LitReactor

Max Barry | Fifteen Ways to Write a Novel Every year I get asked what I think about NaNoWriMo, and I don’t know how to answer, because I don’t want to say, “I think it makes you write a bad novel.” This is kind of the point. You’re supposed to churn out 50,000 words in one month, and by the end you have a goddamn novel, one you wouldn’t have otherwise. If it’s not Shakespeare, it’s still a goddamn novel. I find it hard to write a goddamn novel. Some of these methods I use a lot, some only when I’m stuck. The Word TargetWhat: You don’t let yourself leave the keyboard each day until you’ve hit 2,000 words. WritingFix: prompts, lessons, and resources for writing classrooms Viktor Shklovsky wants to make you a better writer, part 1: device & defamiliarization When I was finishing up my Master’s degree at ISU, I worried that I still didn’t know much about writing—like, how to actually do it. My mentor Curtis White told me, “Just read Viktor Shklovsky; it’s all in there.” So I moved to Thailand and spent the next two years poring over Theory of Prose. I’ve already put up one post about what, specifically I learned from Theory of Prose, but it occurs to me now that I can be even more specific. Let’s talk first about where Viktor Shklovsky himself started: the concepts of device and defamiliarization. Viktor Shklovsky (1893–1984) was, among other things, one of the founders of the intellectual movement that we today call Russian Formalism. Theory of Prose was originally published in 1925, but not published in English until 1991. In a narrow sense we shall call a work artistic if it has been created by special devices whose purpose is to see to it that these artifacts are interpreted artistically as much as possible (2) OK. (See?)

How to Blog: Blogging Tips for Beginners Update: See our more recently published posts on the topic of starting a blog at How to Start a Blog in 5 Easy Steps and how to make money blogging. Welcome to my How to Blog – Blogging Tips for Beginners Guide. On the page below you’ll find links to a series of how to blog tips that I’ve written with blogging for beginners (and ‘Pre’ Bloggers) in mind. It unpacks the basics of blogging and a lot of the decisions and strategies that you’ll want to consider when setting up and starting a blog. How to Blog – My Ultimate Guide to Blogging for Beginners Since developing this series I’ve produced a book specifically for beginner bloggers. Lastly- if you enjoy these posts and want to keep in touch with ProBlogger – subscribe via our RSS feed. Blogging Tips for Beginners Introductory Posts Blog Design Tips Tips for Writing Content for Blogs Tips on Making Money from Blogs Blog Networks Other Beginner Blogging Tips Want more Blogging Tips for Beginners? 1.

The Review Review Story In the spring of 2008, I stopped submitting to literary magazines. As a fiction writer, trying to get my work published felt as futile and inconsequential as trying to write my name on a snowflake. I spent so much time sending work out and buying envelopes, printer ink, stamps, and paper only to receive one after another rejection letter, sometimes not even written on a full piece of paper but cut from the bottom third, as if rejection of my work were not even worth wasting a full page. Of course getting published is not easy and if it were, the rewards would not feel so valuable and hard-won. However, I also felt that there was something unsettling about this entire process. Worse, I was not the only writer like this. Wanting to get published in lit mags had started to feel like doing community service so that it would look good on your college application. At first, this discovery was comforting. With over 600 print and online journals, however, it can be hard to know where to begin.

The Online Community for Writers - Writing.Com The Age of the Essay September 2004 Remember the essays you had to write in high school? Topic sentence, introductory paragraph, supporting paragraphs, conclusion. The conclusion being, say, that Ahab in Moby Dick was a Christ-like figure. Oy. Mods The most obvious difference between real essays and the things one has to write in school is that real essays are not exclusively about English literature. With the result that writing is made to seem boring and pointless. How did things get this way? During this period the study of ancient texts acquired great prestige. The time was then ripe for the question: if the study of ancient texts is a valid field for scholarship, why not modern texts? And so began the study of modern literature. What tipped the scales, at least in the US, seems to have been the idea that professors should do research as well as teach. Writing was one of the casualties. And so in the late 19th century the teaching of writing was inherited by English professors. No Defense Trying The River

26 Steps to 15,000 visitors a day C) Site Design: The simpler the better. Rule of thumb: text content should out weight the html content. The pages should validate and be usable in everything from Lynx to leading edge browsers. eg: keep it close to html 3.2 if you can. Learn the lesson of Google itself - simple is retro cool - simple is what surfers want. Speed isn't everything, it's almost the only thing. D) Page Size: The smaller the better. E) Content: Build one page of content and put online per day at 200-500 words. F) Density, position, yada, yada, yada... Simple, old fashioned, seo from the ground up. G) Outbound Links: From every page, link to one or two high ranking sites under that particular keyword. H) Cross links: <1>(cross links are links WITHIN the same site) Link to on topic quality content across your site. I) Put it Online: Don't go with virtual hosting - go with a stand alone ip. Go for a listing in the ODP. J) Submit: K) Logging and Tracking: L) Spiderlings: Watch for spiders from se's. M) Topic directories:

75 Books Every Writer Should Read Whether you want to make writing your career or just want to know how to improve your writing so that you can pass your college courses, there is plenty of reading material out there to help you get inspired and hone your skills. Here’s a collection of titles that will instruct you on just about every aspect of writing, from the basics of grammar to marketing your completed novel, with some incredibly helpful tips from well-known writers themselves as well. Writing Basics These books address things like structure, plot, descriptions and other basic elements of any story. The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers: You can improve the quality of your writing by adding a mythical quality to them with advice and insight from this book. Advice from Authors Who better to give advice on writing than those who have made a name for themselves doing it? On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King: This is widely regarded as one of the best books for any aspiring author to read.

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