How the Seven-Point Story Structure Can Help Your Writing

A great article for aspiring or struggling writers, originally posted by an acquaintance of mine, Ryan Lanz (I suggest subscribing to his blog for many helpful and inspiring articles).

Adult Male

An original piece by ‘Nonlinear Navigation’. By taking the first lines from multiple dating site ads, something original and striking is born. Titled, ‘Adult Male’. I enjoyed it, so I’m passing it along….

Nonlinear Navigations: Poetry and Prose

I’m a complex person, but
here goes
nothing.
I promise
I’m not a serial killer.
I’m an introspective social
chameleon. I love
the good life. The screeching roar
of jet engines makes me
indescribably
giddy. I’m happier
than I’ve ever been. I’m ravenous
for life and have razor-sharp teeth
pointed
at the plate. I am an open
book with sticky pages
and a good
read. I’m 99 pounds
of pure
dynamite. Adult
male.

This is a found text poem using the first lines from men’s online dating profiles. The line breaks are mine, the text is copied directly from the profiles.

 

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Three Parts of the Writing Process That Get Authors Stuck: And How To Work Through the Halts

I enjoy passing along articles of substance and here is one I came across today: Three Parts of the Writing Process That Get Authors Stuck, by Victoria Grefer (Crimson League). Enjoy and don’t forget to let her know what you thought of her blog!

Creative Writing with the Crimson League

One of the toughest things about writing fiction is getting stuck. We get stuck SO OFTEN as authors…. One of the keys to success is simply finding ways to overcome the doubt about our stories and our abilities that getting stuck thrusts upon us.

Me, I’ve been kind of stuck fiction-wise all year, so I’m no stranger to this topic.

Part of my personal situation was that I had real-life interfere and had to give attention to other things. But part of it was that I also gave into the definition of madness: doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.

Finally, I decided to organize myself differently. I made a plan to break down my work-in-progress, scene by scene, in chart format in Microsoft Excel (I explain that organizational model here). And that has given me the motivation and the ability to make progress in my editing.

So…

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Query Letter Pet Peeves – Agents Speak

An informative article on query letter no-no’s, as told by the agents who receive them…. Worth a look! (Thank you Writers in the Storm)

Writers In The Storm Blog

By Chuck Sambuchino

Ready to send your book out and contact agents? The last thing you want to do is to rush that submission out the door and hurt your book’s chances.

When submitting your all-important query to agents or editors, it’s not just a question of what to write in the letter—it’s also a question of what not to write.

I asked 11 literary agents about their personal query letter pet peeves and compiled them below. Check out the list to learn all about what details to avoid in a query that could sink your submission—such as vague wording, too much personal information, grammatical mistakes, and much more.

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“I think the biggest querying no-no I’ve ever seen was when an author tracked down some sensitive personal information and included it in their cover letter. Eeep! As agents we absolutely love when authors do their research and get to…

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