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  • Cia

    Secret Author Event-Forbidden Knowledge is due July 15th!

    By Cia

    Wow, it's July 1st already?! There's a time warp somewhere, I swear. Or some sort of spell on my life at times, perhaps from a book of Forbidden Knowledge? Or each day I pass through the front door and enter a rift through which I lose time due to... well, who knows? What isn't forbidden is reminding all my site author friends that they need to get their themed stories to me ASAP if they want to participate in this year's fun! Click the banner to go to the event details. And readers, get ready t
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Genre Deep Dives

Comedy Genre Deep Dive #2

Sub-genres of comedy focus on less serious things or have a less than serious take on serious things. Sub-genres: Comedy Modern, Comic Fantasy, Comic Sci-Fi, Comic Horror, Satire, Surreal Comedy, Tall Tale   Top 10 Most Read - Comedy Modern Funny and less serious stories set in modern times Chasing Rusty Parker by Laura S. Fox Jay's Loelife by Mrsgnomie Black Widow by Mark Arbour What Happened To The Baxter Boys by Mancunian
Myr

Myr in Genre Deep Dives

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Reviews

Review Team... Review!

Our Review Team has put together a list of all the Reviews they did in 2023. You can click on any of them to see the actual blog. Maybe there was one that you said you'd read, maybe one piques your interest now, or maybe one looks like it would be a foray into a different genre. No matter what the reason, here is your second chance to see the Reviews from last year. 2023 January 9: 2022 Reviews Revisited - Timothy M. Reader comment: Thanks, review team! April 10: Jay's Loelife b
wildone

wildone in Reviews

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Weekly Wrap Up

Weekly Wrap Up (Dec.31 - Jan. 07)

Well this is my first blog of the new year 🥳 I seriously hope that no one is still recovering from Sunday night and Monday morning   I will keep my question simple. Did you bother with a New Year's Resolution, what was it, and 7 days in are you achieving it?  Now lets jump into the past week. It was a full one! Monday was a day that many of you were looking forward to. Valkyrie published the stories of 11 dedicated fans of Carlos Hazday in memoriam. Check them out if you have ever
wildone

wildone in Weekly Wrap Up

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Writing Tips

Generic

Generic The thing about writing stories is that we all kind of build on our earliest experiences with the art of storytelling itself. Whether we were writing them ourselves, reading them out of a book, or having long cherished fairy tales read or told to us as children. We absorb it through the movies and TV shows we watch, or hear those particular cues, twists, and turns, in the tales someone might tell us at work about their weekend, or maybe at the family barbecue. We have learned to acc
Comicality

Comicality in Writing Tips

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Anthologies

2024 Writing Events - In Full Swing!

Even though we're only days into the new year, we've already kicked off our year of amazing writing events with our tribute to Carlos Hazday.  If you haven't checked it out yet, be sure to do so.  We have several other exciting writing events in the works, including a poetry anthology and our annual anthology.  We will be holding another secret author contest as well.  There are some really cool prompt-related events coming down the pipeline as well, so stay tuned for further information r
Valkyrie

Valkyrie in Anthologies

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Prompts

Bits and Pieces

"Bits and pieces put together, to present a semblance of a whole" - Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN I've always been intrigued by the ideas suggested in this quotation.  It suggests, quite correctly, that art and artifice are simply representations, and parts of a story.  Narratives necessarily pick and choose the elements they want to reveal in order to make a coherent story.  The artist decides what things are presented to a consumer of their art and what things to leave out.  For
Cole Matthews

Cole Matthews in Prompts

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Author Interviews

Ask An Author 3.0 - A New Year!

2024... For some reason, I thought we'd have hover-cars and Futurama's tube transportation by now. Instead, I get a pinched nerve in my neck. Yippee! I'm not sure about y'all but I got a few resolutions to work on for this year. Speaking of resolutions, I think this is a good time to sit down and reflect.  In a few months, I will have been working on Ask An Author 3.0 for three years. It's been a fun ride with a few bumps along the way, including the one I tripped over when I realized I for
astone2292

astone2292 in Author Interviews

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Site Tech News

Story Archive Tech - What do you need?

Fellow Site Members: Welcome to 2024!  There are going to be some big software changes this year as the software that powers our website, Invision Community, goes from version 4.X to 5.0.  The big key under the hood changes for this version will be modernizing the software and removing some of the legacy weight it has been carrying for a long time.  Their main target seems to be making the software even more mobile friendly. With over 50% of our traffic coming from Mobile, more speed, better f
Myr

Myr in Site Tech News

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Genre Deep Dives

Action/Adventure Genre Deep Dive 2

Welcome to the 2024 Genre deep dive. We're going to be doing these each week based on the feedback we got last year. There are plans to keep tweaking things.  We have already started the process of making software updates for the site now that we have found a new software developer.  There are nice enhancements for blogs like this and our weekly wrap ups that we'll see later in the year. Let us know what you like and what you'd like to see and we'll see what we can do.   A
Myr

Myr in Genre Deep Dives

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Memorial

Long May You Run - A Tribute to Carlos Hazday

January first has always been a day to look forward to for fans of Carlos Hazday.  He always posted something new for readers to look forward on this day.  While it hurts like hell knowing we will never have that privilege again, today we celebrate the man that was our friend, mentor, author, and site contributor.  So, raise a toast in honor of Carlos (or flip off the sky - I think he would appreciate either sentiment!) and check out these 11 tributes in his memory.  Long may you run, my friend.
Valkyrie

Valkyrie in Memorial

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Weekly Wrap Up

Weekly Wrap Up (Dec. 24 - Dec. 30)

Should auld acquaintance be forgot And never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot And the days of auld lang syne?   For auld lang syne, my dear For auld lang syne We'll drink a cup of kindness yet For the sake of auld lang syne   And surely you will buy your cup And surely I'll buy mine! We'll take a cup of kindness yet For the sake of auld lang syne   We two have paddled in the stream From morning sun till night The seas between us Lord and swel
wildone

wildone in Weekly Wrap Up

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Writing Tips

Lagging

Lagging Have you ever been writing a new story, or perhaps just a new chapter...and you really want to enrich the characters, or pour some more emotion into the scene, or you feel like you could pack some more detail and dialogue and world building into what you’re doing...but you begin to wonder if maybe you’re doing too much of it? It’s something that I sort of struggle with from time to time, and my decisions on the matter sort of flip and flop back and forth depending on how I plan
Comicality

Comicality in Writing Tips

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