Articles On Writing

All writing is creative! Whether you have to write business email, a memo, an academic paper, a story or poem, it has to have all the necessary ingredients to create a lasting impact on the readers so they take the action that you want them to take, and that in essence is the purpose of all writing. Creative writing courses help you develop and master the skills and techniques required to deliver such content.
Most writing, especially nonfiction writing, uses data adopting a journalistic or an academic style of writing. However, this style may sound dull, monotonous. Creative writing can help you give away the same data by making up a story, creating imaginary characters mixing a bit of humor, etc., so you make the entire story exciting for your readers. Creative writing classes help you bring to life any dull, boring subject and create the kind of buzz and engagement for your advantage.
When you infuse creativity into your writing, you try to stoke the emotions of your readers by narrating a story, which you paint with your words, a story that they can relate to easily. With creative writing classes, you learn to weave such exciting stories for your readers. You will learn to weave stories around any boring topic, so it evokes interest and response from your audience.
Creative writing classes help you develop such interesting stories, offer you the tools of vocabulary and style so you include metaphors that your audience can connect to, write catchy headlines, titles that hit upon the readers’ emotions. Writing is creative and requires brainstorming, observation, for ideation, etc. The writing courses help you with the right environment that helps sharpen your writing with the help of debates, discussions, readings, support, critique, regular writing exercises and evaluation.
What you learn from Creative writing classes:
Creative writing is both an art and science; as such, you need sound knowledge of the principles, and regular practice so you master the skill. Joining professional writing classes helps you gain confidence in your writing. You learn the various elements of storytelling and the right techniques to attract your reader’s attention.
• Reasons for writing: Professional writing courses help you analyze and understand the reasons for writing the story or the content, to developing the plot, the style, etc.
• Introduction of Characters: Introducing characters and creating relationships between them is crucial to the development of the story. You will learn how to create memorable characters and learn to create conflicts depicting real world scenarios.
• The language: Language is a powerful tool, the choice of words and the style of saying those words affects your audience very much. You need to understand the psychology of your readers and use the power words at the right time.
Creative writing classes help you improve your vocabulary, style and technique of storytelling and using different narratives that will mesmerize your readers and will help you attract their complete attention and convince them to take a certain action.

© Bruce Markey
Source: ArticlesFactory.com

More than half the battle when you're trying to write is remaining focused enough to complete a project.
It used to be that most writers complained about lack of time to finish their novels, even their short stories, and articles.
Life has always had a way of distracting us from our goals - and that was before the Internet.
Yes, there was such a time.
It reminds me of that old joke. "How did we ever look busy at work before computers?"
Now it's like, "How did we ever fill our time before the Net?"
A hundred years ago – in the evenings before TV - we sat in candlelight, singing songs around a piano. Or we got pissed on gin in a tavern.
Then came TV and we sat around watching black and white drama and variety shows on the BBC, who (my mum says) told you when to go to bed when they stopped broadcasting.
Now it's all gone crazy.
24/7 entertainment by the yard, distractions by the bucket load, total information overload - how is a writer supposed to think, let alone write!
And none of this includes dealing with our jobs, the shopping, the chores, our families and having real off-line friends to socialize with.
In Japan, they sell clean air - because it's such a rare commodity.
I reckon the person who can package and sell FOCUS will be the next billionaire.
We recently upgraded our broadband - from crap to vaguely acceptable - because these are the only two options Australia offers its customers.
Now, everything electronic in our house is permanently connected, not only to the Net but to each other. Things ding and ping randomly and we have designated charging points for all our mobile clutter.
It's all great and wonderful - until I need to write!
The afternoon has recently become my "technology free" zone. It's hard - actually really hard - but I switch off my connection so I'm free to write articles, blogs and sometimes, my fiction.
It's absurd that I often have to go offline to answer emails - otherwise, they'd never get done!
And if I find it tough, what about those people who tweet every hour of every day? How do they find the time to do anything else?
Maybe they don't.
I guess that's it - tweeting IS what they do - maybe in between their novels?
I don't know.
It's hard not to be online, isn't it?
Just a quick peek that turns into an hour or two?
I've started editing manuscripts in bed - on my tablet - which of course is only a screen-flip away from the entire web. It's a wonder we get anything done these days...
And yet there are still thousands of authors out there who do get things done!
My hat is off to them.
Personally, I will continue to try and find that elusive balance.
I call myself a writer - because that's what I do (mostly). I would hate to get so distracted I lose sight of that imperative.
Which does happen sometimes - and I loathe myself for being so unproductive...
I hope you too find your balance, with the help of The Writing Academy.
And that we continually remind ourselves to FOCUS when necessary.
The best to you,
Keep Writing!

© Rob Parnell
Writing Academy

Humans don't consider something to exist until it has a name. Or at least some kind of descriptor.
Words bring things to life.
Emotions, experiences and activities become concrete when they're explored and documented.
More than this: reality is essentially defined by words.
In the same way that – at the quantum level of things - perhaps even within the entire universe – matter is said not to exist until it is observed.
This is great for writers.
Invention makes us mini gods, co-creating the world around us by recording it.
For whatever reason: our own pleasure or from a need to share or communicate.
Because that's the great part: words take on much more solidity when they are shared.
Mere words become concepts, art forms, even entire other worlds.
In fiction, an author's view of reality can take on concrete substance and to some of us, actually become more real than the world around us.
Personally, I’m more attached to some fictional characters than some members of my own family.
Recently I've been working on a kids’ book - actually more of a graphic novel - where I'm having to imagine what the protagonist's home planet looks like - and base his superpowers on some sort of believable science.
Pencil drawing his home planet made me think about this issue of invention. How the imaginative process constructs something from nothing. Substance actually created from thought alone.
It happens all of the time, but we often take the process for granted. It's something we humans do.
A writer sits down, scribbles a few words that become the basis for a novel. Later that story may become a screenplay with actors and sets and props and before you know it, legions of fans believe the reality of the movie to be more compelling than their own workaday lives...
Seriously, I believe you can't underestimate what you're doing when you sit down to write.
You're not just transferring thoughts to paper, you're re-imaging the world, often replacing reality with something more powerful, meaningful and satisfying.
Well, that's the idea anyway...
Does this mean we can't write about violence, cruelty and horror? Of course not. It's just as important to document the dark side of ourselves, the savagery, the self-interest, all the bad things we do to each other. Ignoring those things won't make them go away - even if Wallace Wattles (the original inventor of "The Secret") might have disagreed!
Inhumanity is the flip side of ourselves. And just like the idea that without dark there is no light, we cannot know how to be human without an awareness of what to avoid and know what to make positive moves away from
So, in our fiction writing it's okay to dwell on evil, misfortune and the obstacles that humans might face - but eventually there should be balance. Our stories need to resolve in such a way that hope is suggested.
Not in any crass way. Merely in an objective way.
We should be mindful that our darkest existential obsessions may be harmful to our work – perhaps as much as an over-developed sense of optimism.
Balance is the key.
You need to show your writing is real, purposeful and relevant, even important
After all, if there's no point to what you’re doing or “being” - why are you writing?
Even dark writers like Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus privately reveled in the idea that their own brand of misery was being widely read!
Writing well is about cultivating a sense of responsibility. You have a duty to report the world without bias. To remain objective.
The world is a beautiful place, even though bad things happen all the time.
Readers enjoy drama and tension, but they also like to know there's hope. Even if you write for yourself and never get your work out there, you have a duty to yourself to see the upside too!
When you're reading your own work, hopefully you will see the positive in the world - and by extension, experience the humanity in yourself.

Keep writing!
© Rob Parnell
Writing Academy

Your title is your selling tool. 
It’s the first thing readers will scan and contemplate whether to read your story. What your title's job is, it has to lure the readers into your story – it has to be so compelling that they won’t even have a chance to ask themselves, ‘Will this story interest me?’
Their eyes will glide over the title and into the story before they realize it. The action will be instant.
What’s a compelling title? It’s one that instantly grabs our attention because it’s…
 Intriguing
 Interesting
 Catchy
 Provocative
 Amusing
Your title may not be all these things but it will have to be at least one. There should be something about it that grabs your readers.
So how do you write compelling titles?
Start by learning from the masters.
Learn from those whose articles and stories are published in newspapers, magazines and, in particular, pay close attention how the writers of Readers Digest go about it. They have been luring readers into their written material for years. They know their stuff.
Here are a few examples of titles taken from Readers Digest….
• Did I really need to know that?
• Who is Jack Kevorkian, Really?
• Against the flames
• Who Killed Margaret Wilson?
Do you have any newspapers or magazines handy, or even better, a Readers Digest magazine? If you do, note down a few titles, then analyze why those particular titles grabbed you.
If you don’t have any magazines handy, take a look at: www.amazon.com (in the books section.) See what titles are listed there. Or look at your bookshelf.
Compare them to your title.
Is your title compelling?
If you find that it could be better, here’s an effective way that will ensure you find the best title for your story…
Read through your story and on a piece of paper jot down sentences and/or words that appealed to you as you read. Jot down as many as you come across – Don’t worry about editing them for now. Just note down all that grabbed you.
Then look at your characters. Is there something special about them, a word you could use in a title that will grab readers’ attention?
Now with the list you have gathered, think about what you are saying in your story. Start crossing out the words and sentences that aren’t directly relevant to it.
Select a few words and look through a thesaurus for a nicer sounding synonym.
Choose the most appropriate group of words for the title.
Remember… your title has to be one or a combination of the below…
 Intriguing
 Interesting
 Catchy
 Provocative
 Amusing

© Nick Vernon
Source: Free Guest Posting Articles from ArticlesFactory.com

When it comes to writing everybody is different. Personally, before I had been given an opportunity to write a short story, or even had any desire to write one, had anyone asked me what my perception was of this type of writing, I would respond that I thought it was probably quite easy - that it was certainly an easier mode of writing to pursue. But in a couple years that changed and I now find myself eating my words. Having initially tried and failed to write a number of short stories, I then found myself attending various workshops and reading tips online to try to understand why I was failing so miserably at grasping this art. And so, through a lot of study and practice I slowly learnt that there is indeed a large amount of skill required when it comes to this genre of writing, and that patience with both the story and the pace at which the story is born are crucial to your success.
There are lots of reasons why short stories are hard to write:
Thinking it is easy- There is often an under-estimation of just how hard short stories are to write. Because of that most individuals approach it as an easy task and leads them to take on this art under-prepared. Just because it is a short story and not a novel does not mean it is an easier; in fact some might find writing short stories a harder task.
Lack of preparation- Writing well is an art; it requires study and practice. Many people find it difficult to write a short story because they haven't spent sufficient time reading short works by other writers, or looking into the skills and techniques needed to grasp the crucial techniques. It just like doing a research paper in college, you aren’t going to start writing without any knowledge about your subject. If you are serious about writing then you need to spend time researching the art of writing before you dive headfirst into the action.
Jump into Action- Short stories are by default...short!! This means that you are limited in the number of words that you have available for setting the scene at the beginning of the piece, and so you must be brave and leap right into the action. For writers who are used to writing longer novellas or novels, this can be challenging. It takes some practice to condense your writing and clearly get the message across.
Use of Diction- Some short stories don't use any diction, but rely solely on the narrator to guide the reader through the story. Others use diction as the focus of the text, and this helps set the pace, action and tone of the piece. But with only a few hundred or thousand words at your disposal, the use of diction must to be perfect if it is going to work as the driving force throughout the story.
Use of Language- If you are writing a story that does not use diction as the driving force then you need to rely on descriptive language. But as with diction, the use of words and thus the use of time are limited significantly in a short story. Often individuals find it very difficult to write a short piece because they find it very hard to make every word of language count.
In conclusion this form of writing is not as simple as you may think but don’t give up hope. It is going to take research and practice but if you have a true love for writing then the outcome will be worth it.

© Heather Kraus
Source: Free Guest Posting Articles from ArticlesFactory.com