Category: Writer Resources

March 7, 2016

How to Use Acting Methods to Improve Dialect in Dialogue

Whether you’re listening or reading, thick dialects can be hard to understand – partly because it takes experience with a specific dialect to understand it easily. It’s kind of like reading messy handwriting. Once you’ve experienced it enough, you can read it, but for a first-time exposure, it’s pretty impossible. That’s why a lot of the accents you’re exposed to...

Categories General Thoughts & Updates/Writer Resources Comments: 0

February 23, 2016

Baby Naming Resources for Expectant Authors

Any time someone walks into my office, there’s a 9/10 chance that they’ll take a look at my bookshelf, see a baby naming book, and say, “Something you want to tell me?” (The other 1 out of 10 times, the person walking in isn’t a smart aleck.) Yes, I have a baby naming book on my shelf. Actually, it’s the same...

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February 10, 2016

Free Un-copyrighted Reading on Project Gutenberg

If you want access to stuff you can’t find in print, you need un-copyrighted works to use in print, or you just like to read, check out Project Gutenberg. It’s an online library of books, magazines, poems, articles, etc. that are no longer copyrighted. That includes most of the classics as well as works where the copyright wasn’t renewed (for...

Categories Research & Worldbuilding/Reviews & Recommended Reading/Writer Resources Comment: 1

February 8, 2016

Copyright, Parody, & Fair Use for Writers

If you’re not a lawyer (and I’m assuming that’s most of us), then copyright can get pretty confusing, especially when you get on topics like parody and fair use. I certainly can’t claim to be an expert (I ain’t no lawyer), but here are some resources that might help. At the very least, they should give you a basic understanding of what...

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January 23, 2016

The Rhyming Dictionary: A Poet’s Prized Posession

I’m a little too happy with that alliteration. But anyway, back to rhyming dictionaries. The magic wand of the poet – or maybe, the magic bullet (at least, that’s how it feels sometimes). I imagine most of you know what a rhyming dictionary is (if not, the name gives it away), and although not many people buy hardcopies anymore, there...

Categories General Thoughts & Updates/Poetry/Writer Resources Comments: 0

December 18, 2015

ATOS & Reading Difficulty Levels: What Level Is Your Work?

Something to watch for when you’re writing for a specific age group is the difficulty level of your writing. Having a great plot and characters that a 6th grader would love isn’t going to do you much good when it’s written at a 12th grade reading level (or a 3rd grade reading level). But how do you know how hard...

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November 15, 2015

Programs for Writers: Scrivener

Did you know that there are computer programs designed especially for writers? If you look at the list of goodies from the NaNoWriMo sponsors, you’ll see several deals on programs such as Scrivener, Ulysses, Storyist, and Evernote. I have only tried Scrivener, so I can’t describe how the others work; however, I figure that if you hadn’t heard about any of these programs,...

Categories General Thoughts & Updates/Research & Worldbuilding/Writer Resources Comments: 6

November 14, 2015

The All-Important Manuscript Format

If you’ve been looking at places to submit your work (book publishers, magazines, contests, etc.), you’ve probably noticed that just about all of them use the same term. Even in the modern day of sending files instead of printed pages, pretty much all publishers are looking for manuscript format. So what is manuscript format? Instead of trying to explain it myself, I’m...

Categories Business & Publishing/General Thoughts & Updates/Grammar & Editing/Writer Resources Comments: 0

November 7, 2015

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)

Have I mentioned that November is National Novel Writing Month? Ok, technically, it’s international since there are participants in many different countries, but the NaNoWriMo Nonprofit is a group dedicated to encouraging people to write. Their challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. If you join (I believe it’s free) and write and upload 50,000 words...

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October 28, 2015

Gotta Catch ’em All – Not

Too often, we try to make our writing appeal to everyone. We cut something that might offend one group of readers even though it would probably amuse another. We add something to try to interest a third group. Adding and cutting like this can mangle a story so much that everything that used to be good about it is buried...

Categories General Thoughts & Updates/Humor & Wordplay/Writer Resources Comments: 0