It’s not usually the case for short stories, but novels will often come with a story map. As someone who loves maps and is very visual, I’m always happy when a story has a map in it. Maps can help you picture where things are taking place as you are reading. Not everyone feels the…
Tag: young writers
The Birth of Dandelions
The Birth of Dandelions There once lived a very beautiful sun. She knew she was gorgeous; she was very proud of her looks. She knew some people worshiped her; she knew all of them were very happy when the morning came. She knew she was an inspiration, a goddess. Therefore, before showing herself up in…
Muse on Monday – July 18, 2022
I don’t know about you, but this summer seems to be going fast. It seemed like it was just May and now it will be August in a few weeks. They say time flies when you’re having fun, but there are many reasons why time might seem to go slower or faster. Sometimes a year…
Muse on Monday – July 4, 2022
It’s a new month and a new chance to do things differently. It’s a good idea to look at things in a different way, if only to see how you could improve things. This is a valuable skill for writers. If we only look at life from one perspective, we are missing so many other…
Muse on Monday – June 27, 2022
A lot of stories are about journeys since all stories are a journey of one kind of another, either moving from one place to another or growing or changing as a person. When we think of travel stories, they are usually big journeys over a lot of space. However, journeys of very short distances can…
Muse on Monday – June 13, 2022
I hope you have a good week. Here is a prompt you can use to write a story. Even if you don’t write it, down, think about what the story might look like. Where is the conflict? How does it end? If you think outside your normal patterns of thought, it can only broaden what…
Muse on Monday – June 6, 2022
One of the nice things about fiction is that you can write anything. Stories should be internally consistent and follow the rules you make for them, but beyond that, you are the creator of your own worlds. For example, I once wrote a story about a taxi driver who was a pigeon. The concept is…
Writing Corner: Group Words
English has a lot of little quirks, but one of the quirkiest is all the words it has for groups of animals. If you look at a site like Owlcation, you can find a huge list of words, many of which sounds like they’re just made up, but probably were used very long ago. Still,…
Muse on Monday – May 30, 2022
Because of movies, we tend to think of action stories as having to do with fighting, crime or some other sort of swashbuckling adventure, usually since those are the most exciting stories to watch. However, an action story can be any kind of high-energy story that has a fair bit of movement. This week, I…
Writing Corner: The Right To Write
Today’s post is written by guest writer, Susannah Bianchi. Check out her slightly-on-slant essays and novels at athingirl.com. The Right To Write The Right to Write is my favorite go-to writing book by esteemed author, Julia Cameron. Though I have others…Bird By Bird, by Anne Lamott, Stephen King’s On Writing, hers is the one I…
The Green-Walled Treehouse 