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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: Don't Leave Your Readers Deaf And Blind

I always love it when we get a feature from Libby Drew - having someone who has been there, able relate writing tips from experience, is a valuable experience. Here she talks about using the characters various senses in your writing. Enjoy!   Don’t Leave Your Readers Deaf and Blind by Libby Drew   “Stop! You’re scaring me,” Megan said   “I’m not trying to scare you,” Steve soothed. “We need to talk.”   “Don’t come any closer!” Megan cried.   “Don’t be afraid, Megan,” Stev
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Trebs in Writing Tips - Skills

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Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: "write What You Know" Doesn't Mean Show Off

For those that celebrated it, I hope everyone had a great Christmas yesterday. And for those that don't celebrate it, I hope you still got a good haul.   Now on to Boxing Day, Kwanzaa, Post-Festivus winter sales, and the ever important Pre-New Year's Eve creative writing exercises ("This year, I *WILL* stop gagging everytime I see the neighbor's newborn", "This year, I promise to exercise... starting next week - or, by the end of the month... well, maybe...").   And to help you with your wri
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Trebs in Writing Tips - Skills

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Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: No Warm-Ups Required

A big "Thank You" to Libby Drew for this weeks Wednesday blog! No Warm-ups Required: Why Opening Matters   Warming up before you exercise makes good sense. You need to increase your body temperature. Stimulate blood flow to your ligaments. Mentally prepare yourself for what’s to come. Warming up for a workout is all about starting slow and building momentum.   Fiction is not exercise. Never start a story with a warm-up.   In other words, don’t open your masterpiece with an in depth
Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: The Infinitive - To Split Or Not To Split

Happy 12/12/12 to everyone - and to celebrate, here is a writing tip piece by Andy021278 that we hope you find useful. Enjoy!       The Infinitive: To Split or Not to Split by Andy021278   We’ve all seen it. We’ve probably all hurled expletives over it. And more than one of us has probably fretted over it at some time or another. It’s that annoying grammar check in MS Word, and other similar word processing programs, which tells you that you’ve split an infinitive. Well
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Trebs in Writing Tips - Skills

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Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: The Writer's Yellow Brick Road

We're always grateful to our contributors, and especially to Libby Drew for this great article on traveling with Dorothy from a first to a second draft. Enjoy!       The Writer’s Yellow Brick Road: Journey from First to Second Draft by Libby Drew       First drafts are often wordy. We make them that way because at the divine moment we’re crafting a scene, adding words is the only way to get the details across. Soliloquies abound. Descriptions clutter. Characters chatt
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Trebs in Writing Tips - Skills

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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
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Trebs 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: Happy Nanowrimo!

It's November - so you know what that means! Yes, it's National Beard Month!   Well, ok, but it IS National Beard month too - as many of my co-workers annually remind me (I have never nor will never take that plunge but many of them do).   But it is also National Novel Writing Month, or as it is so more familiarly known, NaNoWriMo. Started just over thirteen years ago, if you've never heard about it, check out their website or the wiki page on them. - I'm still amazed at the rapid growth of
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Trebs in Writing Tips - Skills

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Writing Tips - Skills

Tip Thursday: Constructive Criticism

We love getting News blog articles and tips from members - and CassieQ has been a wonderful contributor. Here she writes her thoughts on Constructive Criticism - a very detailed article that shows a lot of thought. I hope you enjoy and let us know your thoughts as well! Also, if YOU have an article you think would be great for this blog, let Renee Stevens, Andy021278 or myself know. Thanks!       Constructive Criticism by CassieQ   I'll try to make this as painless as p
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Trebs in Writing Tips - Skills

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Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Keeping It Legal

No - this has nothing to do with pharmaceuticals or jailbait - it is a much more serious tip on how to avoid legal issues when publishing your writings. We thank KingdombytheSea for this great and very timely tip, as more and more authors are looking to take the plunge into being published. Enjoy!       Keeping it Legal by KingdombytheSea   The Copyright Police do exist, and if you’re an author planning on publishing, it’s a good idea to keep that in mind.   When I wr
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Trebs in Writing Tips - Skills

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Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Using Description

First, Happy National Coming Out Day (NCOD)! First started in 1988, with the date picked as the anniversary of the 1987 March on Washington, the simple theme is to come out - to those you love, those you know, as people's opinions of LGBT persons and rights is better if they know someone who is LGBT.   Now on to our tip, generously contributed by CassieQ, on Using Descriptions in writings. Enjoy!   Using Description by CassieQ   I like to use description to help set a m
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Trebs in Writing Tips - Skills

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Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: The Mystery Story

The Mystery Story - Crafting a Tale of Suspense by Comicfan       The mystery is one of those things that just can’t be jumped into. You really need to plan out a mystery before pen hits the paper, or in most cases before fingers hit the keys. There is a lot that happens in a mystery and it is important for you follow some basic ideas before you embark on such task.   First up is the mystery itself. Did someone have something stolen? Was there a murder? Is it something tha
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Trebs in Writing Tips - Skills

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Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Author Feedback

For today's toss-up, Renee Stevens gives some good thoughts and important questions on author feedback. We hope you enjoy...   Author Feedback by Renee Stevens   Today, as our Toss-Up Tuesday, we'd like to focus on reviews, both negative and positive. It's no secret that many author's on site thrive for feedback. For myself, I absolutely love to get reviews, I'm sure my eyes light up when I see that little notification that I have a review waiting for my perusal.   I don't mi
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Trebs in Writing Tips - Skills

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Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Working With Your Beta Reader

Today we're bringing you another piece that has been written by Dark about how to work with your beta reader. He was even kind enough to share some of the suggestions made by his beta readers and his fixes or his reasoning. Enjoy! Working with your Beta Reader by Dark   When I first came to GA, I had no beta. After getting to know some of the folks here, advertising, and doing some snooping around, I started working with some folks as betas. So, now that I have a beta, what
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
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Trebs in Writing Tips - Skills

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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: Stolen Stories! Blast From An Angry Author

Yep, I'm pre-empting Blast From the Past this week to inform members of a story that's been stolen from GA then put up for sale on Amazon. The story stolen was Chasing the Shadows by K.C. Grim and it was posted under Embraced by Shadows by K.J. Fleur back in May. We only found this out when a concerned reader emailed the admin account to find out if the story was stolen and posted on GA. That proved to have happened in the reverse, and KC had his story ripped off.   All this author did was cha
Cia

Cia in Writing Tips - Skills

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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
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Trebs in Writing Tips - Skills

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Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Waiting For The Next Chapter

It's time to climb into the time machine and take a trip to the.... PAST! Today we're going to look at a little gem I found that should call out to both Authors AND Readers. It was taken from a May 2004 Newsletter. Enjoy and as always, share your thoughts about it.   The Gay Authors Newsletter - May 2004 Waiting for the next chapter ... By Jevic   Nothing is more frustrating than reading a great story and suddenly find yourself hanging with nothing left to read. Sure there's
Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Getting Directions

Don't let the title fool you - this isn't about how to get from here to the store, it's how to get from plot point A to plot point B. We thank Comicfan for this look at "Getting Directions"! If you have a tip you'd like to share with the community, let me know!   Getting Directions by Comicfan69   Everyone enjoys a great story. You read along following the action, learning about the characters, seeing the problem, and finally getting to the conclusion. It all seems so smo
Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Getting In The Mood - Part Deuce

So, last week we brought you one part to a tip on getting in the mood. We received so many wonderful thoughts from the authors here at GayAuthors that we just couldn't fit them all into one blog entry. With that in mine, today, we bring you "Getting in the Mood: Part Deuce". Enjoy!!!   Hosted Author: Comicality   Well, I kind of do things backwards. Meaning that I let the mood dictate what I write instead of the other way around. One of the reasons that I have so many stories going at once i
Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Getting In The Mood - Part 1

Getting in the Mood: Part One Compiled By Renee Stevens   Have you ever wondered how your favorite authors are able to write what they write? What gets them in the mood to create these wonderful works? We have, so when Podiumdavis came to us suggesting a tip on getting in the mood for writing we thought this would be a great idea; not only just to be able to feel what an authors characters are feeling, but to really set the mood for the story. You can read his thoughts on this
Writing Tips - Skills

Tuesday Toss-Up: Publishing, Part 2

So, last week we featured Part one of a two Part interview that K.C. conducted on the subject of publishing. Last week it was his interview of AnytaSunday and this week, I am going to feature his interview of Nephylim. Enjoy!   Interviewee: Nephylim Interviewer: K.C.   Your story “The Unfairness of Life” is set to be published 2012 by Romance First Publisher, how did you feel when you found out that a publisher wanted your story? It was actually released early in January. How did I feel? I
Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: Publishing, Part 1

We are very appreciative of everyone here at GayAuthors that has stepped up and offered to help in some manner. One of our volunteers, K.C., did some interviews with AnytaSunday and Nephylim recently about publishing. Here is part one of his two part contribution.   Publishing Interviews by K.C.   You said you were going to do it! You swore you were going to do!   Even a few of your friends laughed at you, but you’ve finally did it, you finished that novel that’s been spinni
Writing Tips - Skills

Writing Tip: How To Find A Beta

So, a couple of weeks ago we talked about what an author should look for in a Beta Reader. I thought that today we could maybe talk about how to FIND a Beta Reader. There are many ways to go about it, but here are just a few! You could always post in your Chapter Note or Chapter End notes that you are currently looking for a beta reader! I wouldn’t personally put everything I want from a Beta Reader in there, but you could always tell your readers that if they are interested in beta reading for
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