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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: Practice being present. Anytime you’re waiting, write down what you see, hear, smell, taste and sense through touch. Can you organize these details you’ve observed…

Hurdle vs. hurtle are two similar sounding words that often get confused. “Hurdle” can have a couple of meanings. As a verb, it means to “leap” or “overcome.” So, “Liam hurdled over the mud puddle as he ran down the road.” As a noun, it means an “obstacle” or “barrier.” To wit, “Liam found the mud…

“My task…is, by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel – it is, before all, to make you see. That – and no more – and it is everything.” – Joseph Conrad “The adjective is the enemy of the noun.” – Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire “Pay attention to the sound…

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: Foreshadowing is another tried-and-true way of opening a story and can be very useful if you’ve already brainstormed or outlined the story’s premise and characters. For…

What’s the difference between an enjoyable afternoon of wine tasting and a night of artful seduction over wine? One is “sensuous” and the other is “sensual.” “Sensuous” means to appeal to the senses or to have strong sensory appeal, as in The Klingon found the Grapok sauce sensuous. “Sensual” pertains to fleshly or sexual appeal, as in The…

When developing your story, you’ll want your characters to face a number of challenges or conflicts. One of the most basic of them is man vs. man. In this conflict, the main character finds his goals jeopardized by another individual: a stormtrooper shooting at him; a Klingon arguing with her in a space station cantina; or…

“Thus, in a real sense, I am constantly writing autobiography, but I have to turn it into fiction in order to give it credibility.” –Katherine Paterson “I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march,…