Category > Writing Advice

500 Words

In case you missed it, check out this brilliant short story writing contest for kids aged 13 and under – sponsored by BBC Radio 2! 500 Words was launched on this morning’s Chris Evans Breakfast Show.  All you have to do is write and submit a story of 500 words or under, and you could [...]

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On Being Inappropriate

Moving (gratefully) to cojones of a metaphorical nature, I’m enormously inspired by this awesome interview with Maurice Sendak, which I caught last week on Boing Boing. Anyone hoping for a sequel to Where the Wild Things Are might want to prepare themselves for bad news, though. ;p Sam

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How To End A Story, How To Rant On Facebook

Whatever desire or need drives the story is fulfilled or finally dashed at the end. If anyone is struggling with their ending, it’s usually because there isn’t a strong enough desire or need driving their story. This is a problem with their story, their character, their entire world and everything they’ve written.

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Bringing Boys to Books

If you’re interested in writing for children, and boys especially – you might like to read an article I’ve written for the October issue of Writing Magazine. Bringing Boys to Books looks at everything from plotting with boys in mind, to writing techniques that will help reluctant readers stick with your story and root for [...]

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Putting in Chapters and Rewriting

Some writers do their plan in chapters – they work out what’s going to happen in each chapter. I don’t do that…

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Submitting Your Manuscript

Recently, I received an email from a Scream Street reader called Emily.  She asked a very important question… — Dear Tommy,                  It’s me again, Emily. I’ve written to you before and sent you a picture and I said I wanted to be an author when I grew up? I’m sorry to bother you again, [...]

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How To Promote Your Books Online – Part 2

It seems as if social networks are always in the news these days – whether it’s an unsigned band being snapped up through their MySpace page, the usual round of Facebook privacy issues or Stephen Fry’s latest pithy remark on Twitter.  Whether you use social media or not, all those column inches should tell you [...]

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How To Promote Your Books Online – Part 1

Admit it.  Go on…  Just to yourself.  You know you should be doing more to promote your books online.  Everybody’s talking about the benefits of it these days and, deep down, you’ve got that nagging feeling that you could be doing more. The problem is, no-one tells you how to promote yourself on the Internet.  [...]

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Phonetic Punctuation

Punctuation marks are brilliant!  There’s one right there – at the end of that last sentence.  And other one there… Commas, full stops (called periods in America), and exclamation marks are just a few of the tools we can use in written language to make sure that what we want to say is understood by [...]

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Wordies Episode 3

Have you ever wondered what mistakes new writers make in approaching agents or publishers?  Or what is the greatest opening line of a novel?  Or why the topic of elf costumes would reduce two fully grown men into fits of giggles? Then Wordies is for you! Wordies is a new podcast for writers and by [...]

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