Category: Creative writing tips

What do you think is the most important element of every story? What is it that makes a novel worth reading, for you?

Is it:

The plot?
The setting?
The length?
The author’s…

We all know that your very first paragraph is the one that can either hook, or turn off your readers.

Definitely worth spending some …

Last week we looked at the quote from Thomas Jefferson: “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”

We talked about cutting unnecessary words… However, there is another side to this quote:

Sometimes you need…

A writing quote for you this week:

“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.” – Thomas Jefferson

What do you think? (Bear in mind that Thomas Jefferson was …

Following on from last week’s post (you can check it out here if you missed it), I was contacted by writer-for-a-reason Heather, who told me she did a challenge of writing 500 words a day, and did so for 18 months!

Heather says, “It was a challenge by…

What keeps you going with your writing when times get tough?

I find that having a plan, being disciplined, and getting back to the plan as soon as possible helps.

I try to write an hour a day, but of course that’s not always possible…

Dear Writer Friends,

Today’s creative writing tip has come up over and over again in our Write for a Reason writing groups… is my writing good enough? Is my story good enough? …

Metaphors and similes – what fun! We all get these two mixed up – but it doesn’t matter what we call them – as long as we use them!

But just for the record, metaphors are things that…

Today’s creative writing tip is all about personification.

Personification is the attribution of human characteristics to something non-human. That could be an animal, or something non-living.

First, let’s take a look at personification of animals (also called anthropomorphism). We might like to include animals in our stories who think, talk, feel human emotions, have a conscience…