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Writing World

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Featuring everything new and experienced authors need to develop creative and technical skills. Check out writing development articles, our Word of the Day, writing prompts, anthology opportunities and more!

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Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Grammar Rodeo #1

Today's blog is courtesy of Cia! Ever wondered which is the correct word to use when faced with lay/lie? You're not alone and Cia has put together a very informative blog entry to help, it even includes tips and tricks for when you're really not sure. Thanks Cia for taking the time to give us Grammar Rodeo #1! Grammar Rodeo #1 Tips and Tricks for wrangling those Pesky Word Choices!   Who and Whom Okay, I hate this one, even though it’s relatively simple! Let’s make it easy: Who i
Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Grammar Rodeo #2

Who's ready for another Grammar Rodeo? A big thanks to Cia for providing these for the blog. They are a great learning tool and include some great tips and tricks to help authors remember what is best to use. Hopefully you'll find Grammar Rodeo #2 as informative as I did! Grammar Rodeo #2 Those Pesky Word Choices       Past vs. Passed   This one is complicated when you consider the many, many variations of past. Past can be used as an adjective, a noun, a preposition, a
Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Grammar Rodeo #5

I hope everyone is having a great week so far! As you can see, Cia has provided us with another Grammar Rodeo. Ever been confused by Present Tense Verbs vs. Past Tense Verbs? Cia gives us a guideline to help out with those pesky issues. In addition to Tense Verbs, Cia also helps out a bit with That vs. Who.   Past Tense Verbs While there are a variety of tenses to write in, I think the most common method is to use past tense. So today we’re going to talk about past tense verbs. For the most pa
Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip Joke

How about a Blast From the Past? This was printed in our 2007 Vol2 Ed 4 Newsletter under Jokes: How To Write Good 1. Avoid alliteration. Always. 2. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do. 3. Employ the vernacular. 4. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc. 5. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary. 6. Remember to never split an infinitive. 7. Contractions aren't necessary. 8. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos. 9. One shoul
Lugh

Lugh in Writing Tips - Skills

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Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: The Writing On The Wall

Is the proof in the pudding or do the results stand for themselves? Here is our favorite writing tip guru, Libby Drew, with "The Writing on the Wall" - how using clichés can weaken your writing. Enjoy!   The Writing on the Wall   A cliché is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect to the point of being trite or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or no
Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: What To Look For... In A Beta Reader

So, you’ve written your story, and you’ve even found an editor to help point out all those pesky missed commas and misspelled words. That’s it, right? I mean, what else could you possibly need? How about, a Beta reader!   A good beta/author relationship is worth its weight in gold. If you do decide to find a beta reader, be forewarned that it might take you a couple tries before you find one that you really mesh with. I personally have had countless beta readers before finding my current team
Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Participial Phrases 101

Participial Phrases 101, Or The First Thing Your Editor Is Going To Yell At You About       By       Libby Drew   That’s not true, by the way. All editors are angels.   So… a participial phrase. What is it? According to grammaruntied.com, it’s a word group consisting of a present participle (also known as an -ing form) or past participle (also known as an -en form), plus any modifiers, objects, and complements.   If you find the English class gibberish definition c
Trebs

Trebs in Writing Tips - Skills

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Writing Tips - Skills

Common Editing Issues #1

I've received quite a few editing tips from our membership. Today, we're going to look at some provided by JayT. Enjoy!     There are three common editing issues that I come across frequently. They are punctuation (ie. missing commas, misused commas, and dialogue punctuation), misused words (ie nauseous instead of nauseated, then/than misused, they're, their, there misused), and sentences that don't read correctly and interrupt the flow of the story (they can be fragmented s
Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Why A Beta?

We have a great tip below, written by our own Dark on "Why a Beta?". But before we launch into this tip, Podiumdavis recently approached Renee and I on another of his wonderful compilations. For this one, instead of privately gathering interviews and/or questions and pulling them together, the thought is to put out the inquiry and invite anyone interested to submit their responses privately to Podiumdavis. Then in a short bit, we'll post the best ones (and as usual, if there is enough and the an
Trebs

Trebs in Writing Tips - Skills

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Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Structuring & Punctuating Dialogue

Everyone who has ever tried to pass eighth grade knows what a pain grammar can be, and one of the worst things in my personal opinion is punctuating dialogue. As many of you know, Cia edits for me, and one of her favorite things to do is smack me around for not putting proper punctuation around my speech tags. So, in honor of my favorite fallacy she agreed to educate everyone – enjoy! Important rules about structuring and punctuating dialogue: Definition of a speech tag: Any descriptiv
Lugh

Lugh in Writing Tips - Skills

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Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Feedback

Here at the blog we've talked about leaving feedback for Authors. With that in mind, I asked Hosted Author: C James if he would be willing to write something up for the blog to tell everyone why he thinks feedback is important. I hope you enjoy what he had to say and keep it in mind the next time you read a story here at GA! Feedback: Why Authors Need You   Authors differ, but most need feedback. I mean ‘need’ quite literally.   It’s not an ego thing, it is a need. The reasons vary f
Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Leaving Reviews

This is a first - normally we solicit articles or pull up things from the distant past, but for this week's blog article, I was looking around last Thursday and saw a personal blog that comicfan had written. As I read it, I went "Self - this is PERFECT." So after a little cajoling and offers of first-born puppies, I was able to steal borrow his blog to share it with all of you.   I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!   Leaving Reviews by comicfan   I noticed someone had commen
Trebs

Trebs in Writing Tips - Skills

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Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Writing For Technical Geeks

For today's tip - we have a great writeup by Myr that we hope will be useful to you as an author. If you have a tip you think the community would find useful, please let Trebs or Renee Stevens know!   Writing for Technical Geeks by Myr   As many know, I'm a rather technical person by nature. It is in my blood to research stuff into the ground so that I can understand all the angles of a thing. I think and rethink on things all the time. It is thus when I went into a writing blo
Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Copyright Infringment - Keeping It Legal

Every once in a while I like to take a look through the blog to see what has been used before that could be useful to some of the newer authors here on Gay Authors. Back in October 2012, Sara Alva (known then as KingdombytheSea) shared her experience with using song lyrics in her story Social Skills. Many authors use song lyrics in their stories without ever thinking of the repercussions that they may be facing if/when they decide to publish. I hope that Sara's experience helps some authors here
Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Keeping Your Writing Life In Sync (And Backed Up)

So many of us write from multiple computers and I know from personal experience that it can be a pain to try and transfer files back and forth between laptops/desktops/etc. Today, Myr is telling us about a great way to make our life easier when switching between computers!       Keeping Your Writing Life in Sync (and backed up)   In this day and age, many of us have multiple computers or devices that we use in our daily lives. For those of us that write, we could be writing i
Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Spell Check

For today's tip, Cia found a fantastic "Ode to the Spell Check". It appears to have been written by Nico van Tonder from Zaire who wrote it around 1999.   Ode to the Spell Check Eye halve a spelling chequer It cam with my pea sea It plainly marques four my revue Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.   Eye strike a key and type a word And weight four it two say Weather eye am wrong oar write It shows me strait a weigh.   As soon as a mist ache is maid It nose bee fore two long And eye can
Trebs

Trebs in Writing Tips - Skills

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Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Research

Many of you noticed the little faux pas I made in the beginning of yesterday's blog. Oops. Well, I received some interesting feedback over it, including a shoutout to this little gem, so I thought I would share.... Cia on Research... So, I read an ebook recently. Big surprise there, lol. Several things jumped out at me as I read it that let me know that the writer was definitely NOT a resident of the state they set it in. Not only did they describe the summer weather as humid, whi
Lugh

Lugh in Writing Tips - Skills

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Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Crafting A Story

Crafting a Story... More Work than You Might Think! by Cia   There's a lot that goes into writing a story, more than what the average reader would think. After thinking up the story, and writing then it, there comes the many rounds of editing. This is the nuts and bolts process, when you strip something down to its basic components and put it all back together--hopefully without any extra pieces! For me, that involves several reads of the story. Then I ask for help from my tea
Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Meaningless Words With A Purpose

Not everyone knows that GayAuthors.org has a number of sister websites - also operated by CDEJR Web Services Inc for various purposes. One of those sites, fictionstoriesonline.com is the source of today's blog and we thank FSO for allowing us to use it. Meaningless Words With A Purpose   What's a meaningless word? How could one have meaning? Well, I'm talking about interjections! What is an interjection really? Well, it's a word that doesn't have any part of speech but is put in a sent
Trebs

Trebs in Writing Tips - Skills

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Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Fantasy

For our Tip Thursday we are bringing you an awesome tip from Cia. Have you ever been writing a Fantasy story and worried that you might be writing something that will turn your readers off to your story? Cia writes this time as a reader, about what keeps her interested in a fantasy story. Enjoy! Fantasy – From a Reader’s POV   So, this is coming from me, as a reader. Recently I’ve read a few fantasy stories. One was a modern fantasy, one is a futuristic alien fiction, and two were pure
Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: How To Be Critical, Not Cutting

It's a fine line between being critical in an effort to help a writer, and going too far and just being very cutting in what you say. In a text medium, it's usually hard to hear the "voice" that the criticism is being given. I mean sometimes, the voice comes through loud and clear, like when your friend comes up to you in a new outfit and you're all "Oh no you didn't - girl, you is a hot mess!" (did everyone else hear that in Layfayette voice from True Blood?)   Anyways - Cia as always has som
Trebs

Trebs in Writing Tips - Skills

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Writing Tips - Skills

Why We Write Flash Fiction

How do you write flash fiction? Well, there’s really only one requirement: Keep it short! How short depends on the game, or prompt, or you… but the difference is you write the story planning to make it as concise as possible without sacrificing the image and scene you’re trying to convey. It’s a challenge to write something that pulls in readers without having a lot of time to do backstory or a long adventure.   So why do people like writing flash fiction? For me, it’s a different kin
Writing Tips - Skills

Tip Thursday

Herm, we've had a resource, a writing tip, an editing tip... how about a site tip?   How to promote your story on GA:   Just as you'd find with a book placed on the bookshelf in a store, your story can get lost on GA among the other stories if you don't make it stand out. Most importantly, imo, is to have a story that engages and interests readers and then try some of these other tips to help improve your fan base.   1. Post regularly if you are writing a serial work. We ask that you don't
Lugh

Lugh in Writing Tips - Skills

6
Writing Tips - Skills

Getting Yourself Out There

So, you've done it! You put in the time and the energy and the effort, you've drained yourself creatively, and you've put together a story that you can be proud of. One that can touch and inspire as well as excite and arouse. Awesome! Now, all you have to do is put it out where people can read it so they can be thrilled by your genius. Just find a place to post your work...and wait. And wait... And wait some more... Ok, so what's going on here? Where's the praise? Where are the gr
Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Grammar Rodeo #6

Who's ready for another Grammar Rodeo? Today's Grammar Rodeo is sorta a Part 2 of last weeks. A big thanks to Cia for providing these for the blog. They are a great learning tool and include some great tips and tricks to help authors remember what is best to use. Hopefully you'll find Grammar Rodeo #6 as informative as I did!   Grammar Rodeo #6   Plural Nouns   Last time we talked about plural verbs… now let’s talk about plural nouns. Remember how there are ‘regular’ forms and ‘irr
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