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My 4000 Word Day: Prewriting
Last Friday, I wrote 4000 new words on my WIP novel. That’s a great day for me. But it was only possible because Thursday was a planning day. When I work with students and teachers, I encourage lots of prewriting. My book, Writing for the Common Core, is essentially a book of prewriting activities. Here’s…
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Fiction Techniques for Nonfiction
All those fiction techniques you’ve spent time mastering — dialogue, description, setting, mood, scenes, characterization, and plot — are equally useful in writing nonfiction. Yes, there is more leeway in nonfiction than in the last twenty-five years, but publishers still value creative nonfiction or fiction written with fiction techniques. For example, I have a new…
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Opening Lines, Scenes, Chapters: Best, Worst, Fix Them, Write Them
Today is a compilation of previous posts on the topic of how to open a story or novel. These are among the most popular posts here on Fiction Notes, so I gathered them in one place for you. 12 Ways to Open Your Story: The Story in Miniature First Page: An Editor Discusses Why It…
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Think Like a Writer: TOC
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. These creative writing prompts are meant to be “morning pages” or practice in Thinking Like…
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30 Days to Stronger!
We’ve done several 30-days series over the last few years. I’m considering topics for a couple “30 Days” series this year, probably March and October. What topics would you like to see? Plot, publicity, career, voice? Something else? Leave a comment, please, and let me know what interests you! Newly updated 30 Days series 30…
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Terabithia’s Hero’s Journey
Using the Hero’s Journey to Plot At the Michigan SCBWI conference two weeks ago, I was asked to teach about the Hero’s Journey. Taken from Joseph Campbell’s classic work on folklore, the hero’s journey is a classic paradigm for plot, especially for quest stories. The best book for studying the hero’s journey is The Writer’s…