Category: knockout idea

Title generator #001: Great titles for your poetry or prose!

Aug 21, 2013

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by

Ace Baker

in fiction, knockout idea, nonfiction, novels, poetry, short stories

One way to jolt your creativity is to come up with a list of new titles for pieces you HAVEN’T written yet. One way to do that is to make a mashup of OTHER titles. For instance, I recently bought a copy of Force Field: 77 Women Poets of British Columbia. Here’s a bit…
8 ways to connect to your creativity , from The Portable MFA

Aug 19, 2013

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by

Ace Baker

in knockout idea, standing 8 count, starters

The following 8 ways to connect to your creativity come from The Portable MFA in Creative Writing, by The New York Writers Workshop (pp. 204-205): 1. Read a newspaper and free-write about something you find there. 2. Write a letter to an old lover. (Don’t send it.) 3. Do a physical activity you’ve never…
Opening paragraphs #005: SUPER CHALLENGE!

Jul 29, 2013

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by

Ace Baker

in fiction, knockout idea, novels, short stories, writing technique

Let’s do a quick review of our look at beginnings in the past four days: Day one: sharp contrast: tough, tough soft Day two: a bit of mystery Day three: 3-line description that ends with a powerful short line Day four: help NOT wanted; hesitation at interaction And now, on day five, we’re…
Cody Klippenstein #001 VOICE through pathos!

Jul 19, 2013

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by

Ace Baker

in fancy footwork, fiction, knockout idea, novels, power punch, short stories, writing technique

If you want to add VOICE to your writing, Cody Klippenstein is the one to turn to. She has won many major writing awards for her short fiction, including “Case Studies for Ascension,” which won the Zoetrope All-Story Short Fiction Contest. It’ll be our study text for this week and it’s up on…
Poetry Week #002: Writing the Cascade Poem

Jul 15, 2013

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by

Ace Baker

in fancy footwork, knockout idea, poetry, power punch, writing technique

THE CASCADE First, in order for me to discuss what a cascade poem is, let me show you one. “Woman on a Swing: Lions Park” is one of three poems that helped me win the Pacific Northwest Writers Association (PNWA) poetry prize in 2012. It’s one I quickly showed poet Patricia Young over dinner…
Poetry Week #001: Poem within a poem!

Jul 14, 2013

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by

Ace Baker

in fancy footwork, knockout idea, poetry, writing technique

Time for some poetry! A poem can contain a great amount of meaning in a small space; it’s what separates us from the rest of the animals, someone once told me. And while I enjoy spoken word poetry, especially when it’s well done, there are some things you can do on a piece of…
Neil Gaiman #002: Use THE ECHO as a voice!

Jul 10, 2013

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by

Ace Baker

in fiction, knockout idea, nonfiction, novels, short stories, writing technique

Let’s get right to it today and see an innovative way Neil Gaiman uses parentheses in The Ocean at the End of the Lane: I would talk to people whose existence I had forgotten years before and they would ask me about my marriage (failed a decade ago, a relationship that had slowly frayed…
Bullying, adult style… writing idea!

Jul 6, 2013

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by

Ace Baker

in fiction, knockout idea, novels, poetry, short stories, starters

Bullying is bad enough when it happens on a playground, but when it involves ADULTS, it can get downright nasty. Take a look at this piece of Nicholas Schmidle’s article, “Bring Up the Bodies”: According to an internal I.C.T.Y. document from 2004, Limaj’s relatives and associates launched a campaign of ‘serious intimidation of and…
8 Titles You Can THINK SOMETHING DIFFERENT For. . .

Jul 4, 2013

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by

Ace Baker

in fiction, knockout idea, novels, poetry, short stories, standing 8 count

In the July / August 2013 Report on Business, Eric Reguly has an article titled “STORAGE WARS,” but it’s not about the TV show where people buy abandoned storage lockers in the hopes of finding treasure. It’s actually aboput Big Oil’s reserves and what would happen to them if we stopped “burning the stuff…
Sara Dailey week #003: Knockout idea–Use a theme!

Jun 26, 2013

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by

Ace Baker

in fiction, headlock, knockout idea, novels, short stories, writing technique

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Ecclesiastes 1:9 Now you know that if this idea is stated in the Bible, a book that’s a few thousand years old, then it’s not exactly a new idea that writers struggle…