Suffering from writer’s block or need to add some spunk to your writing? The problem may be that you need to change up your routine.

To that end, try this tip: Risk means being vulnerable. Accepting that as a writer is vital to developing your skills. So go ahead and try writing something you’ve never done before – a poem if you write prose, a novel if you’ve only written short stories, fiction if you write just nonfiction. Don’t worry about getting it “right.” Your goal is to make yourself more comfortable with taking risks as a writer.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

Before we get started, let me just preface by saying I see this mistake a lot in manuscripts I edit, though the difference between the two words is quite easy to remember. I suspect that the problem may be some writers don’t realize that the word “foreword” exists.

“Foreword” is an introduction to a book, usually written by someone recognizable. To wit, “The famed astronomer wrote the foreword to the book about Mars.” The word is a combination of “fore” (which means “front”) and “word” (a synonym for “text”), indicating that the section readers are about the touch their eyes upon comes “in front of the book’s main text.”

All other meanings and uses of this word are spelled “forward” (which rough means “to move to the front”).

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 350 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my self-publishing guidebooks:

“I knew as I wrote them (journals) that even though they provided an excellent place for brain (and heart, and psyche) dump, they were mainly a map of me.” – Colleen Wainwright, “communicatrix”

“Writing takes you into a confrontation of self.” – Gene Roddenberry, television producer and writer

“Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.” – Cyril Connolly

“If writers stopped writing about what happened to them, then there would be a lot of empty pages.” – Elaine Liner, “We Got Naked, Now What”

“The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.” – George Bernard Shaw, playwright

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 350 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my self-publishing guidebooks:

• Types of third-person point of views 
By far, the most common point of view used in literature is that of third-person. When the narrator is not a character in a story, a third-person point of view is being used. 

• Use third–person limited for greater clarity
One type of third-person point of view is third-person limited. This is when the narrator tells the story only from the perspective of what the main character can observe and think, but unlike first-person limited, we also observe the main character through the author’s eyes.

• Rotate third-person limited to avoid issues
Sometimes writers structure their book so that the third-person limited point of view alternates from scene to scene between major characters in a book. However, within each scene, only one of those characters’ point of view is used. This literary device is known as third-person rotating limited.

• Select your viewpoint character with care
Every story is told from someone’s perspective. This someone is known as the viewpoint character.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out my writing guidebooks about point of view:

“Mam” refers to a member of a Mayan people of southwestern Guatemala or to the language they speak. “Ma’am” is the correct spelling of the polite address of a woman, as in “Thank you for the change, ma’am.”

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 350 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my self-publishing guidebooks:

You’re at a coffee shop or a party or a writer’s workshop, and someone asks you what you are writing – a short story or a novel? You pause for a moment, wondering if what you’re really writing is a novella. So what is it?

There’s no hard or fast rule about what is a short story, what is a novella and what is a novel. It’s largely a subjective matter for which editors and publishers assign arbitrary numbers based on their needs and available space. To avoid confusion, this site follows the word counts used in the Hugo and Nebula contests:
• Short story – 7,500 words or less
• Novelette – 7,501-17,500 words (many editors simply lump this category into either the short story or the novella groupings)
• Novella – 17,501-40,000 words
• Novel – 40,001 or more words

Some stories are better told in one category rather than another. So when deciding how long your story will be, think about the advantages and disadvantages of each category and which one best serves your tale.

Short stories and novelettes

Advantages:
• Easier for author to maintain consistency of purpose as there are fewer characters and settings, so better dramatic and thematic unity
• Practical for authors; you can complete it more quickly, often in days or weeks
• Good place for new writers to start to build their reputation and garner a novel deal

Disadvantages:
• Limited platform as short stories may offer too narrow of a framework for the author to tell his sweeping story
• Don’t make much money

Novellas and novels
As you probably can guess, the advantages and disadvantages of the novel are essentially opposite of those for the short story.
Advantages:
• Larger scale for developing ideas and characters
• Can introduce characters and settings at a more leisurely rate than a short story
• Plots can be far more intricate than short stories
• Make more money and build broader reputation

Disadvantages:
• Can be too large of a platform for new writers to handle
• Too broad of a framework for the author to tell a more narrow in scope story

Clearly, there’s far more to consider than word count when selecting which story format you’ll use. As science fiction author and editor Jack Williamson once noted, “Jim Gunn said a long time ago that the novelette is the best length for science fiction because it has space to develop the characters and the idea and pose the question but doesn’t have to answer the question. A novel should.”

In short, you must let the story dictate its length.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 350 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my self-publishing guidebooks:

“Coleridge was a drug addict. Poe was an alcoholic. Marlowe was killed by a man whom he was treacherously trying to stab. Pope took money to keep a woman’s name out of a satire then wrote a piece so that she could still be recognized anyhow. Chatterton killed himself. Byron was accused of incest. Do you still want to a writer – and if so, why?” – Bennett Cerf

“There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money either.” – Robert Graves

“Beware of self-indulgence. The romance surrounding the writing profession carries several myths: that one must suffer in order to be creative; that one must be cantankerous and objectionable in order to be bright; that ego is paramount over skill; that one can rise to a level from which one can tell the reader to go to hell. These myths, if believed, can ruin you. If you believe you can make a living as a writer, you already have enough ego.” – David Brin

“Writing is not a genteel profession; it’s quite nasty and tough and kind of dirty.” – Rosemary Mahoney

“Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being.” – A. A. Milne

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 350 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my self-publishing guidebooks: