by Stephanie Morrill | Oct 7, 2019 | Creativity, Story Ideas, Writing Exercise
I realized recently that I have a lot of story ideas that I dismiss immediately. I’ll feel a bit of curiosity about a topic or a question, I’ll allow myself about 30 seconds to ponder “What if?” but then I start shutting the idea down with...
by Shannon Dittemore | Oct 4, 2019 | Characters, Description, Editing, First Drafts, The Craft of Writing, Writing
A couple weeks back, I put out a call for writing questions through our Go Teen Writers Instagram account. Oodles of you responded and I was able to answer several of those questions in a quick hits post. A few of the questions required a longer reply, and so today, I...
by Jill Williamson | Oct 2, 2019 | Book Club Posts, Characters, Climax, Dark Night of the Soul, Go Teen Writers Book Club, Story Structure
Today on the Go Teen Writers Book Club, we’re discussing Chapter Five: Discovery. Chapter Recap: A story is a journey in which the protagonist travels from one place in time, location, or relationship to another. Along the way he encounters various struggles,...
by Stephanie Morrill | Sep 30, 2019 | Author Life, Book Proposals, Writing As A Business
Since we talked about hook sentences last week, it only seemed natural to address back-cover copy today. Like a hook sentence, your back-cover copy is a tool for selling your book. If you are traditionally publishing, this copy sells your book first to agents and...
by Shannon Dittemore | Sep 27, 2019 | Writing Exercise
Today, we’re revisiting one of our most popular writing exercises! If you’ve participated in this one before, don’t worry. It’s different every time. And to the many new faces, WELCOME! I hope you enjoy this exercise. Here’s how it works:...
by Jill Williamson | Sep 25, 2019 | Book Club Posts, Go Teen Writers Book Club, Story Structure, The Craft of Writing
Some of you might have seen that I released the book cover for Thirst yesterday. If you haven’t seen it, I wanted to post the cover here to celebrate with you all since I wrote that book as part of this blog during the #WeWriteBooks year. So here it is! What do...
by Stephanie Morrill | Sep 23, 2019 | Book Proposals, Getting Published, Marketing, Writing As A Business
One of the questions that always makes me squirm is, “What’s your book about?” Cue panic and stammering! But I’ve become much better in the last few years as I’ve worked on how to answer this even before I write the book. In the...
by Shannon Dittemore | Sep 20, 2019 | Author Life, Getting Published, Goals, Writing, Writing As A Business, Writing Life
Did you know there’s a difference between being a writer and being an author? Okay, okay, in truth, the dictionary defines the two words very similarly. But when we approach the two terms from an industry perspective, we begin to see some differences. A writer is...
by Jill Williamson | Sep 18, 2019 | Book Club Posts, Story Beginnings
Today, as part of the Go Teen Writers Book Club, we’re discussing chapter three of Story Trumps Structure. Chapter Recap:“Stories revolve around dilemmas, not action. To build a story, you don’t try to make the right things happen but rather make the right things go...
by Stephanie Morrill | Sep 16, 2019 | Author Life, Book Proposals
Once upon a time, I imagined those paragraphs about authors that I read on the back of books were written by people at the publishing house or assistants. If you’re a Big Deal Author, maybe you do have people who write those for you, but every single published...
