7 Minutes a Day to Mastering the Craft of Writing: A Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming a Better Fiction Writer
Rob Bignell
Language: English
Pages: 116
ISBN: 0989672336
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
You’ve written a short story or a novel. You keep receiving rejection slips from editors and publishing houses … and now you’re not sure it’s good enough to self-publish. You know the story needs a rewrite, yet you don’t know how to improve it … besides, work or school is hectic, the house needs to be cleaned, and the kids demand your attention, so who has time? … But we bet you can find just 7 minutes a day to achieve your dream of getting that story published.
If you can, this is the book for you. This practical, how-to guide will take you step-by-step through improving your story and fiction writing skills – with just 7 minutes of work required a day. You’ll complete short, skillful exercises that allow you to rewrite your novel or short story as you read this book, all the while getting the encouragement and motivation needed to keep you going.
You’ll receive expert advice on topics like:
>Ramping up your story’s dramatic tension
>Ensuring your sentences pop with energy
>Giving your writing flavor and texture
>Layering descriptions with symbolic meaning
>Avoiding common novice mistakes
What are you waiting for? Let’s become a better fiction writer today!
is how this book’s right margin is printed (all letters end at an imaginary vertical line). >>Justification – This either can refer to the alignment selected or to where your lines end at the bottom of the page. Regarding the latter, presuming the text fills the entire page, you want the last line of every page to end at exactly where the bottom margin begins. You wouldn’t want the text to end a half-inch from the page’s bottom on an even-numbered page but then 4/7 of an inch from the page’s
other side or form an image on the opposite page because it didn’t have enough time to dry. These problems often occur in newspapers, which use about the lowest quality paper around due to its cheap price. When deciding on the quality of paper, two factors come into play. First is if you will be printing solely in black and white or if there will be color. If there is color, you’ll want a higher quality paper than would be necessary for black and white. The second factor is the color of the
philosophy, promulgated by pulp magazines, that the cover didn’t need to have much at all to do with the story but did need to make clear to readers what genre the book came from. Another question to ask is if you should go with a photograph or an illustration. Often the latter works better for the artist can be more dramatic (as is the case with a romance or science fiction novel). Hiring an illustrator, however, can be expensive. If you can find a single common object that illustrates what
distribute your book. An ISBN is required by law on books you sell, and with the barcode is used by your distributor to track the book from printer to warehouse to shipping route to sale online or brick and mortar store. Tuck these two items at the bottom of the back cover where they won’t distract a potential buyer (Indeed, many self-publishing companies require that it appear in the back cover’s lower right corner). You Do It Look back at the author’s bio you wrote in Step 23. Now write a
to meet the fair use standard, include: >>Quoting other books or material – Don’t quote more than 250 words from a book or 10 percent of an article (magazine, newspaper, website), letter or diary. For poetry, limit yourself to two lines. >>Quoting song lyrics – Don’t quote more than two lines. >>Developing a character used in another person’s work – You’ll likely violate trademark law if using a character from another person’s novel, movie or television show done since 1923. Many characters