man writing

How to Make Sure You Achieve Your Writing Goals for 2020

This week I have a slightly different type of exercise for you, to do with goal setting. Setting concrete goals is an excellent thing to do, because goals help us stay on track. Even if we don’t achieve everything on our list, we will probably have accomplished more by the end of the year than if we didn’t set any goals! So now is the time…

Share this:
Clouds and sunshine

Tension – the Ebb and Flow

Are you good at building up tension in your story, then letting your readers relax again? It’s an important skill for story writers. It’s like stretching a piece of elastic… just when it’s about to snap, you let it go. Phew! This process helps…

Share this:
Girl screaming

‘Show Don’t Tell’ Practice

We look at ‘show don’t tell’ a lot here at Write for a Reason, because it is an essential technique for writing engaging stories…

Share this:
Editing on a tablet

Editing Your First Draft

People new to writing novels sometimes think that the words should flow straight out on to the page perfectly first time. This…

Share this:
imaginary palace

3 Reasons to Set Your Novel in a Place You Don’t Know

A couple of weeks ago I posted a writing tip with 7 reasons to set your novel in a place you know. This week we’re going to look at three reasons you might want to set your novel in a place you…

Share this:
fantastic library

7 Gleanings from Reading a Stack of Books

We all know that if we want to be writers, we have to read. We can glean all sorts of things from other people’s stories – both good and bad. Having recently read a stack of books I was sent to review, I’m going to share seven…

Share this:
books

7 Things to Beware of when Writing Stories for Children

Over the last few months I have been reviewing books for a charity that puts Christian titles into libraries and other public places. So I have had the joy of having to read. 🙂 How about that for an excuse to read – sorry, can’t do that, I absolutely have to finish these books….

Share this: