Month: August 2019

  Ways to Jumpstart your Creativity  By:  Anne Marie Lutz   It’s not uncommon for writers to have ups and downs in their level of creativity. Maybe you can’t come up with any good story ideas. Maybe you feel like your work-in-progress is missing something essential, and you can’t decide where to go from there. Maybe you’re in a place where you can’t start that next story at all. This has happened to me — sort of a lot! Usually, for me it means there’s something wrong in my story that I haven’t identified yet. My subconscious mind knows...

Writing an Effective Short Story By:  Paul Blake   A short story can be a wondrous thing. The paucity of words allows the writer to focus on the story, rather than on the nuts and bolts of world-building, character development, and backstory vital in longer work. A short story is usually centred around, or focused towards a single event, concept, or message, whereas a novel has subplots, minor character arcs, etc. For a writer, a short story allows for experimentation in voice, perspective, genre. This experimentation can be very freeing and productive in letting the creative brain play. An...