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Darcy Pattison

Darcy Pattison has written 1049 posts for Fiction Notes

5 Tips for Great Series Titles

I am working on a new early chapter series (more details after the contract is signed!) and the first step is to nail down a series title. What Makes a Good Series Overall Title? Here’s some of the criteria we are thinking about as we work on a series title. Search Engines. The title must [...]

Winner: Random Acts of Kindness

Congratulations to Sue Morris of KidLitReviews for winning the Random Acts of Kindness free book. She chose the ebook, HOW TO WRITE A CHILDREN’S PICTURE BOOK. Up for one more Random Act of Kindness? Visit Sue’s fledgling site and give her a comment of encouragement! Thanks to everyone for your comments on the Errand Hero [...]

I am an Errand Hero: Random Act of Kindness

It was late on a Wednesday afternoon, when I was the recipient of a Random Act of Kindness. I had worked hard all day, writing, blogging, preparing powerpoints for a speech and I was tired. Here in the South, we still have weekly potlucks at our church. It’s a time to relax, visit, do Bible [...]

Author’s Guild: 2012 State of Book Publishing

As a member of the Author’s Guild, I receive informative posts from them. Used here by permission, is their new insightful message about the current 2012 state of the publishing ecosystem. Read it on the Author’s Guild site. Before you read this, or after you read this, you might want to have some other input [...]

February 750 word challenge

Take the February 750word challenge. The website 750words.com challenges writers every month to write every day that month and make it at least 750 words. Now, think about it. February only has 28 days; except this is a leap year, sorry. Still, that’s one day less to win this challenge. You can write 750 words [...]

Think Like a Writer: TOC

We’re done! But I thought you might like a re-cap and a table of contents. The 31-day Think Like a Writer series challenges writers to write at least 750 words each and every day for a month. I used the website 750words.org, but you can do it with pencil and paper or on your computer. [...]

Evalute Your Writing

This is the last day of our 750 words per day challenge! Have you written every day? What have you learned from your writing this month? Today, write a reflection about your writing for the last month. What have you learned? What was hard? What was easy? In light of what you have learned, where [...]

Unlovable Characters

In our continuing quest to write 750 words per day for a month, today we will look at unlikeable main characters. Here’s the thing: readers need to LIKE your character. Why else would they spend hours walking in their shoes? But what if your character is in mental anguish, or like to hurt puppies, or [...]

The Other Side of the Story

In our continuing quest to write 750 words a day, today, we will think like our opposites. Our enemies. There is always two sides to a story and to Think Like a Writer, we need to explore the full emotional depth of our story or novel. Today, write a scene from a character who represents [...]

Secrets and Letters: Think Like a Writer

We’ve come a long way in this 31 Days of Thinking Like a Writer, a challenge to write at least 750 words each day. Secrets and Letters We haven’t written any letters yet in our creative writing prompts, but today’s the day. Letters have an intimate feeling because they are usually written from one person’s [...]

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