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Tag: nonfiction
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Article in WordWorks Magazine
Speaking of FBCW, earlier in the year, I had the pleasure of writing an article for Volume 3, 2023 of WordWorks, their magazine. My piece was titled “Breaking the Singles Barrier: Mastering the art of multi-book sales.” You can read that entire issue here: WordWorks
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Indirect conflict: foils in “A Day at the Races”
Often, when you hear the word “CONFLICT” you might picture two people fighting–battling each other, duking it out, or fighting against a snowstorm or hurricane. What you might not think about is conflict that is created the way Jason M. Jones does it in “A Day at the Races.” Take a look at this excerpt: Your mother…
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SIWC Countdown: 4 Days: 4 Writing Contests, 4+ Reasons to Enter !
4 Days Away: 4 contests, 4+ reasons to enter! Four SIWC writing contest categories and FOUR reasons to enter! Okay, so the contest may be over for this year (more on that in a later post), but the best time to begin your entries for next year is . . . now! That said, here’s…
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The lists go on… list openings, that is!
Yesterday, I posted a blog about list openings by a few writers who use the technique well to create a mood early. If you haven’t made your way through that blog yet, go back and treat yourself! Today, there is no new “Try this.” Today, I want to show you another LONG list example…
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LIST OPENINGS…how they can help your fiction and nonfiction
There is a power to momentum that is undeniable and unstoppable. Many writers have learned to benefit from the energy of a LIST early in a piece of creative fiction or nonfiction. Let me SHOW you what I mean . . . Here’s a beginning paragraph from Gordon Grice’s “The Black Widow” in High…
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Nonfiction beginnings #003: Sarcasm to the ultimate!
In the following passage, watch how Mark Edmundson creates a long buildup, lulls us into what we expect to hear–and then snaps us out of it in an instant! WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? by Mark Edmundson, in The Oxford American Welcome and congratulations: getting to the first day of college…
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Nonfiction openings #002: “The Good Short Life” by Dudley Clendinen
As you read the following introduction, keep in mind that it is NONFICTION: THE GOOD SHORT LIFE, by Dudley Clendinen, from The New York Times Sunday Review I have wonderful friends. In this last year, one took me to Istanbul. One gave me a box of handcrafted chocolates. Fifteen of them held two rousing, pre-posthumous…
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Opening paragraphs #001: Strength AND vulnerability, at the same time!
For today’s starting paragraph, I decided to go with one that packs quite a punch. First, read how Megan Mayhew Bergman begins “Housewifely Arts”: I am my own housewife, my own breadwinner. I make lunches and change light bulbs. I kiss bruises and kill copperheads from the backyard creek with a steel hoe. I change…
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Bullying, adult style… writing idea!
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…
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A real-life Indiana Jones? Long starter from nonfiction…
Talk about adventure! Here’s the beginning of a NONFICTION article, “The El Dorado Machine,” by Douglas Preston: The rainforests of Mosquitia, which span more than thirty-two thousand square miles of Honduras and Nicaragua, are among the densest and most inhospitable in the world. “It’s mountainous,” Chas Begley, an archaeologist and expert on Honduras, told me…