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College is a tough time for everyone but even more so for budding writers. If you went off to school and had to think about things like california internet and dorm assignments rather than your newest short story, take our advice for getting back in the mindset

Get With the Paper: Most schools have a newspaper that loves student journalists. They won’t pay much if at all but you’ll get invaluable experience writing and following the tenets of professional journalism and you’ll have Continue Reading »

Writing is a fun and fulfilling profession, but it requires hard work to get it right. Trying to piece together a quality mystery story takes time, but trying to make it a humorous mystery takes even more time, patience and a certain “knack” for humour writing. Just like with anything else, practice makes perfect. I would advocate reading some of the great humorous mystery writers, like Carl Hiaasen, Joan Hess and Anne George to get you Continue Reading »

Writing a humorous essay can be a rather difficult and daunting task for even the best of writers. The importance of getting your words and ideas just right cannot be understood enough when writing humor. Many have tried to write a humorous story, but have failed in the process. A simple and easy way to improve the writing ability of even the worst or greatest writer is to read great works of humor by established writers. This brief article will give some pointer son some of the top humorous essayist to read for inspiration.

No article about humor would be complete without mentioning Mark Twain. Twain, who is still heralded as one of the world’s greatest minds and humorist, still speaks to the modern mind. His essays on such a wide range of topics are sure to be a cure for even the worst case of writers block to be found.

Another humor writer that is slowly gaining popularity today is the British writer G.K. Chesterton. Chesterton wrote at the earliest portions of the twentieth century. While perhaps better known for his Father Brown mysteries’, his humorous essays are a wealth of knowledge to any writer who desires inspiration. These are just two authors to wet your appetite for inspiration for our humorous essay, enjoy and laugh often.

Writing about political topics can be a stressful and emotional thing to do, especially if you feel that you have to control your words when doing so. There are many techniques that allow you to express your political views without having to be too brazen about the topics. Just like there are proper ways to express your anger and opinions in relationships, there are ways to express those things properly in literature as well.

The use of metaphors can be one way to add a dimension to your opinion that will allow you to express your point of view without having to show anger in your writing. There are many different techniques of writing that may be employed, but first and foremost the writer must work on his or herself to channel their opinions in an enlightening way.

Anger management is an overall important skill to have as a person. As you build skills to manage your anger it will begin to show in any kind of writing you produce; whether you are writing fiction, novels, short stories, research papers, or a political blog it is important to be clear about your points without letting anger get in the way.

As a Regency romance writer, it is tempting to read only today’s leading authors in the genre. Reading works from the past gives a broader sense of the style. Reading book series in other genres can teach how other authors develop loyal readers.

Barbara Cartland will forever be the “Queen of Romance Novels.” She churned out 723 books over her career. Reading several gives the novice writer an idea of how to follow a formula in each book but at the same time, keep readers interested and eagerly waiting for the next book to appear on the shelves.

In the 1920s, watching Rudolph Valentino in “The Sheik” was the height of romance. It was based on a 1920 novel by Edith Maude Hull. “The Sheik” has many of the elements of a Regency Romance . There is the hidden identity. The sheik is not an Arab after all but rather an heir to British aristocracy. The lead characters are thought to be of different social classes and cultures. The manner in which the story is woven and the conventions of the time that the plot left in disarray are good background reading.

An excellent choice outside the romance genre, is the Lincoln Rhyne series by Jeffrey Dever. The first book is “The Bone Collector.” The plot includes historical elements and there is a hint of romance between main characters. Plot shifts and twists are a mark of his writing. He leads the reader in one direction and suddenly takes them in another. Things never turn out the way one expects in Dever’s storylines.

A novice writer should both write and read a lot to develop skills. Read not only the top authors in the genre but also look back to the books that make up the history behind it. Reading leading authors from other genres is helpful as well to get a sense of how to engage the reader’s attention book after book.

The science fiction genre, along with the pulp detective and crime novel, is easily one of the most stereotyped and clichd genres in literature. Science fiction is populated with stock heroes and villains. The majority of the characters in an average sci-fi novel are flat and one dimensional; they do not exist in the novel as flesh and blood people with real flaws, traits, or characteristics, but act more like metaphors or platforms devised by the author in order to deconstruct some type of political, social, or technological Continue Reading »

One of the most important things that any writer can do to add an authentic period feel to their western novel is to research the setting and historical events that the novel will take place around. As far as the setting goes, if the novel is supposed to take place in the southwest then read up on the vegetation and natural phenomenon of the area–cacti, coyotes, red rock landscapes. The same goes with the prairies and plains–types of grasses, buffalo, seasonal changes and weather.Check out this link here. The names of plants and vivid descriptions of the Continue Reading »

Jane Austen: Required Reading For Every Aspiring Romance Novelist. Jane Austen has been viewed in various lights depending on the period in literature. Being a woman novelist and born of the time period when this was still a stigma, she suffered the unbalanced views of her works that were unduly prejudiced. Although she failed to fall clearly into the norms of the Victorian period, she eventually would become the novelist by which writers of this Continue Reading »

When writing different genres, writers employ different skills. For example, writers who are inclined towards romance concentrate on the emotional connections and love towards one another. Writers of action concentrate on the tempos of the story and the situations that they present. Finally, writers of horror find themselves concentrating more on the reader, trying to will them to feel the story. If you were able to combine these three traits into one fabulous writer, you would have Stephen King.

While King does not write traditional love stories in even the remotest sense, his characters are often Continue Reading »