The Easiest, Cheapest, Fastest Way to Self-Publish Your Book You are excited to self-publish, but sorting through the sheer quantity of offerings, claims, and technologies is overwhelming. I spend a good part of each week researching the topic and, for authors of trade paperback books with no or few illustrations, my answer is to use these two services for creating your e-book and print book: Smashwords and CreateSpace. Create Your Smashwords E-Book Smashwords, which I’ve written about before, continues to be a very popular e-book publishing service. Open a free account (they take 10% of sales), and provide all the data about your book (title, description, price, key word tags, cover, etc.). Then upload a properly formatted Microsoft Word .doc file containing your book interior. Hire Out Smashwords Formatting, Cover Design Formatting the Smashwords .doc file is simple but tedious and can be a little frustrating to non-geeks, so they’ve compiled a list of people who will do that for you who charge from $25 an hour and up. What Does All This Cost?
The Top 10 Elements of Setting In a Story No matter if you are just getting started or want to break into fiction writing, setting is a crucial element to any story. In order to create an imaginary world for your story, you’ll need to know the fundamental elements of setting first. Discover the basic elements of setting in a story from Between the Lines. Fiction has three main elements: plotting, character, and place or setting. But setting is more than a mere backdrop for action; it is an interactive aspect of your fictional world that saturates the story with mood, meaning, and thematic connotations. Here is a list of the specific elements that setting encompasses: Locale. Plus, read more daily writing tips. This excerpt comes from Between the Lines by Jessica Morrell, from which you can learn more about the craft of writing. Buy Between the Lines now! You might also like:
We Like to Write - Social Networking for Writers & Bloggers Connecting Your Characters to Settings in Your Novel We’ve been looking at settings in your novel: the overall milieu or locale that your story takes place in, as well and the various locations your scenes are set in. I’ve encouraged you to take the time to come up with fresh, significant settings instead of defaulting to the easiest and first location types that come to mind, such as restaurants and coffee shops. We spend a lot of our time at work and home, and occasionally at those restaurants and coffee shops, but that is ordinary life. So the challenge for novelists is to come up with settings that are interesting. Settings That Trigger Emotion I had you think about places in your past that are emotionally charged to you. Does your protagonist, for example, have a strong emotional connection to one or both parents (who may still be living or have died before your story starts)? Let’s say your protagonist has just had a huge fight with her mother over the man she plans to marry. Conflict, Conflict, Conflict! One Last Very Important Thing
2011 Creating memorable fictional characters UWA Extension Fictional characters must possess sufficient strength of character to handle difficult dilemmas. In other words, they must be up to the demands of the plot. John Harman will show you how to create convincing characters, even those of the opposite gender. A story may be structured like a journey with a: Compass – the premise, theme, threadsMap – the plotEngine – the motivation of the protagonist (plus other central characters)Fuel – the dialogue The depth, dimensionality and authenticity of the story’s characters are vital. What comes first: plot or character? Students will benefit from watching the film ‘Thelma and Louise’ prior to attending this course. This course is held at Love House, on the Corner of Broadway and Cooper Street in Crawley. Lunch is not provided but you are welcome to bring your your lunch or to purchase from a nearby cafe.
50 Free Resources That Will Improve Your Writing Skills - Smashing Magazine Advertisement Today, too many websites are still inaccessible. In our new book Inclusive Design Patterns, we explore how to craft flexible front-end design patterns and make future-proof and accessible interfaces without extra effort. Hardcover, 312 pages. Get the book now! Effective writing skills are to a writer what petrol is to a car. Of course, effective writing requires a good command of the language in which you write or want to write. Further Reading on SmashingMag: Link We collected over 50 useful and practical tools and resources that will help you to improve your writing skills. 1. Use English Punctuation Correctly6 A quick and useful crash course in English punctuation. HyperGrammar7 An extensive electronic grammar course at the University of Ottawa’s Writing Centre. Grammar Girl8 Mignon Fogarty’s quick and dirty tips for better writing. English Style Guide – Economist16 This guide is based on the style book which is given to all journalists at The Economist. 2. Dr. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Get Me Writing » 5 Interactive Fiction Authoring Tools EmailEmail If you want to get into writing Interactive Fiction (IF) it can be hard to know where to get started. So here is a list of five IF authoring tools so you can pick the approach that’s best for you. This is an update of a post I wrote way back in 2010. Because this is a long one, here are some quick links in case you came here for a specific tool:Twine Inform TADS Quest ADRIFT Twine (Mac, Windows, Linux) Summary Visual interfaceProduces HTML-based stories (that require javascript)Has limited support for basic programmingGood entry-level system Twine is the simplest way to create a text adventure, and therefore the easiest to use. The work is compiled in HTML format, and works on any browser that supports javascript (and has it turned on. The graphical interface makes it immediately obvious what is going on. Twine uses a graphical interface to show its simple text and links concept. If you want to “go deep” with Twine, you can add your own HTML and stylesheets. There is a caveat.
5 editor’s secrets to help you write like a pro I do a lot of copyediting, both of books and advertising collateral. I’ll let you in on a secret that still surprises me, although I’ve seen it hundreds of times now. If you looked at the raw work of most professional writers, you’d be pretty underwhelmed. Professional writers get work because they hit their deadlines, they stay on message, and they don’t throw too many tantrums. Professional writers rely on editors to fix their clunks. Editing, like writing, takes time to learn. 1. Have you ever heard a four-year-old run out of breath before she can finish her thought? Sentences are building blocks, not bungee cords; they’re not meant to be stretched to the limit. 2. A paragraph supports a single idea. 3. Nouns ending in -ing are fine. (If for some insane reason you want to get all geeky about this, you can read the Wikipedia article on gerunds and present participles. 4. I know we all heard this in high school, but we weren’t listening. 5. Bonus: Use spell-check
Short Story Ideas and Creative Writing Prompts Here are lots of short story ideas that you can use as writing prompts. Use these story starters on their own or to get ideas for the CWN online writing courses. You'll also find links to more creative writing prompts at the bottom of the page. Any of these ideas can be used either humorously or dramatically... or you can try both. Do you like this page? Story ideas - three elements Choose a set of three elements and write a story that contains all three of them! Extreme challenge: combine three of the elements with one of the other short story ideas on this page. A stolen ring, fear of spiders, and a sinister stranger. More short story ideas Challenge: 4 stories in 4 weeks using these short story ideas. Extreme challenge: Why not write a book of short stories? A babysitter is snooping around her employer's house and finds a disturbing photograph... Even more short story ideas Your character starts receiving flowers and anonymous gifts. And still more short story ideas