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How To Mine Your Life For Art (Without Being Disowned)

June 18, 2018 by Paige Duke 6 Comments

How To Mine Your Life For Art (Without Being Disowned)

When it comes to mining your life for artistic inspiration, proverbs abound: Art imitates life. Truth is stranger than fiction. Write what you know. It can be immensely helpful and inspiring to draw from your own life experience to inform your writing. It can also be a minefield. Authors who have attempted to put real-life people or events on the page have asked themselves: Is this going to …

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The Author’s Guide To Melodrama (And What It Can Do For You)

May 14, 2018 by Fred Johnson 4 Comments

The Author’s Guide To Melodrama (And What It Can Do For You)

Melodrama tends to get a bad rep these days, and not without good reason. Certainly, melodrama – that is, sensational drama; exaggerated, flat characters; farcically exciting events; and extreme responses and actions – can often come at the expense of those other aspects of fiction that make your book worth reading: deep characters, subtext, complex plotlines, etc. But it doesn’t have to and, even …

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How To Use Foreshadowing With Confidence – Part 2

December 1, 2017 by Robert Wood 4 Comments

How To Use Foreshadowing With Confidence – Part 2

This is the second in a two-part article on foreshadowing. For the first installment, click here. In Part 1 of this article, we looked at the versatility of foreshadowing and how you can use it to improve your story. In this, the concluding part of the article, we’re going to turn our attention to the technical realities of writing foreshadowing. Now we know what it can do for a story, let’s …

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How To Use Foreshadowing With Confidence – Part 1

November 29, 2017 by Robert Wood 6 Comments

How To Use Foreshadowing With Confidence – Part 1

At its best, foreshadowing can drastically deepen a story, lending new weight to structure and character. That’s why, in this article, I’ll be looking at how authors can get to grips with foreshadowing and employ it practically in their own writing. In this, Part 1, I’ll be looking at the various things foreshadowing can do for your story, with Part 2 covering the nitty-gritty of how to write …

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One Simple Rule To Avoid Technical Details Ruining Your Story

September 12, 2015 by Robert Wood 6 Comments

One Simple Rule To Avoid Technical Details Ruining Your Story

Every good writer knows the pain of research, investing hour after hour in the search for relevant facts and figures that will give their story the heft of realism. These details are the lifeblood of a believable world, but like any good thing they can cause trouble in excess. The problem is that real-world information is functionally infinite. A description of how a gun works could segue into a …

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