Improving Your Craft

VIDEO: Alice Kuipers Talks About How Writing Picture Books Makes Her a Better Novelist

Alice Kuipers, the award-winning young adult author, sat down with Laura Backes to chat about her transition to picture book writer, and how writing picture books helps authors learn the craft for every age.

Check out all of Alice Kuipers’ books at alicekuipers.com.

Don’t Get in the Way of Feelings When Writing with Emotion

Evoking emotion is a crucial piece to effective writing. Sometimes, however, writers find themselves sabotaging the emotional impact in their stories by failing to address other story elements. How do we keep other parts of the story from interfering with the emotion and serve to enhance it?

What are some

Using Connectives to Make Your Prose Flow

Do you ever wonder how to use connective words? I do. I am constantly second-guessing myself on the proper use of such words as “than,” “as,” “nevertheless,” “neither,” “either,” etc.

Like transitions, connectives serve as a bridge, connecting anything from a word, a clause, a sentence, or a paragraph with

Mastering the Vital Art of Transitions

I grew up in the Washington, DC/Maryland area. In navigating your way through the city and its many suburbs, you often need to cross over rivers, the Anacostia, the Potomac, to name just a few. Bridges provide the means for you to cross the rivers.

Bridges also provide the means

Three Common Grammar Mistakes that Make Your Work Look Unprofessional

When do we use who and whom?
What is an antecedent and how do we use it?
What is an appositive?

Can you answer each of these questions? If so, you’re on your way to becoming a grammar expert. If not, maybe you need to brush up on the

Start with One Sentence

Practically speaking, there’s nothing more difficult than staring at an empty computer screen, willing yourself to be creative. You may be stuck trying to find the perfect place to start your story. Or you’re contemplating the entire story arc—an intimidating process at best. From start to finish, your book must

Perfect Your Writing Style

Fashionistas talk a lot about style. So do writers. Interestingly, both groups use the word in much the same manner. Style, in fashion and in writing, is unique to the individual and revealed in the details.

I will never be a fashionista, so I won’t be instructing you in that.

Get Targeted Feedback Through Response Sheets

Writers need feedback. Unfortunately, feedback can be hard to come by. What to do?

Your first reader should, of course, be yourself. After you’ve read through the manuscript and revised to the best of your ability, find several other readers to offer critiques. These first readers are often referred to

Make Friends with Your Setting

You’ve done your character sketches. Maybe you’ve even interviewed your characters, had them write letters to you, and pinned pictures of them on your Pinterest page. You’ve written a detailed synopsis, done a chapter-by-chapter outline. You’ve identified your story’s theme. You’re all set to start writing. Right? Wrong.

What about

Opening Lines: Make Yours Count

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, if the was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of

Give Your Story an Emotional Core

by Natasha Wing

A while back, I had a talk with my agent about my career and what I could do to revive it. After writing for 22 years, I have produced A LOT of stories (at least 100 and counting), and consequently, she has submitted a great number

VIDEO – How to Write Compelling Dialogue, Part 2

In Part Two of her dialogue tutorial, writing coach Teresa Funke covers the most common dialogue challenges, including using slang and cussing, dialect and accents, inserting humor into the conversation, and linking the dialogue with the character’s movements.

To download a pdf transcript of this video, or to learn

How to Use Fiction Techniques in Nonfiction

by Sue Bradford Edwards

To sell your nonfiction, you have to hook your reader, including your first reader – an editor or agent. When I write narrative nonfiction, I grab my reader using the same techniques used by fiction writers. I create a story full of interesting characters who

How (and Why) to Eliminate Passive Writing

According to Strunk and White’s classic The Elements of Style, “The habitual use of the active voice…makes for forcible writing.” In its most basic sense, the active voice involves the subject of the sentence being the doer of the action, whereas in the passive voice the subject is being acted

6 Ways to Simplify Your Writing

A former workshop student of mine recently thanked me for reminding her that query letters are best when they’re short and to the point. A published writer, she said she’d gotten away from the KISS method of querying (Keep It Simple, Stupid).

The more I thought about her acronym, the

Prologues, Epilogues, and Other Useful Bookends

What if the reader needs more information than what you can squeeze into the body of your book? You have several elements at your disposal that can lead the reader into your work and ease them through the ending. But to use them, you have to understand each element’s distinct

VIDEO – How to Write Compelling Dialogue, Part 1

If you’re struggling with writing dialogue, this video is for you. Our writing coach Teresa gives her best tips for creating conversations between characters that sound authentic and keep your story moving.

To learn more about Teresa or her coaching services or download a transcript of this video,

Understanding Cause & Effect

When we write fiction, we see the story in our mind long before it’s down on paper. We know why our characters are acting the way they do because we are familiar with their past and in control of their future. We understand the significance of every event in the

Using Slang in Children’s Books

If someone told you to “fade”, would you ignore them or guard your wallet? The answer depends not just on who is doing the talking, but when. Joe College in the early 1930’s use the term to mean “to leave”; a 1940’s zoot-suiter “faded” by covering a bet; it meant

VIDEO – How to Give Your Children’s Book a Great Title

Children’s author and writing coach Teresa Funke is back with another powerful video. This time, she talks about the process of creating a memorable title for your fiction children’s book.

Teresa, our Expert Guide At-Large, is the owner of Teresa Funke & Company and Victory House Press, which offer products, programs,

5 Ways to “Teach, Don’t Preach”

In my writeforkids video “Show, Don’t Preach”, I examined five books that teach the readers life lessons without being didactic. Here, now, in this bonus article exclusively for Fightin’ Bookworms, are five ways you can incorporate these techniques into your own writing.

Show, Don’t Tell. This

Show a Character’s Emotion Using Body Language

Emotion is integral to character. We reveal emotion through dialogue, through action, through narrative, though we try to avoid telling the reader what the character is feeling. (Remember: show; don't tell.)

If this is all that we are using, though, we are missing a prime way to show emotion:

Write What You Know — Research What You Don’t!

From the first time I began reading about being a writer and attending a writer’s group, I heard that I should `write what you know.’ It made sense, and for a long time, I limited myself to personal experience writing, interviews, or easy fiction where I `knew’ all about the

FAQ: Creating a Memorable Title for Your Book

What makes for a great title? How do we come up with evocative titles? What role do publishers and editors play in title selection? Should you hold out for your original title, even in the face of editorial requests that you change it? What if you are doing a trilogy or series of books, how will that influence your titles? Can titles be copyrighted?

Video Quickie: How to See the World Through the Eyes of a Writer

Jon's here with some tips on how to view the world in a way that will make you a better and more successful writer.

PODCAST – Follow This Fightin’ Bookworm to Grammar Perfection!

You’ve got a thrilling plot, quirky characters and riveting dialogue. Will anyone care or even notice if your participles dangle or if you’re stumped by which pronoun to use?

Actually, yes.

Editors are looking for reasons to whittle down their slush pile, and if your manuscript shouts “bad grammar” from

Here’s What’s (Probably) Wrong With Your Story…

I've critiqued nearly 2500 manuscripts in the last 20 years, and I've seen the following patterns in my comments to writers and in the rejection letters they've gotten from editors:

The story is too slight: This most often applies to picture books. What it means is that the story doesn't

Developing Your Book Idea

Is your story idea ready to be turned into a book?

Show Don’t Tell — A New Take on an Old Chestnut

Writers have heard the axiom “Show, don’t tell” repeatedly. We know the importance of including sensory detail; we know to keep long passages of narrative summaries to a minimum.

Okay. What if you’ve done all that and an editor writes back in a rejection letter, “Too much telling, not enough

Find Your Strengths as a Writer

Does your critique group laugh in all the right places when you read your humorous picture book out loud? Do they ask for more at the end of a pivotal chapter in your middle grade mystery? As you continue to work on your manuscript and get feedback, you’ll learn where

The Ultimate Editing Checklist – A Free Chapter From Our Best Selling eBook!

If we had a nickel for every time we've been asked "I've written a story, what do I do now?" we'd have, well, a heck of a lot of nickels.

That's why we wrote the eBook titled, of course, I've Written a Story. What Do I Do Now? in which

Working with Point of View

Choosing a point of view is one of the decisions you’ll need to make before you can tell your story. Most children’s books are written in one of three common viewpoints, defined in the sidebar to the right. The viewpoint is often dictated by your story and your skills as