Jump to content

Writing World

  • entries
    2,408
  • comments
    8,498
  • views
    150,700

Contributors to this blog

About this blog

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!

Entries in this blog

Writer Responsibility

Writer Responsibility December 8th, 1980... A true musical icon was gunned down by his ′number one fan′, according to his assassin. Mark David Chapman murdered John Lennon that night by shooting him in the back, and this was not long after he had just given him a personal autograph earlier in the day. And he didn′t run afterward. Instead...he sat on the curb, and read from J D Salinger′s novel, ′A Catcher In The Rye′. A book that he says inspired his heinous act. One of the saddest day

Comicality

Comicality in Writing Tips - Skills

"Low Light" Reel

Whether you are using an auto correct program on your laptop or PC, or whether you have readers constantly pointing out some of the same errors in your stories, chapter after chapter...there comes a time when you need to take an honest look at your writing and your bad habits...and make yourself a ′low-light′ reel for yourself. This is the opposite of a highlight reel, where you look at what you′re really good at and examine the best parts of what it is you do. That′s a good thing to do, an

Comicality

Comicality in Writing Tips - Skills

Adding Humor

You know...there′s often a ′complaint′ that goes around about a lot of the Marvel Comic Book movies that I never really understood. That is the introduction of humor into their storylines. Now, there are some people that I know that could, quite literally, find something wrong with everything in existence. If God Almighty showed up tomorrow in white robes, 400 feet tall, with an entire symphony of angels singing His praises behind him, all surrounded with the brightest light ever seen by human e

Comicality

Comicality in Writing Tips - Skills

Metaphor & Similie

″His eyes were as blue as a half-melted crayon, his skin as soft as wet clay...with a smile that could warm my heart like leftover meatloaf in the oven. He was so beautiful.″ Hehehe, ok, so that′s not the best collection of phrases to demonstrate the use of metaphor and simile! LOL! But I write a LOT...so I need to save my best stuff for the stories themselves. But we can start here, just so you guys can get an idea of what I′m babbling about this week. Easily put, metaphors and simil

Comicality

Comicality in Writing Tips - Skills

Giving/Getting Criticism Part 2

Imagine that you're standing in the middle of a crowd of your readers and fans that absolutely love the stories you write and appreciate the love and energy you put into every word. Every single one of those loyal readers has a giant feather...and they surround you, lightly teasing and fawning all over you with those feathers, day and night. It's just a good feeling, you know? Hehehe, and there might ten, or twenty, or fifty, or one hundred, of them...giving you nothing but good vibes the whole

Comicality

Comicality in Writing Tips - Skills

Giving/Getting Criticism Part 1

There are two sides to every story. And two sides to the critical review of every story, once it gets released. Hopefully, with a little bit of insight on both sides of the equation, I can help both the critics and the creators deal with their, often vastly opposing, views on what a good story is, and what it isn't. This week, as the initial approach to a 'two-parter' blog post...we talk about giving and receiving criticism. Two sides of a coin that I don't think most people fully understan

Comicality

Comicality in Writing Tips - Skills

Overworking a Story

You've written a story, you've gotten from point A to point B, and you made sure to wrap everything up, nice and tidy...but it's just not ready yet. Right? You want it to be your best work. So you go back and edit it so that it'll seem like a much better, more professional, well-written story. You take a little more time with it, but even then, it doesn't seem quite right. So you go back again, and try to 'fix' everything that you think is wrong with it. You finish up...and it's OK...but...

Comicality

Comicality in Writing Tips - Skills

Driven

What drives a story? More importantly, what is driving you while you're putting the story together, piece by piece? It's not something that you really have to focus on or worry about while you're writing...but it's something that you will begin to notice more and more as you gain experience with your craft. If used right, you can structure your story in a much more effective way before your fingers ever touch the keyboard. It's something to think about while plotting out the events of your story

Comicality

Comicality in Writing Tips - Skills

Promoting Your Work

For this article, I want all of you reading this to take your loving, sweethearted, humble, nature...all of your shyness and all of your shame...crumple it up and toss it over your shoulder! Because, for the next few minutes, we need to be a full blown 'ego machine'! Period! Don't worry...you can go back to being humble again when you're done. It passes. It's like a flash fever, or a 24 hour flu. Use it to your advantage while you can. Whenever you decide that you have your story looki

Comicality

Comicality in Writing Tips - Skills

Show, Don't Tell

It's been said many times before. It's practically one of the first basics that every writer learns, that every mentor teaches, and that every critic jumps on. That is the idea of 'show, don't tell.' And yet, while many people may hear that, to some it's a bit unclear as to what that really means, or how to achieve that particular goal. Hopefully, this would give you a slightly better perspective on what appears to be a very simple task on the surface, but actually takes a little practice and fi

Getting Motivated

Sometimes...the hardest, most unbelievably difficult, part of any story...is the first five paragraphs! It is grueling, it is maddening, it is downright FRIGHTENING at times! And it's hard to really explain why that is to people who don't write all the time. It's a level of insanity that only writers and other artists will ever really know. Because this is the 'kickoff' when it comes to starting a new project. It's the equivalent of throwing the first punch in a fight. Like..."Ok! This is it! He

Losing Work And Starting Over

It is, quite possibly, the WORST feeling in the world to have poured your heart and soul into a project...ALL of your emotion...ALL of your creative energy...only to have some kind of crazy computer glitch just 'zap' it right out of existence forever. Gone. Never to be seen again. The experience is heartbreaking! I've had it happen to me quite a number of times in the past. Either the 'Save' function didn't work like it was supposed to, or the file got corrupted...my laptop fizzled out on me, or

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

Tips to Keep in Mind When Editing and Writing

Writing Tips From Fellow Writers Passive Voice: Avoid word choices using 'to be' and the conjugations 'is, am, were, was, are, has been, have been, will be, being' as much as possible to keep action immediate and reduce the passive voice when writing. It lacks precision and clarity. Use search to find those keywords that indicate passive voice and consider each to see if your sentence needs a re-write. Plot Arc: The 'hook' is what intrigues readers in your story. The climax is

Cia

Cia in Writing Tips - Skills

Plagarism and Protecting Your Stories

As a few authors might have noted, there was some cause for concern earlier this week in regards to unsolicited commercial interest in some GA authors' stories. We have shut that down, hopefully for good as the so-called author/eBook producer has pulled their content from sale as well, but I will be continuing to monitor content for a while to see if they pop back up again with any stories that have GA content in them stolen from the site. Which is what I'm here to talk about today... We don't j

Cia

Cia in Writing Tips - Skills

Cia's Torturing Me: Mod Queue Tips

Cia’s Torturing Me! by Cia   If you’re an author, I’m sure you’ve thought that at least once, right? I swear, it’s nothing personal! GA’s posting system is complicated, and there is always a learning curve for new authors to figure out the ins and outs of posting here. I'm also the primary staff member who reviews Stories submissions, so I am not picking on any one person if you receive more than one PM; I'm simply the staff member who reviews everything in the qu

Cia

Cia in Writing Tips - Skills

Updating Stories

Hi All! Recently, site staff has been reviewing stories on GA, and we’ve come across a few things that we need your help to fix! Missing/Incomplete Story Descriptions:  A good example of missing/incomplete story descriptions can be found in many of the earlier anthologies. Many of these stories simply have a description of “2006 Summer Anthology”. Incomplete descriptions do nothing to engage readers or entice them to read your story. When updating the story description, keep in m

Articles in Review Week 4

This week, we start posting articles by Comicality.  These are in our Writing Tips category in the story system.  When we catch up on all those tips, we'll start posting new ones directly right in this blog.  Keep an eye out!  In the meantime, check out these tips by our very own Comicality:  

Myr

Myr in Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Keep in Mind

When deciding what to post for today, I took a look through some of the things I have in reserve. I found a writing tip sent in a while ago and when I took a look back, I realized I'd never used it in a blog!  So, without further ado, here's "Things to Keep In Mind" by craftingmom!   Things I constantly keep in mind as a writer by Craftingmom       1.  The Opening needs to grab the attention of the reader and be interesting enough to hold it.

Launching Gay Authors Articles

Welcome, everyone!  Starting early in 2018, we will be posting weekly articles by Comicality and other authors every Saturday morning.  I wanted to get this kicked off so between now and then we'll be posting links to previous Writing Tips, which can currently be found in our Stories Archive in the Non-Fiction -> Writing Tips category. Please be sure to check them out.  Read and review! The three for this week are from Lugh:    

Myr

Myr in 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 Tip: Speech Tags

Every once in a while, we like to providing some writing tips to both new and seasoned authors. One thing I've learned as an author is that we never stop learning. Today, Graeme has written up a writing tip for you on the use of speech tags in your writing. Enjoy!   Speech Tags Graeme   Speech tags are important to stories, but they can be easily misused and abused.   What do I mean by speech tags? Speech tags are the little bit of narration that proceeds or fo
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Our Privacy Policy can be found here: Privacy Policy. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue..