to one of her great interviews—and I was so pleased when I saw both our blogs were named in Tribal Nation Daily’s “50 Top Blogs for Authors” last September.
But I’m the opposite kind of blogger from hard-working Morgen. I’m a slacker, Slow Blogger. I only blog once a week. Well, actually twice a month, because I have a blog partner who takes over duties every fourth Sunday, and we usually host a guest blogger once a month as well.
I didn’t start out to be a Slow Blogger. When I began, I was simply too busy bloodying my knuckles on the doors of the publishing industry to have time to post more than once a week. I hadn’t even heard of the Slow Blog Manifesto.
But it was pointed out to me by one of my readers after I whined about the pressure to blog daily. The Manifesto gave me permission to continue my slacker ways and concentrate on writing books.
Thanks to that decision, I just launched my seventh book in fourteen months—twelfth if you count anthologies and singles. (And no. I don’t intend to keep up that pace. I’m about to take a doctor–ordered much-needed vacation.)
But I don’t like to see new authors being told they MUST blog every day.
Yes, if you’re trying to establish a big platform quickly the way Morgen has, blogging more often is a must. This is a true “destination blog” you can spend hours reading.
But a Slow Blog can establish a solid web presence and strong platform for an author if you keep at it. You just need a little more patience. I spent my first year getting maybe 17 hits a post, but three and a half years later, I get 7000.
Okay, so what is the Slow Blog Manifesto?
It’s an essay written in 2006 by Canadian software designer Todd Sieling at the height of the everybody-must-get-a-blog frenzy. Slow Blogging is modeled on the “slow food” movement (the opposite of McBurgerish “fast food.”) The point is quality over quantity.
Todd wrote: “Slow Blogging is the re-establishment of the machine as the agent of human expression, rather than its whip and container. It’s the voluntary halting of the light-speed hamster wheel dictated in rules of highly effective blogging.”
He urged people to write a few thoughtful posts per month rather than daily blabber. A number of influential journalists, technicians, and academics joined his movement. It built steam until mid-2008, when it merited an article in theNew York Times.
It’s a principle that’s caught on. I see a lot of publishing industry bloggers cutting back on their number of posts—even uberbloggers like Nathan Bransford, Joe Konrath and Jane Friedman.
But unfortunately, not everybody has got the message. The standard advice to new authors is still to blog at least three days a week.
This is because the search engines pick you up faster if you blog more often.
But here’s the thing: Search engines aren’t the biggest factor in driving most writers’ blog traffic. Out of the nearly 30,000 hits our blog got last month, only about 1500 came from Google searches. Most of our traffic comes from “word of mouth” on Twitter, Facebook, the Kindleboards and other blogs.
I think new authors, especially, need to limit their distractions. Plenty of successful authors don’t blog at all.
However, I do recommend it. A blog is more dynamic than a static website (and free) and it’s a great way to interact with readers and fellow writers. It’s not a great sales tool, especially when you’re starting out, but it’s useful as an Internet home where people can come and visit.
But most people are too busy to come calling every day.
In order to get a readership in this saturated blogosphere, we should be stressing quality over quantity. Nobody I know is starved for blogposts to read.
If you don’t have a blog yet, or blogging has taken over your life—not in a good way—do consider the slow blog route
Here are some reasons a slow blog might even be better than a daily one for the beginning author:
1) A slow blog has a longer life-span.
The average life span of a blog is three years. But you want your writing career to last longer than three years, don’t you? A neglected blog hanging in cyberspace is worse than none.
So you’ve got to plan a blog that’s going to beat the odds. A slow blog is more likely to do that.
2) You reach more people by commenting on other people’s blogs than by madly posting on a new blog nobody reads.
Author / publisher / social media guru Bob Mayer pointed out on his blog: “One of the best networking tools is to go to people’s blogs and leave cogent comments.”
Think of it this way: would you reach more people by sitting in your basement making a thousand signs, or by making one sign and taking it to a place where tons of people hang out?
Use your blogging time to visit other blogs and make friends, and only post on your own blog when you have something to say. Then your new blogfriends will seek you out.
3) Busy people are less likely to subscribe / follow a blog that’s going to clutter their email inbox / rss feed every day. I sure won’t. I don’t read ANYBODY’S blog every day. I’d be so glad if they’d only send notifications of the good posts. Or—even better—only write the good ones. (Which, um, is called “slow blogging.”)
When you write mostly good posts, people will know a visit to your blog is a valuable use of their time and they’ll spread the word. Then maybe an agent or publisher will visit and like it so much they’ll ask you to send them a novel. That’s what happened to me
4) Everybody has bad days. When you have to think of something to say on the day you got that nasty / clueless review / rejection, your emotions could leak out.
On the day you vent about how all agents are spawns of Satan, you might have a visit from a wonderful agent who loved your query and was about to ask for pages. Oops.
5) Nobody can come up with that many interesting posts.
When you slow blog and you don’t have anything to say, you don’t have to say it.
6) Writing nonfiction—which is what you should be writing on your blog—uses a different part of your brain from fiction.
When you’re on a roll with a novel and have to stop to write something perspicacious on the subject of sentence structure, you can stop that flow dead. It can take weeks to get back into the novel—as your left brain takes over and you start organizing the paper clips in your drawer by color and alphabetizing your collection of how-to-write books.
7) Making time to blog every day is incredibly difficult, so you’ll constantly feel guilty. When you feel guilty you eat / drink / smoke too much and then feel guilty about that too.
See where this is going…?
The late, great pseudonyminous agent, Miss Snark was a fan of slow blogging. In spite of all the pressure to “build platform,” she advised new writers to always put their writing first: “Your job is to write…
…There’s a lot to be said for sitting down with your ownself and writing. Nothing, literally NOTHING replaces that. Focus. You’re wasting time.”
***
Morgen: 30,000 hits a month… wow. When I started my blog (March 2011 so I have a year to go before the three-year bell rings!) it was recommended to blog once a week minimum. Little did I know how many guests I’d have and you’re right, it takes up most of my life, more of my writing time than I would like and I’m cutting down on the interviews in July (from seven to five a week!) but then I’m replacing the two ‘missing’ interviews with author spotlights. 
Blogging is a marketing tool and whilst writers have to market themselves, I wouldn’t recommend them going to the extreme I have… unless you’ve done what I’ve done and swapped the day job for two lodgers. Thank you again, Anne.
Anne R. Allen is the author of six romantic-comedy mysteries published by Mark Williams international Digital Publishing. Her newest is No Place Like Home.
Right now, her previous Camilla Randall mystery, SHERWOOD, LTD is free on Kobo and Smashwords. It is also available in paperback from Amazon. It’s inspired by Anne’s own mis-adventures with her first publishers, an outlaw band of Englishmen following their own self-styled Robin Hood.
Anne has also written a guidebook for authors with Catherine Ryan Hyde (author of the iconic novel Pay it Forward.) How to be a writer in the e-age…and keep your e-sanity! She blogs with NYT bestselling author Ruth Harris at Anne R. Allen’s Blog…with Ruth Harris.
Anne’s new book, No Place Like Home, is free on Amazon Jan 1-3 so hurry before the offer finishes!
***
If you would like to write a writing-related guest post for my blog then feel free to email me with an outline of what you would like to write about. If it’s writing-related then it’s highly likely I’d email back and say “yes please”.
The blog interviews return as normal tomorrow morning with autobiographer Debz Lowry – the six hundred and second of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, bloggers, autobiographers and more. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further. And I enjoy hearing from readers of my blog; do either leave a comment on the relevant interview (the interviewees love to hear from you too!) and / or email me.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do, and a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words (and post stories of up to 3,000 words). Alternatively if you have a short story or self-contained novel extract / short chapter (ideally up to 1000 words) that you’d like critiqued and don’t mind me posting it online in my new Red Pen Critique Sunday night posts, then do email me. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry.
Tags: agent, Amazon, Anne Allen, Anne R Allen, author, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, biography, books, characters, children’s, creative writing, ebooks, Facebook, fantasy, fiction, Goodreads, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, historical, interview, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, multi-genre, murder mystery, mystery, non-fiction, novelist, novels, paranormal, pinterest, poetry, publisher, rejection letters, rejections, romance, science fiction, self-publishing, Smashwords, story author, story authors, Twitter, western, writing, YA, youtube
No Place Like Home, a Rom-Com Mystery eBook by Anne R. Allen is free on Amazon from today, Tuesday 1st to Thursday 3rd January.
Synopsis
The uber-rich editor of Home decorating magazine loses everything, including her Ponzi-schemer husband, when their luxury wine-country home mysteriously goes up in flames.
Homeless, destitute, presumed dead and branded a criminal, the once-proud Doria has a crash course in how the other half lives.
Meanwhile, reluctant sleuth Camilla Randall is facing homelessness and destitution too, as Doria’s husband’s schemes unravel and take down innocent bystanders along the way.
When the mysterious—and dangerously attractive—Mr. X. turns up at Camilla’s bookstore looking for clues to the death of a missing homeless man, Camilla joins in the search.
With the help of brave trio of homeless people and a little dog named Toto, Doria, Camilla and Mr. X journey to unmask the real killer and reveal the dark secrets of Doria’s “financial wizard” husband.
As ever, Anne R. Allen weaves a unique blend of quirky characters outlandish situations and laugh-out-loud one-liners that all somehow come together and make perfect sense at the end.
No Place Like Home is the fourth of the Camilla Randall Mysteries, but can be read as a stand-alone novel.
Anne R. Allen is the author of six romantic-comedy mysteries published by Mark Williams international Digital Publishing. Her newest is NO PLACE LIKE HOME.
Right now, her previous Camilla Randall mystery, SHERWOOD, LTD is also FREE on KOBO and Smashwords. It’s inspired by Anne’s own misadventures with her first publishers, an outlaw band of Englishmen following their own self-styled Robin Hood.
Anne has written a guidebook for authors with Catherine Ryan Hyde (author of the iconic novel Pay it Forward.) HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE…AND KEEP YOUR E-SANITY! She blogs with NYT bestselling author Ruth Harris at Anne R. Allen’s Blog…with Ruth Harris.
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** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do, and a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words. Alternatively if you have a short story or self-contained novel extract / short chapter (ideally up to 1000 words) that you’d like critiqued and don’t mind me posting it online in my new Red Pen Critique Sunday night posts, then do email me. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry.
Tags: Anne Allen, Anne R Allen, author, author spotlight, biography, books, Camilla Randall, characters, children’s, creative writing, Facebook, fantasy, fiction, Goodreads, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, interview, LinkedIn, literature, multi-genre, mystery, non-fiction, novelist, pinterest, poetry, rom-com, rom-com mystery, romance, romance comedy, science fiction, Twitter, western, writing, YA, youtube
Welcome to the five hundred and ninety-seventh of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with suspense mystery novelist and spotlightee Deb Borys. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further. You can read Debra’s author spotlight at http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/author-spotlight-no-61-debra-borys.
Morgen: Hello again, Deb. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Debra: I currently live in Seattle and have been here for about ten years. Before that I lived in Chicago, but most of my life was spent in small town Illinois. I’ve been writing since I was a kid. I remember even binding a small book using cardboard, construction paper and a typewriter when I was in junior high. I chose not to go to college because I knew I wanted to be a writer and what did a writer need with a college degree? I know better now, but to my 17-year-old mind it made sense at the time. I wrote all through my marriage and that was when I started submitting things. I concentrated on novels at first, but nothing worked until I started writing and submitting a few short stories. Getting a few of those accepted–for pay even!–gave me the confidence I needed to keep working on my novels. As an inspiration for Painted Black, I spent four years living in Chicago and volunteering with Chicago’s homeless, youth in particular. I got to know a few on a personal level that made me want to become a voice for them.
Morgen: I’m always in awe of authors who said that they always knew they wanted to be a writer. I didn’t know until I went to evening classes in my late thirties and then it took me another four years to consider it as a profession (I’m still working on that actually). What genre do you generally write and have you considered other genres?
Debra: While I have written spec fic and literary stories, suspense and mystery seem to be my niche. Painted Black is a suspense novel, but because it’s so character driven, it doesn’t fit neatly into a genre. Straight whodunits were never as interesting to me as something that got me into the mind of the character as much or more than the actual plotline. If you care about the main characters, the puzzle they are solving seems less important than what might happen to them while they are following the clues.
If there is one unifying theme to my work now, it is an attempt to see the real world for what it really is, the good and the bad, and keep going no matter what. Like the character in one of my short stories says, “It’s how you deal with the darkness that counts.”
I read a wide variety of books myself (my favorite all time author is historical novelist Dorothy Dunnett) but mystery / suspense has always been my favorite. It started with the Bobbsey Twins and Hardy Boy books when I was a kid and continues through Stephen King and Dean Koontz, et al. My favorite authors always have a certain something that makes them rise above the genre, however.
Morgen: I’ve never read Dean Koontz but I was a big Stephen King fan in my teens and read everything as it came out, until somewhere after Misery (which I loved) when I lost interest and switched to softer reads (like Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected ). What have you had published to-date? Do you write under a pseudonym?
Debra: Painted Black is my first published novel, but I have had several short stories published in print and online publications. One of them, Red Light, Green Light, is actually a story that arose out of one of the main characters of Painted Black. I also had three short mysteries published. I did use a pseudonym for my Evelyn A. Archer P.I. stories which I call my cynical bitch mini-mysteries. The only reason for the pseudonym was because the books are told from a first person narrative and I thought it would be fun to make it look like Evelyn was a real person writing about her detective agency. The second book in the series, Bend Me, Shape Me, is due to be released next spring, also by New Libri Press.
Here’s a list of my publications so far:
- Painted Black – a suspense novel, New Libri Press
- Heaven Can B Hell – mini-mystery, The Fringe Magazine
- Peeling the Onion – literary short story, City Slab
- Red Light, Green Light – literary short story, Downstate Story
- Love Takes a Licking – mini-mystery, Red Herring Mystery Magazine
- Blackout Blues – mini-mystery, Pirate Writings
- The Nest – literary short story, Iowa Woman
Morgen: Evelyn sounds fun. Have you had any rejections? If so, how do you deal with them?
Debra: Standard rejections are easy to take. I’ve created a database of markets and manuscripts that I’m always adding new markets to. When a rejection comes in, I just send the story off to the next appropriate market in the database. The hard rejections are the ones that take the time to tell you how good they thought this or that was, but they aren’t interested in the piece because of some other thing. There have been times when I have revaluated and even changed a piece based on those kinds of letters, but opinions are always so subjective, it’s risky to take any of them to heart unless they say something you secretly already knew.
Morgen: It’s a good idea to submit elsewhere when something’s rejected. It is just a case of finding the right person for the right story. Have you won or been shortlisted in any competitions?
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: agent, Amazon, author, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, biographers, biography, books, characters, Chicago, children’s, creative writing, crime, critique, Deb Borys, Debra R Borys, ebooks, erotic romance, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, feedback, fiction, flash fiction, Goodreads, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, historical, interview, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mystery, mystery, mystery series, night ministry, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novels, paranormal, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, publisher, rejection letters, rejections, romance, science fiction, Seattle, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story author, story authors, story writer, submissions, suspense, suspense novel, Twitter, vampire, western, Wordpress, writer, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing group, writing magazines, YA, youtube
Mark Dawson’s mystery thriller ‘The Black Mile’ is free on Kindle between 21 and 23 December.
Synopsis
London, 1940: the Luftwaffe blitzes London every night for fifty-seven nights. Houses, shops and entire streets are wiped from the map. The underworld is in flux: the Italian criminals who dominated the West End have been interned and now their rivals are fighting to replace them. Meanwhile, hidden in the shadows, the Black-Out Ripper sharpens his knife and sets to his grisly work.
Henry Irving is a disgraced reporter on a Fleet Street scandal rag. Genius detective sergeant Charlie Murphy is a fresh face in the Metropolitan Police, hunting corrupt colleagues but blinkered by ambition and jealousy. His brother, detective inspector Frank Murphy, searches frantically for his runaway daughter, terrified that she will be the killer’s next victim.
As the Ripper stalks the terrified streets, the three men discover that his handiwork is not quite what it seems. Conspirators are afoot, taking advantage of the chaos to settle old scores. The murders invade the lives of the victims and victimizers on both sides of the law, as everyone is sucked deeper and deeper into Soho’s black heart.
Based on a little known true story, The Black Mile is a rollercoaster ride of a novel that was previously the most downloaded novel on the Kindle Store. It is available from:
Mark Dawson works in the film industry. The Black Mile is his third novel.
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** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do, and a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words. Alternatively if you have a short story or self-contained novel extract / short chapter (ideally up to 1000 words) that you’d like critiqued and don’t mind me posting it online in my new Red Pen Critique Sunday night posts, then do email me. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry.
Tags: ebooks, film industry, Fleet Street, free eBooks, Kindle store, Mark Dawson, Metropolitan Police, mystery, mystery thriller, Ripper, scandal, story, true story, writing
Tonight’s guest blog post, on the topic of getting your facts right is brought to you by crime novelist Neil Yuzuk who brought us Getting it right (part 1) and Getting it right (part 2) in October and November respectively.
Getting It Right (part 3 of 3)
How to get your facts straight?
RESEARCH – PEOPLE – RESEARCH – PEOPLE – RESEARCH – PEOPLE
Here’s another way to get information—talk to people. They love to share information and I promise to use their names in the books—they love it and they’re a great resource.
I met “Phil the Armenian” when we were waiting to be served at the deli counter and we got to talking. Phil is a Teamster. In my third book, “Beachside PD: Undercover,” Danny is going undercover as truck driver. Phil offered to help me and I told him that I would write him in as a character in the book, as Phil “the Armenian” O’Brien (Armenian mother and Irish father)—He loved it.
I needed “behind the scenes” information on TV broadcasting, so I called a former student, Basche Warner, who works as a cameraman/producer and we met for pizza. He brought along a friend of his, Jack Shipley, who is also in the industry and they briefed me for two hours on procedures and equipment. I ended up using just a bit, but I have it if I ever need it. They’re in the book as a combined character, Basche Shipley.
We have all of these people in our lives and in exchange for using their names as characters, they are more than willing to help. And, if you don’t know a cop or a truck driver, ask your friends. Two fellow authors helped me and now I have a police secretary named Morgen Dingli in my books. Morgen did a beautiful podcast of a short story I wrote and Ms. Dingli has been generous with her writing advice.
In “Beachside PD: Undercover,” Danny was shot. I brought that chapter along on a physician visit. My Internist read it and suggested inserting a chest tube for Danny’s collapsed lung. For the description of Danny in his post-surgical ICU bed, I turned to another former student who is a Nurse Practitioner and she helped me brush up the scene.
People love to tell their stories. I just received an email from my son’s lieutenant that he has more cases for my next visit. In “The Gypsy Hunter” I gave a big plug to his wife’s charity, Bit-By-Bittherapy.com. It’s an organization that uses horses to help people with special needs; their “Horses For Heroes” is for military veterans & their families. I used it to rehab a Seminole coed whose sister was murdered.
I met author K.B. Schaller (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0TkzdG2bbI) on LinkedIn and she was very generous in helping me be accurate when it came to the Seminole Tribe and its culture. She’s also helped me create a Seminole thread in the new book. In return, my son David designed a video trailer for her.
We are and can be resources for each other, the key is to keep it within reason.
There are real cases in the news all the time—use them. Learn about forensics, it’s a great case solver, often in unique ways.
Use the real detective TV programs to inspire your stories. I said “inspire” and not “copy.” On one program, there was an interesting case that was solved by finding a wristwatch at the crime scene. I liked the concept and took it several steps further, so in the end, I had an important sequence of forensic evidence to solve the case.
A warning about forensics, they are fallible. So much depends on how it’s gathered and how it’s interpreted. For example, a man was arrested for an act of terrorism where hundreds were killed, because his fingerprint was found at the scene in Spain. However, he was five thousand miles away in Colorado when it happened . . . and, he’d never been to Spain—never, ever.
If you’re writing about Bobbies and Blaggers—talk to the constables you might encounter during your day. Stopped for speeding? Try, “Officer, I’m so glad you pulled me over. I’m writing a book about police procedures and I was wondering if you could take the time to give me some tips on what Road Patrol officers look for, and what are the proper stop procedures.”
If that doesn’t work, ask to be arrested so you can see the inside of the stationhouse and experience arrest procedures first hand.
If this has helped, then Bob’s your uncle. If I can ever be of help, please let me know.
Oh wow! I’m in a novel… I’m famous. What can I say? (usually a lot)… thank you, Neil.
Neil L. Yuzuk (pictured right with son David) was born in Brooklyn, New York. Now retired after twenty-two years, as a SPARK Substance Abuse Prevention Counselor, he wrote Beachside PD: The Reluctant Knight, after collaborating with his police officer son on a screenplay of the same name. The book was a finalist in the Global eBook Awards in the category of suspense / thriller.
The second book in the series is Beachside PD: The Gypsy Hunter and third book is entitled Beachside PD: Undercover. He has also written a screenplay: Fade To Light. Another book, Zaragossa: Fruit of the Vine is in the works.
Neil and his co-author son David are the authors of the Beachside PD series and their website is http://www.BeachsidePDBooks.com. You can also watch their video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20e_i39GaQA and their print and eBooks are available at Amazon.com.
If you would like to write a writing-related guest post for my blog then feel free to email me with an outline of what you would like to write about. If it’s writing-related then it’s highly likely I’d email back and say “yes please”.
The blog interviews return as normal tomorrow morning with memoirist, poet and fiction author Barbara Morrison – the five hundred and eight-sixth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, bloggers, autobiographers and more. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further. And I enjoy hearing from readers of my blog; do either leave a comment on the relevant interview (the interviewees love to hear from you too!) and / or email me.
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do, and a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words (and post stories of up to 3,000 words). Alternatively if you have a short story or self-contained novel extract / short chapter (ideally up to 1000 words) that you’d like critiqued and don’t mind me posting it online in my new Red Pen Critique Sunday night posts, then do email me. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry.
Tags: action, crime, David Yuzuk, Foyle's War, Global eBook Awards, Law and Order, Lewis, Luther, Morse, mystery, Neil Yuzuk, New Tricks, novelist, novels, romance, Schindler’s List, screenplay, suspense, thriller, Touching Evil
Tonight’s guest blog post, on the topic of mythic characters, is brought to you by Y.A. fantasy, mystery novelist and interviewee TJ Perkins.
Building Your Extreme Pantheon Characters
Okay, so you’ve got this great fantasy with great Gods and Goddesses ruling, or maybe they’re hidden entities throughout your story slightly affecting the lives of your characters, but…what about them? You can’t just say there’s this ocean God that sinks ships; you need to build on that entity’s powers, background, etc. So, let’s break this down:
Celtic Gods & Goddesses:
Flidhais – Irish Goddess of wild things and she was a shape-shifter
Brigit – A Triple Goddess – a Fire Goddess, a Battle Goddess and a Goddess of Water. Any body of water is a connection to Her. Does she have a special sword? Special Armor? What other attributes does she have?
Morrighen – Goddess of War, battle and fury. She will appear in Her Battle Crow aspect so She does shape-shifting, too.
Manannan Mac Lir – Patron of sailor and merchants. His famed possessions include the yellow shaft, the red javelin and horse called Splendid Mane, and three swards name Retaliator, Great Fury and Little Fury. He had a suit of armor that made him invisible and has the gift of immortality.
Norse Gods & Goddesses:
Freya – Ruler of the Valkyries. Has a cloak of falcon feathers and is pulled in her chariot by two large blue cats.
Aegir – God of the seashore and ocean. Similar to Neptune and has power over sea serpents and water monsters of all kinds.
Hel – Goddess of the dead and underworld.
Loki – God of mischief, trickery and cunning. A master magician and conjurer as well as a shape-shifter.
Odin – the prime deity who gave his right eye for all knowledge. He possesses vast strength and will power. He is followed by a pair of ravens or wolves, (do you know their names?) and rides upon an eight-legged horse name Slepnir who represents time itself.
Thor – God of thunder, possesses a mighty hammer named Mjolnir. He is the working-man’s god and rewards hard work.
This is just a few I have named and I encourage all of you to do research and find out more about the Gods and Goddesses. If you want a Goddess, Elemental or Sprite of a tree, body of water, mountain, etc. Google it – you’ll be surprised of what you find. Or create your own pantheon and borrow bits and pieces of powers and abilities from other deities.
The point is to expand on what the seen and unseen deities in your story are all about, what do they do, what is their background, how do they feel about things, do the items they posses also represent something even deeper, etc.
That’s all for now, so get those creative juices flowing and happy writing.
Thank you, TJ. Great to have you back!
TJ will be back in January talking about villains.
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Award-winning author TJ Perkins is a well-respected author in the mystery / suspense genre. Her writing style has been compared to that of Mildred Wirt Benson A.K.A. Carolyn Keen (Nancy Drew). Mystery books for ages 8-14 are Mystery of the Attic, On Forbidden Ground, Wound Too Tight and the first 5 books in the Kim & Kelly Mystery Series.
TJ has recently expanded into the world of fantasy for teens. Publisher Silver Leaf Books has contracted to release Shadow Legacy, a 5-book series of fantasy. The first installment of this new exciting series, Art of the Ninja: Earth, is an award-winner and has been classified by readers and reviewers as a cross-genre of fantasy / manga. TJ lives in Baltimore, MD with her 2 cats and an imagination that’s bursting at the seams.
You can read sample pages of TJ’s writing (www.authorsden.com/tjperkins), see the book trailer (www.silverleafbooks.com), check out TJ’s blog, follower her on Twitter, friend / like her on Facebook and find her books at GoodReads (all her books are available on Kindle, Nook, iPad – just look them up by TJ Perkins).
Wikipedia’s articles on Anime and Manga are also worth a visit (after TJ’s sites of course ).
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If you would like to write a writing-related guest post for my blog then feel free to email me with an outline of what you would like to write about. If it’s writing-related then it’s highly likely I’d email back and say “yes please”.
The blog interviews return as normal tomorrow morning with poet, short story author, scriptwriter and lyricist Ken Temple – the five hundred and seventy-ninth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, bloggers, autobiographers and more. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further. And I enjoy hearing from readers of my blog; do either leave a comment on the relevant interview (the interviewees love to hear from you too!) and / or email me.
***
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
For writers / readers willing to give feedback and / or writers wanting feedback, take a look at this blog’s Feedback page.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do, and a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words. Alternatively if you have a short story or self-contained novel extract / short chapter (ideally up to 1000 words) that you’d like critiqued and don’t mind me posting it online in my new Red Pen Critique Sunday night posts, then do email me. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry.
Tags: Aegir, anime, arts, Brigit, Carolyn Keen, Celtic Gods & Goddesses, Flidhais, Freya, Gods and Goddesses, Hel, literature, Loki, Manannan Mac Lir, manga, Mildred Wirt Benson, Mjolnir, Morrighen, mystery, mystery novelist, mythic characters, Nancy Drew, Neptune, Norse Gods & Goddesses, Odin, Pantheon Characters, shape-shifter, story, Thor, TJ Perkins, Valkyries, Y.A. fantasy, YA
Welcome to the five hundred and seventy-fifth of my blog interviews with novelists, poets, short story authors, biographers, agents, publishers and more. Today’s is with crime thriller author Rick Reed. A list of interviewees (blogged and scheduled) can be found here. If you like what you read, please do go and investigate further.
Morgen: Hello, Rick. Please tell us something about yourself, where you’re based, and how you came to be a writer.
Rick: I didn’t start out to be a writer like most authors that I know, but I have always been a voracious reader. In 1999, while living in a cramped apartment, working third shift as a police detective, newly divorced and trying to find ways to burn off the stress, I discovered that I enjoyed making up police stories.
Since I never expected to find an agent, much less a publisher, I started an underground police department newspaper. It was short and crude and was written as a celebrity roast. The celebrities were whatever unlucky police officer, or politician, I had in my sights for some mischievous—not malicious—fun. The paper was called The Monkey Boy Gazette, and there was an issue every month for ten years before my identity was discovered. My first amendment right to free speech was honoured, but there are subtle ways to punish transgressors and I was finally unable to continue the paper.
Before that happened though, I had a circulation of about one thousand readers, including the entire police department, city government, and local FBI. After I was put out of the underground press business, I was told that my stories were being mailed all over the country to other law enforcement agencies, including the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. My paper had become a collector’s item, and the victims of the stories were framing them and hanging them in their offices and homes.
Morgen: It’s great having the experience so you really can write what you know because it’s writers like myself who love writing crime but are never sure if the ‘facts’ are right. You could become a crime writers’ consultant. What genre do you generally write and have you considered other genres?
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: agent, Amazon, author, author spotlight, Barnes & Noble, biographers, biography, books, characters, children’s, craft of writing, creative writing, crime, crime writer, critique, Detective Jack Murphy, erotic romance, erotica, Facebook, fantasy, feedback, fiction, flash fiction, Goodreads, guest blog, guest blog post, guest post, Hamish Macbeth, historical, interview, Joseph Weldon Brown, Kensington, Kensington Books, Kobo, LinkedIn, literature, M.C. Beaton, Morgan Bailey, morgen bailey, Morgen with an e, multi-genre, murder mystery, mystery, mystery series, non-fiction, Northampton, novelist, novels, paranormal, paranormal romances, pinterest, poetry, poetry collections, publisher, rejection letters, rejections, Rick Reed, romance, science fiction, second person viewpoint, self-publishing, series, short stories, short story group, Smashwords, story author, story authors, story writer, submissions, The Monkey Boy Gazette, thriller, true crime, Twitter, vampire, western, Wordpress, writer, writing, writing competitions, writing events, writing group, writing magazines, YA, youtube
Every now and then I post a 5a.m. flash, often listing a free eBook. Today however I found out about an eBook that is free today, tomorrow and Saturday and I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow morning to tell you about it so here’s a 5p.m. flash.
RP Dahlke’s A Dangerous Harbor (Mystery, Romance & a Bald Parrot) is available free from Amazon for the Kindle from Thurs Dec 6th- Sat. Dec 8th, 2012:
US: http://www.amazon.com/A-DANGEROUS-HARBOR-ebook/dp/B0062D4GM2
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/A-DANGEROUS-HARBOR-ebook/dp/B0062D4GM2
(for UK see comments section below)
Synopsis…
Bleary-eyed and sleep deprived after a long overnighter into Mexico, solo sailor and SFPD police detective, Katrina Hunter, thinks the mermaid twenty yards behind her thirty-two foot Westsail is nothing more than a sailor’s hallucination But everything she knows about floaters convinces her to turn her boat around for another look : Now, alone and isolated in the Mexican port’s police station for six hours she’s convinced that reporting the body of a floater to authorities was a mistake. Even the arrival of a handsome, if somewhat dour, Mexican/Italian investigator does nothing to dispel her growing anxiety that she’s about to be charged with the murder.
Chief Inspector, Raul Vignaroli, is as surprised by the attractive solo-sailor as he is to find that she’s a respected member of the San Francisco police force, and after some well-placed phone calls he’s sure that he’s found the perfect partner to help him solve a murder, if not the cure for his broken heart.
Released, she’s free to go. But leaving the police station hits a snag when two policemen march in, dragging a listless prisoner between them. But before Katy can dodge them for the exit, the prisoner raises his head and a startling pair of aquamarine eyes meet hers. He straightens his back, wincing at the angle of his cuffed wrists. “What the… Whisper?”
Suddenly, the sound of the ceiling fan is terribly loud. Blood pounds in her ears, her mouth goes dry, her palms are damp and her feet are nailed to the floor. In a knee jerk reaction, she hisses, “Don’t call me that!”
Thank you, RP!
***
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do, and a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words. Alternatively if you have a short story or self-contained novel extract / short chapter (ideally up to 1000 words) that you’d like critiqued and don’t mind me posting it online in my new Red Pen Critique Sunday night posts, then do email me. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry.
Tags: Amazon, books, dangerous harbour, free eBook, investigator, Katrina Hunter, Kindle, literature, mermaid, mystery, novel, romance, RP Dahlke, shark, writing
Jim Cliff’s book The Shoulders of Giants (A Jake Abraham Mystery) will be free on Kindle from 4th-6th December.
A missing girl. A ruthless killer. A rookie P.I.
Jake Abraham is a child of the 80s, brought up by Jim Rockford, Thomas Magnum and three beautiful girls who worked for a man named Charlie.
He’s loving his new job as a Private Investigator and already has his first client – a disgraced former police captain whose daughter has disappeared.
When the girl shows up dead, Jake is drawn into a dangerous world of organised crime, police corruption, infidelity and serial murder.
With a terrified city in the grip of a killer who’s always one step ahead of the police, how can a raw young P.I. hope to make a difference?
The Shoulders of Giants is a fun, fast paced thriller in the mold of Raymond Chandler and Robert B. Parker.
Available from…
Jim Cliff lives in Hertfordshire, England, with his beautiful wife, two brilliant children and an aardvark. Ok, so there isn’t actually an aardvark.
Thank you, Jim!
***
** NEW!! You can now subscribe to this blog on your Kindle / Kindle app!
See http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B008E88JN0
or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008E88JN0 for outside the UK **
You can sign up to receive these blog posts daily or weekly so you don’t miss anything. You can contact me and find me on the internet, view my Books (including my debut novel!) and I also have a blog creation / maintenance service especially for, but not limited to, writers. If you like this blog, you can help me keep it running by donating and choose an optional free eBook.
As I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t unfortunately review books but I have a list of those who do, and a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words. Alternatively if you have a short story or self-contained novel extract / short chapter (ideally up to 1000 words) that you’d like critiqued and don’t mind me posting it online in my new Red Pen Critique Sunday night posts then do email me. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry.
Tags: Charlie's Angels, crime, free eBook, Jake Abraham, Jim Cliff, Jim Rockford, mystery, novel, Private Investigator, Thomas Magnum
** LIST UPDATED 15 DEC 2012 – CLICK HERE FOR LATEST LIST **
Can you offer an author FREE feedback? Would you like to receive that feedback?
I came up with the idea for this page during a mini-break at a ‘pitch to the panel’ event at the Festival of Romance, Bedford, mid-November 2012. I know there are many writers out there who, for one reason or another, don’t have enough (or any!) readers / writers willing to give them FREE feedback on their works-in-progress so they can make it as good as it can be before they submit it. Could you give that feedback? Would you like that feedback?
NB. You can be on both lists – it doesn’t have to be one or the other. :)
** Because almost everyone has contact details against their name, I shall leave it that you contact each other. Obviously any enquiries I receive will be passed on but I would ask that you visit this page from time-to-time to check whether I have added anyone who is willing to read your genre or that an author is looking for feedback that you offer. Thank you again everyone for taking part. I hope to build this page into a really valuable (if not monetary!) resource for all concerned. **
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READERS (see below for readers offering feedback)
- Do you like reading novels, short stories, non-fiction or poetry (anything else?) and are willing to give free, honest feedback?
- Can you read them quickly (within a month)?
I’m looking to list first readers on this page (below) so please either email me or leave a comment below (and I’ll paste it into this page) with the following information…
- Your name:
- Your email address: (via me if preferred)
- Your website (if you have one, if not I can design you one!):
- Genre preferred:
- Format (novel, short stories, poetry, non-fiction):
- Maximum length of work to be read (___,000 words / ___ lines for poetry):
- Lead time preferred (ideally no more than a month please):
- Do you write? (yes/no):
- Any other relevant information:
Thank you so much in advance. Writers can never have too many first readers and feedback more than “that’s good” (or otherwise) is invaluable to us and you get a free read!
NB. Don’t be under pressure to give a lengthy, detailed feedback (but it would be great if you could). You’re doing this for free so just what you can would be so gratefully appreciated. You can discuss this directly with the other author.
Readers listed here (alphabetically for now)…(note the ‘at’ in the email address should read @, with no spaces, but formatted like that to try and avoid them getting spammed! If you click on the links they should work OK)
- Aaron Fuller (email c/o Morgen): Genre preferred: anything except romance! Novel synopsis and individual chapters only, not whole ones! Otherwise any. Max count: 10,000 words. Lead time: 2 weeks. Do you write? Yes. Thank you, Aaron!
- Aaron Roark (aaronroark9 at gmail.com): Aaron is a writer (listed below) who would also like to give feedback, preferably fantasy or horror (no non-fiction or romance). He needs at least two weeks lead time depending on the length of the work. (50,000 words max). Thank you, Aaron!
- Claire Maycock (formerly Marriott) (claire at nibenon.com, new blog coming soon at www.clairemaycock.com) Genres: non-fiction (home, garden, crafts, personal development), fiction (historical). No maximum length. Lead time to be agreed on receipt of file but will typically be three to four weeks. Do you write? Yes. Thank you, Claire!
- David Ferretti (edf at wildblue.net): I write crossover fantasy (no cursing/sex). I have two finished manuscripts of my trilogy; the first is edited and has been read by several beta readers that caused me to make changes. I am the only person to read the second. I will be glad to exchange finished manuscripts with anyone who writes in the same genre. My manuscript is 119,000 words long and readers have told me that it is a fast read. If your manuscript runs <120,000 words then give me two weeks to review it. Greater length manuscripts will take a little bit longer. I prefer Microsoft Word docx or doc files. Thank you, David!
- Elaine Spires (hello at elainespires.co.uk / www.ElaineSpires.co.uk): Genre preferred: all except sci-fi, horror and poetry. Do you write? Yes (several plays, a TV series, three books, presently working on fourth). Thank you, Elaine!
- Hersilia Press publisher Ilaria (ilaria) Meliconi (info at hersilia-press.co.uk / http://www.hersilia-press.co.uk) is willing to offer feedback on crime novels but timescale dependent on existing workload. Grazie Ilaria!
- James Munroe (MunroJim at twitter.example.com): I will read any novel set in the medieval period, and if it is good, post a review on MedievalMysteries.com, or otherwise send a brief critique direct to the author by email. Thank you, James!
- Jeanne E. Rogers (echidna at gmail.com / http://warriorechidna.blogspot.co.uk/p/contact-me.html): I really like this idea, Morgen, with an ‘e.’ I would like to participate on both sides of this coin. I am a writer of middle grade fantasy, focusing on highlighting endangered animals in my stories. I would like to read fantasy, not necessarily for young people (timescale dependent upon workload – please enquire first), and I would like to have my new book, which is not complete at this point, read for some thoughts / opinions. Thanks so much! Thank you, Jean!
- Kay Millward (kay.millward at yahoo.co.uk / http://www.kay-millward.com/contact-us.php): Any genre. Feedback usually within the month. Do you write? Yes.
- Laurence French (laurencefrench92 at yahoo.co.uk): Hi, I’d be happy to read other authors’ works and give them feedback. I’m a published author in the UK (fiction and non-fiction), as well as having a number of articles published. I like all genres and, if the author wishes, I can do a complete proofread of their work as well. I would have to charge for that though as I work freelance. Otherwise I’m willing to read and give a critique, with suggestions and constructive comments. Thank you, Laurence!
- Morgen Bailey (morgen@morgenbailey.com / http://morgenbailey.wordpress.com/red-pen-critique): short stories (any family-friendly fiction genre) up to 3,000 words or novel extracts of a similar length (with synopsis) for this blog’s Red Pen Critique slot, although the story / extract are posted on the blog so only be happy with that before offering me your writing.
- Nikki Dudley (nikkisdudley at hotmail.co.uk / http://ellipsisandnovels.blogspot.com / https://twitter.com/nikkidudley20): I would like to go on both lists please! As a reader, I am interested in mystery, thrillers, crime, young adult and general fiction. I am happy to read most lengths but lets say not over 100k. I can get back in a month, maybe less. I write fiction and poetry myself. I also co-edit an online magazine. As a writer, I am writing a young adult dystopian novel set in the future. It centres around natural energy. It is around 90k words. Just looking for general f/b. Can give more info on contact. Thanks! Thank you, Nikki!
- Ralph Scott (info at credittheedit.com / http://www.credittheedit.com) If it might accent the above, the staff at Credit The Edit, LLC provides detailed, complementary Test Edits on up to five pages of almost any fiction or nonfiction manuscript. Though five pages does not allow for the examination of everything that is solid or is in need of an overhaul in an author’s manuscript, it’s quite impressive just how much those five pages reveal about the merits and hurdles of the project. So feel free to tap us at least for that. That’s very kind of you, thank you, Ralph.
- Rebeccah Giltrow (rgiltrow at gmail.com / http://rebeccahgiltrow.blogspot.co.uk): Any sort of fiction (novel, short story, poetry, script/play, lyric). Max. length: 50,000 words for prose, any number of lines for poetry. Lead time: 3-4 weeks. Do you write? Yes. Thank you, Rebeccah!
- Robin Greene (bodicea77 at yahoo.com). Genre preferred: Fiction, anything except romance. Format: Novels or short stories. Max length: 80,000 words. Lead time preferred: about a month, probably less. Do you write? (yes/no): some have said that, yes. Thank you, Robin!
Websites where authors can put their work online for feedback include Authonomy (known as HarperCollins’ unofficial slush pile), YouWriteOn – with these two you have to critique to be critiqued, ABC Tales, Absolute Write, Chapteread, Critiquecircle, Fiction Press, Figment (aimed at teens), Scribd, Webook, Worthy of Publishing, Writers, Writers’ Cafe, StoryLane (more about you than your fiction) and Wattpad (I’m on the latter two). Ken Weene recommends http://authorsinfo.com and http://cowbird.com.
I also have a list of reviewers on this blog’s Reviews page. I offer feedback on short stories or novel chapters on my blog’s Red Pen Critique page going live (the story / extract then my feedback) every Sunday evening.
*******************************************************************************************************************************
WRITERS (see below for writers wanting feedback)
Are you looking for free feedback? If so, please either email me or leave a comment below (and I’ll paste it into this page) with the following information…
- Your name:
- Your email address:
- Your website (if you have one, if not I can design you one!):
- Title of your item:
- Genre of your item:
- Format (novel, short stories, poetry, non-fiction):
- Word count (___,000 words / ___ lines for poetry):
- Brief synopsis of item (50 words max!):
- NB. Please list items separately if wanting feedback on more than one.
- When you need the feedback by:
- Any other relevant information:
Thank you and good luck with your works-in-progress! Please remember that the readers will be offering to do this for free so feedback will be as detailed (or otherwise) as their time allows.
Writers listed here… (note the ‘at’ in the email address should read @, with no spaces, but formatted like that to try and avoid them getting spammed! If you click on the links they should work OK)
- Aaron Roark (aaronroark9 at gmail.com): My book is called The High Grass. It’s a horror story. Only the first chapter is complete, but it will be a novel. About 1100 words. Synopsis: It’s the story of a fifteen year old boy named Jimmy. He lives on a farm in north Texas with his mother and father. The farm is adjacent to a large field that no one owns where the grass is about five feet high (hence the title). There is something evil in the field that is after Jimmy. I would also like to give feedback. Need at least two weeks lead time depending on the length of the work. (50,000 words max). Thank you, Aaron.
- David Ferretti (edf at wildblue.net): I write crossover fantasy (no cursing/sex). I have two finished manuscripts of my trilogy; the first is edited and has been read by several beta readers that caused me to make changes. I am the only person to read the second. I will be glad to exchange finished manuscripts with anyone who writes in the same genre. My manuscript is 119,000 words long and readers have told me that it is a fast read. If your manuscript runs <120,000 words then give me two weeks to review it. Greater length manuscripts will take a little bit longer. I prefer Microsoft Word docx or doc files. Thank you, David.
- Ethan Holmes (ethanholmes-at-ethanholmes.com / http://www.ethanholmes.com): I certainly wouldn’t mind some feedback or reviews. I have five titles ranging from short story collections to science fiction to my latest title which turned out to be a self-help book I didn’t know was going to be one. You can visit my site and tell me which one(s) you would like to read. Thank you, Ethan.
- Gary Showalter (gary at garyshowalter.com / http://www.garyshowalter.com): A Primer on Roses (gardening, rose care). Non-fiction. 53 pages. Rose care – from choosing a location to plant, how they grow, how to prune, how to select tools, etc. Feedback wanted: as soon as possible. Additional information: “The pamphlet is available on Amazon now, but feedback is always welcome and changes will be made where necessary, based on feedback, with credit provided for valuable feedback. I will send a PDF file with the text to first readers.” Thank you, Gary.
- Gina Charles (ginacharles at earthlink.net / http://ginacharles.com). Title of item: Shift Happens, A Laypersons Guide To Awakening. Genre of item: Self-help. Format: non-fiction. Word Count: 31,289. Brief Synopsis: Know that you already have all the tools you need to experience that shift into a more peaceful, abundant, and enjoyable life. Shift Happens lights the way on the journey back to Self. Feedback: At earliest convenience.
- Jason Fink (jasonfink88 at yahoo.com): Jasmine Cowl and the Salagi Talking Stick (contemporary fantasy novel, first of a potential seven-book series). 78,000 words. Jasmine Cowl is p*ssed. Fifteen years ago, the African American woman and her friends saved the world. Stuck in a boring life, even though she works for the CIA… the other one. Saddled with family, a job, and the PTA, she’s found something new. Disgruntled gnomes & talking islands force themselves into Jasmine’s life while she hunts for a powerful wand. She’s fighting for more than the world. This time she’s fighting for her kids. Feedback wanted: no real timeframe, finished it up about 3 months back. Any other relevant information: Thanks for taking a look – I’d like to know if it’s an ok read, or if it’s… not. Honesty is always appreciated! Thank you, Jason.
- Jeanne E. Rogers (http://warriorechidna.blogspot.co.uk/p/contact-me.html): I really like this idea, Morgen, with an ‘e.’ I would like to participate on both sides of this coin. I am a writer of middle grade fantasy, focusing on highlighting endangered animals in my stories. I would like to read fantasy, not necessarily for young people, and I would like to have my new book, which is not complete at this point, read for some thoughts / opinions. Thanks so much! Thank you, Jean!
- Kenny Johnston (alwayssmilingthroughthetears at gmail.com): Always Smiling Through the Tears (biography / memoir) 111,000 words. Synopsis: In October, 2010, Kenny put 2 nooses round his neck in the garden shed. Twice. This is his story, a story of a broken home, mixed race children, racism, adversity and heartbreak. Suicide is all too common in our broken society, and here you see it revealed from the inside, to find what actually drives somebody to the point where the pain of death is seen as preferable to the pain in life. Kenny says, ”For those, who provide feedback/reviews, I will post a free copy of the book, signed by me, if they like!” Thank you, Kenny.
- Lae Monier (laemonie at aim.com / http://laemonie.wordpress.com): Wanted (psychological crime). Novel (67,147 words). Feedback wanted: two weeks from the time they get the WIP. Thank you, Lae.
- Laurence French (laurencefrench92 at yahoo.co.uk): ‘Waiting for Dark’ (war / personal relationships). Novel. 80,000 words. Synopsis: A severely injured soldier from WW1 is looked after by a French nurse who takes him back to the battlefield at Ypres to lay the ghosts of his past and to rid him of the guilt he feels about the loss of his pals. No specific timeframe. Thank you, Laurence!
- Nikki Dudley (nikkisdudley at hotmail.co.uk / http://ellipsisandnovels.blogspot.com / https://twitter.com/nikkidudley20): I would like to go on both lists please! As a reader, I am interested in mystery, thrillers, crime, young adult and general fiction. I am happy to read most lengths but lets say not over 100k. I can get back in a month, maybe less. I write fiction and poetry myself. I also co-edit an online magazine. As a writer, I am writing a young adult dystopian novel set in the future. It centres around natural energy. It is around 90k words. Just looking for general f/b. Can give more info on contact. Thanks! Thank you, Nikki!
- Robin Greene (bodicea77 at yahoo.com): Nothing Good From Secrets (“women’s fiction, I guess”). Novel (c. 79,000 words). Synopsis: Carys’ best friend PamLynn is keeping something from her. She goes through finding out PamLynn’s father has Alzheimers, that her mother has been having her followed, and that the man she thought was her father isn’t her biological father. PamLynn is more than a friend, she’s actually her sister. Blurb: (I think) Not everyone who loves you tells you the truth. Carys’ best friend has a secret. Her mother has a huge secret. Carys even has one of her own. How does a near 40 year old woman, who wants a successful career, to live a few of her dreams, oh yes and someone to share all that with, help her friends, understand her mother, and most of all help herself? When you need the feedback by: Not in a huge rush, but as soon as possible. Thank you, Robin.
Websites where authors can put their work online for feedback include Authonomy (known as HarperCollins’ unofficial slush pile), YouWriteOn – with these two you have to critique to be critiqued, ABC Tales, Absolute Write, Chapteread, Critiquecircle, Fiction Press, Figment (aimed at teens), Scribd, Webook, Worthy of Publishing, Writers, Writers’ Cafe, StoryLane (more about you than your fiction) and Wattpad (I’m on both). Ken Weene recommends http://authorsinfo.com and http://cowbird.com.
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Tags: autobiography, biography, chick-lit, crime, critique, fantasy, feedback, fiction, first reader, historical, literature, mystery, non-fiction, novel chapters, novel synopsis, poetry, reading novels, red pen, romance, sci-fi, suspense, writing
You can do them in any order.
You can do them in any order.
