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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

Intimacy

Intimacy In order to really connect your readers to the romantic stories that you write, you’ve got to keep in mind that it’s not always some giant swing of the pendulum that brings the mood and the tone from one extreme to the other. I think that it’s important to be able to recognize opportunities for all of those little giddy moments in between that can sometimes come off as being your biggest strengths. In fact, I’ve found that they can end up being the most touching and engaging parts o
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Parallels

Parallels You know those moments in a lot of stories or movies where the hero comes up against their main rival, and they always say the same cliché phrase? Hehehe! That part where they say, "You know...we're not so different, you and I..." Hahaha! I've heard it so many times and phrased so many different ways, that it's kind of cheesy and weird now. However...it's a trope that I really actually LOVE to use in a lot of my stories, and do so often. I just don't have them talk about it ou
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Writing Tips

Weight And Impact

Weight And Impact As many of you guys already know, I have always been a huge fan of the horror film genre. Even when I was probably way too young to be watching people gutted with a machete, hehehe! I was the kid with the ‘Fangoria’ monthly subscription and the B-Movie fetish growing up! But I loved every minute of it! Those flicks were just plain fun to me, you know? Excessive gore and all! The more blood and guts, the better! Well, it wasn’t until a couple of my college roommates act
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Writing Tips

Elements That Do not Work

Elements That Don’t Work There are always going to be times when an artist, in any genre, is going to run into a few problem elements in writing their story. It happens. There’s no reason to panic, and certainly no reason for you to give up on your project. It’s a normal part of the process. Sometimes you have ideas that seem so exciting and engaging at the time while you’re planning things out...and then, once you start writing, you realize that those ideas aren’t as supportive of your stor
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Writing Tips

Writing Arguments

Writing Arguments When creating a compelling scene in your stories that will really work to hold the attention of your readers captive, it’s always important to remember what elements you can use, and what tools that you have at your disposal, that can elicit that particular emotional response in your readers. And one of the most powerful spells that you can cast as a wizard of words...is the amazing power of confrontation. When I say ‘confrontation’, I’m not talking about conflict. Con
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Writing Tips

Formatting

Formatting Now...this article may come off as being a bit weird to many of you, but it’s a big part of me doing what I do with my own stories, and how I do everything that I can to create an immersive experience with everything that I write. I wanted to include it in my collection of writing tips, because as long as I’m giving my secrets away, I might as well give you everything, right? Hehehe! See...to me, formatting isn’t just a matter of putting the paragraph breaks in the right plac
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Writing Tips

Get More Exposure via Anthologies

One of the common refrains that we hear from new authors on Gay Authors is that we are a bit cliquey here and that it is harder to get established.  That's true to some extent.  We have authors that have been here from the beginning and are still going strong, such as @Comicality and @Bill W.  Reading is a leisure activity and for many people you have to overcome the familiarity bias.  I would rather reread a story I know I enjoy than roll the dice on a new author in my natural state. It is only
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Writing Tips

Character Empathy

Character Empathy As a 'self proclaimed' writer...I've found that there is no stronger, no more engaging, tool in your arsenal than character empathy when it comes to truly crafting an immersive experience when it comes to your readers' involvement in your story. This is something that a lot of writer's believe they can 'tell' their audience, and they'll obviously fall in line and agree with the author, because how you can not feel bad for people (fictional as they may be) going through such
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Writing Tips

The Hero Protagonist

The Hero Protagonist When writing a story...there needs to be a main focus. Naturally, there can be many characters and many different events and situations surrounding that character, but I truly believe that it's important to keep things primarily concentrated on the thoughts and actions of a single protagonist in your narrative, in order to keep things tight and interesting without wandering off into La La Land. Your protagonist should be the first thing that you think about when you
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Writing Tips

Catering

Catering Ok...let me start this entire article off with three simple words when it comes to catering to your audience. K? DON’T...DO...IT!!! Please don’t. The temptation is going to be there, and you may even get a lot of praise and admiration for trying it out...but at the end of the day, the ONE thing that is going to separate you from a billion other writers online is going to be your personal voice. Your thoughts, your feelings, you sense of humor, your drama...you have a chanc
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Writing Tips

Story Endings

Story Endings “A part of the journey...is the end.” - Tony Stark As I’ve been working more and more on finally bringing some of my longest running stories to their grand finale at last, I can say that I’ve actually been pretty proud of taking my time and pretty much taking my time and making sure that it was done right. Or, at least the way that I had originally imagined it from the very beginning, without having to really compromise in terms of how all of the events got wrapped up. Nat
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Writing Tips

Venting Machine

Venting Machine It'll happen at some point. Don't try to dodge it, duck it, or outrun it. You can be the nicest, most docile, most hard-working person on planet Earth...you can back out of conflicts, you can work yourself to the point of utter exhaustion trying to avoid an argument or attempt to keep the peace...but that sinister beast is going to creep up, raise its head, and find you every single time. It happens. It's never a matter of 'if'...but 'when'. And all you can do is try to find
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Writing Tips

Genre Fatigue

Genre Fatigue ::Giggles:: Really? Are people out there trying to make that a 'thing' again? It doesn't exist, you know? No, seriously...it's a business based illusion. Its not real. The idea that you cant write and release an awesome story because the 'idea' has been done to death and nobody wants to see it anymore…? Its all bullshit. Don't ever buy into that brainwashed mode of thinking about the stuff that you write. Your story is your own. Period. If there are 150 fantasy novels
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Writing Tips

Heartbreak

Heartbreak It hurts. If any of you guys have been through it, and I'm assuming that you all have at one time or another, same as me...you know just how much pain it can cause when it comes to experiencing a really painful heartbreak. I think the most damaging part behind the psychology of heartbreak itself is the fact that you have to willingly lower your defenses to truly love or be loved by anybody else. You have to break open. There's no way to truly enjoy and embrace love, while sti
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Writing Tips

Subverting Expectations

Subverting Expectations You ever see one of those race car lengths on a full track, with everybody is trying to get ahead of their other opponents? And there's more to it all than just slamming your foot on the gas pedal and going faster than everybody else. There's a strategy involved. A little gas here, a little brake there, how you take certain turns, etc. So...you've got somebody ahead of you, and you're trying to find your way around them so you can move up from fourth to third place. A
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Writing Tips

Plagiarism

Plagiarism It was a very very long time ago but I can remember the whole issue vividly, because when I really sat down and gave it some deep thought...I was kind of conflicted about the idea. And maybe I still I am to a degree where it's still pretty hard to decide whether or not I'd be willing to say 'never say never'. And that had to do with a few Diet Coke commercials on TV and a rapidly growing technology that was suddenly brought to a screeching stop just as it was becoming something un
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Writing Tips

Plotting

Now, I know that there are people out there who hear me talking about planning and plotting out a story, and they might gloss over it and think that this is a simple part of the process. But it isn't. In fact, it's one of the most important parts of the writing process that there is, and it's something that we all need to really concentrate and focus on before we even begin writing all of the other elements of our story. It will tell you what you're most excited about writing, how to connect one
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Writing Tips

Dialog Variety

Now this is something that I've always had a bit of a problem with, myself, when writing modern day characters in my stories. So if any of you guys have any ideas or hidden secrets about how to pull this off in multiple stories, or just from a variety of different characters in a single story....please feel free to add some of those tips in the replies below as I can always use more help in this area. And why not learn from my peers, some of the best there is, right? You see...and I've hea
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Writing Tips

MacGuffin Devices

Shhhh....hehehe, there's a deep, dark, secret that I need to let you guys know about. And I'm going to reveal it all in this article! It'll blow your mind! ::Giggles:: So...the big question is...what the hell is a MacGuffin, and what the hell does it have to do with my story and how I write it? This makes no sense at all. This is a writing device that most people credit Alfred Hitchcock with, but it has existed in the art of storytelling long before he came along and gave it a name. Ba
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Writing Tips

Not So Hot Potato

Hehehe, now, it's no secret that I am constantly typing my fingers to the bone on many different stories at once. And that means that I might finish a brand new chapter of one story, but it might take some time for me to cycle through a bunch of the others before I pick that story back up again. It's something that I've been really working on fixing for a long time now, and I hope that I'm getting better at it. However, I'm sure that there are some of you dedicated authors out there who hav
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Writing Tips

Guidelines

Now...I know that there are authors out there (or artists of every kind, to be honest) who hear the word 'guidelines' and go into a state of immediate shock, shaking their fist like, "Oh nooooo! They're gonna try to take control and limit my artistic freedom! Don't put me a box!" Hehehe, I'm happy to say that I've never really been one of those people. That's not to say that I want to sellout or have my creative abilities to be bound and gagged in order to fit into a mold that was built by
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Writing Tips

Earn Your Moments

I can remember a time when this particular term didn't make much sense to me at all. 'Earn your moments'. What does that even mean. I wanted to have a special moment in my story, or my comic book, or my TV show, or my movie...I put it in there...and then you have people out there who are like, "I don't really feel like they earned that moment." Well WTF is that supposed to mean? It's been years and years of trial and error, obstacles and challenges, triumphs and failures...and I believe tha
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Writing Tips

Retcons

One of the many pitfalls that a writer might face when taking a more 'organic' approach to writing a story is possibly running into a flurry of decisions that you made in the heat of the moment and may change your mind on those decisions later on. When I talk about an organic approach, I mean having a certain structure and plot in mind...but still giving yourself room to create on the spot as new ideas come to mind. I definitely write that way, and I feel like it connects me to my stories in way
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Writing Tips

Story Scope

It's something that I still struggle with more often than many of you may think. More times than not, I think in terms of a 'story'...and not in terms of a 'plot'. I've talked about this before in earlier articles, but just to reiterate really quick...the plot is the beginning, middle, and end of the story that you're trying to tell. The story is what exists OUTSIDE of the plot. So that could be a million stories all building up to a culmination of the story you're writing, and then reaches out
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Writing Tips

Soundtrack

I've always been one of the biggest movie fans that you will probably ever meet in your life! Hehehe! Just let me throw that out there before I even get started! There is something about a truly engaging, cinematic, experience that makes me squeal with delight whenever I'm lucky enough to be a part of it. It's something that I really wish that I could deliver to you all with my stories as a full experience too when I'm writing. But I'm limited in that respect, unfortunately. I can't show you guy
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