Posts tagged writing tips
June 10, 2013 · Filed under Authors, Books, New Zealand, Star Author, Writing · Tagged June 2013 Star Author, Leonie Agnew, New Zealand author, Star Author, Super Finn, The Importance of Green, writing tips
And then, there was me.
Yep, I’m Leonie Agnew, the next Star Author for June and I’ve nothing to say. I’m not giving you a single writing tip. Not one. Why?
Because you might learn something useful.
I can’t have that. You might write your own book. And when you’re sunning yourself by the pool outside your billion dollar mansion, sipping drinks from diamond studded goblets and snap chatting with J K Rowling … guess what you’ll be? MY COMPETITION!
I will be extra grumpy because I drink out of plastic cups, don’t own a tent, let alone a mansion and well, J K keeps ignoring my tweets. Can’t imagine why.
Anyway, the point is, my lips are sealed. I won’t tell you about the children’s writer’s conference in Christchurch. I certainly won’t mention the workshop on editing with Joanna Orwin. Instead, I will take her tips to my grave, written in microfiche and encased in glass, worn around my wrist and disguised as a friendship bead. Why should I tell anyone about the importance of editing and taking out adverbs, even if it does avoid unnecessary description and make your writing sharp?
She also told me something so top-secret, I’m thinking of writing it down with heat sensitive ink. That way, when historians dig up my body and find the bead (and they will, mark my words), the warmth from their breath will make the words evaporate. Clever, right?
No one will ever know Joanna said take words out and add words in – necessary if you haven’t milked the crucial moments in your chapter. That’s like, after the big moment in each chapter, you need to show the main character’s emotional reaction, not just the physical. So if your character wants to run away, it pays to make them think about it first. Understanding character motivation helps the reader to care and keeps them turning pages.
Yep, wild horses couldn’t drag that information from me. Oh … darn.
Right.
Well … give J K Rowling my best, okay? I will come to all your book launches and eat the free food. Mostly because I’ll be unemployed and starving.
Bye for now,
Leonie Agnew
P.S. I think I was supposed to tell you stuff about me. I’m the author of Super Finn and The Importance of Green. That’s a start. Stay tuned and I’ll tell you facts about my life that may or may not be true.
Usually I tell the truth, until I get bored. But it’s not telling lies. When you write lies down it’s called writing fiction, and that’s completely okay. Just ask your librarian.
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April 29, 2013 · Filed under Authors, Books, Children, Competitions, Fun, writers, Writing · Tagged Andy Griffiths, competition, funny, Once Upon a Slime, Terry Denton, writing, writing tips
Want something to do these holidays? Enter the Andy Griffiths writing challenge and you could win a Typo prize pack.
Andy Griffiths, the author of Just Crazy, Just Tricking, Zombie Bums from Uranus and The 13-storey Treehouse, has just released his book about writing, called Once Upon a Slime. In this very cool book he gives lots of tips about writing and some activities to help you become a better writer. You’re probably looking for something to do in the holidays so why not try an Andy Griffiths writing challenge.
In the box below there is a writing challenge from Andy’s book, Once Upon a Slime. Why not try it out and post your writing here on the blog. Just post your piece of writing as a comment at the end of this post, along with your name and email address. At the end of the week we’ll choose our favourite piece of writing and the author will win a prize pack of goodies from Typo.
Write a story starring YOU!
You don’t have to be able to make up imaginary characters or exotic settings to tell a good story. A fast way to create fun, believable-sounding stories is to start with the character you know best in the whole world (YOU!). Choose one of the following scenarios and describe what you would do and what happens next.
- You wake to discover that you can no longer speak – you can only bark like a dog.
- You are in class. It’s a hot day. Your friend starts taking off their clothes…their shirt…their shoes…their socks…their pants!
- You have a strong suspicion that your teacher is a vampire and, worse still, you suspect that they know you have discovered their secret.
So get writing and see what you can come up with!
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November 29, 2012 · Filed under Books, Star Author, Writing · Tagged Anne Ylvisaker, Button Down, Star Author, The Luck of the Buttons, writing tips
How much time do you spend doing nothing? Nothing as in being by yourself without the TV on, without your phone or computer or even a book. If you want to write, learning to do nothing is an important skill to develop.
In her book If You Want to Write, Author Brenda Ueland calls this “moodling” time. Moodling is letting your mind wander and explore without distraction, allowing it to work out problems and find ideas.
I was moodling one day a few years ago in my house in Iowa. There was a picture on the wall of my great-grandparents on a rickety porch with chickens running around in the yard. I looked at that picture and let my mind wander for a long while.
I let one thought lead to another and then another, from that photo to a tombstone in a prairie cemetery with the name I’d misread as “Tugs Button,” to my grandmother and her long gangly arms and something her father had said to her once about not getting a swell head.
The thoughts piled one on top of another until an idea sprouted. I took that idea for a walk in the woods and let it grow a little taller. I sat again in front of the picture until the idea bloomed, then I picked up a pen and started scrawling loose sentences.
All the time that may have looked to an observer like I was being unproductive, I was actually growing a story that turned into three books about the comically unlucky Button family: The Luck of the Buttons, Button Down, and a third that I’m writing and moodling over now.
Do you want to write? Put down your pen, turn off the TV and radio and computer and phone. It’s time to do nothing!
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November 14, 2012 · Filed under Books, Star Author, Writing · Tagged Anne Ylvisaker, November 2012 Star Author, Star Author, writing tips
I am a collector of small things. One of the great things about being a writer is that even a hobby like collecting can be part of the job. Do you like to write? Here are a three collections you could start for yourself.
I’ve been collecting postcards and photographs since my great aunt started sending me art postcards before I could read or write. Hundreds of postcards and photographs fit nicely in a shoebox. Read my last post to discover how collecting images inspires my writing.
In elementary school I started collecting names. The smallest notebook has space for dozens of names. Characters like LeRoy Pence (Dear Papa), Harold Sylvester George Klein (Little Klein), and Verlon Leek (Button Down) were inspired by names I collected as far back as 3rd grade. Whenever you hear a name that you like the sound of, or is interesting to you, write it down.
And my favorite tiny collection? Words. I keep my words on small slips of paper in an ordinary jar. Sometimes a word just strikes my fancy and I’ll write it down: labyrinth. If I’m feeling verb-y, I’ll go to a cookbook and write down all the action words: mix, stir, whisk, sift… Sometimes I start thinking of a group of words and add a bunch at once. Recently I added words I like saying out loud: Iowa, Ohio, Maori, autumn, iota, swift, oriel, oleo.
I started collecting words with my writers group several years ago. We drew words from our word jars each time we met, then each of us would write something using the same four words for our next meeting.
Every chapter in Little Klein was written using those word jar words. Harold turns out to be sickly so I could have his mother warm a teakettle day and night. A storm arose when I had to use the word wind.
If you like to write, I think you’ll have as much fun as I do collecting pictures, names, and words. Better yet, grab a friend and start collecting together. Then watch your writing soar!
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November 6, 2012 · Filed under Authors, Books, History, Star Author, Writing · Tagged Anne Ylvisaker, November 2012 Star Author, November Star Author, writing tips
DEAR PAPA is fiction, but it was inspired by family photographs, three of which appear on the cover of the book.
Say two writers get this assignment: Write about an elephant.
One writer thinks: What happens to the elephant?
The other thinks: Who is the elephant?
One writer starts by considering story, the other by considering character.
I am the second kind of writer. I can’t start writing a story until I know my main character.
So where do characters come from? For me, it all begins with pictures. After my first post, commenter Ella shared that she’d read Dear Papa, so I’ll use Dear Papa as an example.
My grandpa died when my mom and her siblings were young so I never met him. I asked my aunt once what he was like. She started by telling me that she wrote a letter to him before he died when she was in fifth grade. I asked to see the letter but we couldn’t find it. What we found instead were boxes of old family photographs.
I was particularly taken with a picture of my aunt as a child. This looks like a girl who could have an adventure, I thought. As is my way, I misremembered the facts and thought she’d told me that she had written her father a letter after he died.
I couldn’t stop thinking about that girl and her letter. So, with the photo taped on my computer screen in front of me, I wrote a letter like I thought she might have written, made up a name for her, then invented an adventure for her and just kept writing.
Here’s a writing game for you:
Look for a childhood picture of one of your parents or grandparents, aunts or uncles. Spend some time imagining what they might have been like as a child.
Study the picture and ask yourself, what could have been happening right before the picture was taken, what might have happened afterwards? Then set your timer (see last post) and see where your imagination takes you!
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July 28, 2012 · Filed under Authors, New Zealand, Star Author, writers, Writing Tip of the Week · Tagged characters, July 2012 Star Author, Melinda Szymanik, New Zealand author, Star Author, writing tips
So you have worked out a plot. You know how your story starts and where you would like it to end but before you can begin writing it pays to think about your characters. I have some rules that will help you write great characters and also help you write great stories
1) Don’t have too many. Lots of characters are not only confusing to write about, they are confusing to keep track of when you read
2) Its often less important how they look (blue eyes and blond hair is unlikely to have any affect on how they solve their problem and achieve their goals in your story) and more important how they behave. Are they polite and respectful, angry, sad, or rebellious? Are they good at art, maths, good with friends, awkward, or shy??? Do they watch a lot of tv, or read a lot of books? Are they sporty and adventurous? Do they pick their nose, obey their parents, lie, or avoid their homework?
3) Little details can tell you a lot about a person. Do they wear nail polish to school when the school rules forbid it? Do they wear odd socks because home life is disorganised or they think it looks cool? Is that scar from an accident or where they were marked by their enemy? Do they sniff a lot (allergies, bad cold, bad habit?)?
4) The better you know what kind of person your main character is the easier it is to figure out how they are going to deal with the problems you throw at them in your story. Are they the kind of person to solve their problems alone or will they get friends to help? Do they have special skills or talents or are they brave and determined?
5) In the best stories the main character will change or learn something as they solve their problem. Maybe they are a loner who needs to work with others to fight the bad guy. Or perhaps they have to overcome their shyness or their fear. if you have an idea what that change is it will make it easier to write the story.
6) The right name can make a big difference. Calling your character Myrtle or Arthur will have a different affect on your reader, compared with calling them Hannah or Josh. Voldemort would never skip, sing nursery rhymes or smell flowers but then Suzy is unlikely to use the killing curse.
7) Don’t be afraid to have your character behave or react as you would behave or react. It helps make them more real to your reader. My characters often have bits of me in them but because I mix in some qualities I would like to have and then add a few other qualities no one can tell which part is which.
8) No one is perfect. Your character shouldn’t be perfect either. The best characters have good qualities as well as bad qualities.
Good luck with your characters. The better you know them the easier they will be to write about and the more fun they will be to read about.
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July 9, 2012 · Filed under Authors, Books, Star Author, writers, Writing Tip of the Week · Tagged curiosity, experience, imagination, July 2012 Star Author, Melinda Szymanik, New Zealand author, Star Author, where do ideas come from, writing, writing tips
As well as talking about books and reading on this blog I thought it might be useful and fun to talk about writing. Over the next few weeks I’ll share my thoughts on plot and characters and names and all the twiddly bits that you need to think about when you are creating your own stories. A good place to start is ‘ideas’. A question I almost always get when I am visiting schools and talking with groups about writing is, ‘where do you get your ideas from?’ My answer is that ideas are everywhere – out there in the world in day to day life, out in the playground, at home, in the conversations I have with people, on tv, at the movies, in the news and newspapers and of course in the books you read. Now if you are just starting out with your writing and you are having trouble coming up with good ideas this answer isn’t very helpful at all. But there are three things I can tell you that may help.
1) Before you can find your own ideas, you must know what a good idea looks like. The best way to do this is to read a lot. If you really want to write you need to start asking why you liked a particular book and what was so good about the story. I also ask these questions when I am watching a good movie or television programme. Part of the idea for my novel Jack the Viking came from watching the third Lord of the Rings movie. And the more you read, the more you discover how inspiring language can be. Sometimes my ideas spring from a few words that are combined in just the right way to get my brain turning excited somersaults.
2) Start with simple ideas. My summer holiday. The first time I cooked. We got a dog/a cat/ a bird. We lost a dog/a cat/ a bird. Starting a new school. The thing that went bump.
The wonderful thing about how we get ideas is that it is like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the bigger and stronger it gets and the better it works. It can take a little while to build up this muscle but giving it regular exercise is a good idea.
3) I think ideas come from 3 things – experience, imagination and curiosity. My stories tend to be a mixture of all three but if you are a bit short on one of those three things, try making up for it with one of the other things. When I watched the third Lord of the Rings movie I was curious about what would happen if you put a modern day boy into a battle from a thousand years ago and that’s what inspired Jack the Viking. But I also used my own experiences to create the central character and his day to day life, and my imagination to help describe places I’ve never been to (a thousand years ago). The more things I do and see, the more ideas I get. The more I read and watch, the more my imagination grows. The more I ask questions, the more interesting the answers are to me.
So if you are having a hard time coming up with good story ideas, don’t worry – read lots, try and think about what made your favourite stories good, practice with different ideas, and remember ideas come from the things you do, the questions you ask, and your own imagination.
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June 26, 2012 · Filed under Authors, Books, Children, New Zealand, Star Author, writers, Writing Tip of the Week · Tagged June 2012 Star Author, June Star Author, New Zealand author, Star Author, Susan Brocker, writing, writing tips
Hi everyone, I hope you all had a great weekend. I was lucky enough to see the comedian Lenny Henry on Sunday night, which was a lot of fun. I’m still in a light mood, so thought I’d share some fun rules on writing. The biggest part of a writer’s life is checking and rechecking work for grammatical mistakes and other errors. I have a fun list next to my computer screen which helps me with this. Here are some pointers:
1. Don’t abbrev.
2. Check to see if you any words out.
3. Be carefully to use adjectives and adverbs correct.
4. Don’t use no double negatives.
5. Just between you and I, case is important.
6. Don’t use commas, that aren’t necessary.
7. Its important to use apostrophe’s right.
8. It’s better not to unnecessarily split an infinitive.
9. Only Proper Nouns should be capitalized. also a sentence should begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop
10. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
11. Avoid unnecessary redundancy.
12. A writer mustn’t shift your point of view.
13. Don’t write a run-on sentence you’ve got to punctuate it.
14. A preposition isn’t a good thing to end a sentence with.
15. Avoid cliches like the plague.
16. 1 final thing is to never start a sentence with a number.
17. Always check your work for accuracy and completeness.
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June 13, 2012 · Filed under Authors, Books, Children, New Zealand, writers, Writing Tip of the Week · Tagged June 2012 Star Author, New Zealand author, Star Author, Susan Brocker, writer, writing tips
For those of you who love writing, I thought I would share some tips that have helped me on my own writing journey:
* Write about what interests you and then your passion will shine through in your writing.
* Great stories involve the main character facing a problem or obstacle and overcoming it through their own efforts. The main character grows and changes as a result.
* Great stories need great characters. Characters must be both interesting and believable. And remember your main character shouldn’t be perfect: even Batman has his weak spots.
* Use all the five senses when you write; describe scenes or action using sight, hearing, touch, smell, and even taste.
* Use strong and interesting verbs. Instead of “he walked to school” what about “he trudged to school” or “she skipped to school”; they convey more emotion and meaning.
* Show, don’t tell in your stories. For example, if your character is unhappy, don’t tell your reader by writing “Susan was unhappy.” Instead show how Susan is unhappy: for example, “The tears tumbled down her cheeks.”
*Start your stories with a great hook that will make your reader want to continue reading. And end chapters with a cliffhanger or a question not answered so readers want to turn to the next chapter to find out what happens.
* Writing is a craft: the more you practice it the better you’ll get!
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October 29, 2011 · Filed under Books, Star Author, Writing Tip of the Week · Tagged New Zealand author, Star Author, writing, writing tips
When writing fiction it’s often better to ‘show’ the reader what is happening, than ‘tell’ the reader everything. For example, you can tell the reader, ‘Ziggy was sweaty’, but I’d rather show the reader with ‘Sweat trickled down Ziggy’s neck.’ Adding sensory detail helps to show what is happening – it helps the reader to picture what a character is experiencing.
One way to make sure you’re not ‘telling’ too much is to use verbs (eg. trickled) rather than adjectives (eg. sweaty). For example I might write, ‘Florian was angry’ (adjective) but ‘Florian smashed (verb) his fist into the wall’ is stronger. And Sting is a better title than ‘Sharp thing’. If you have to use adjectives then one adjective per noun is enough; and you don’t need many adverbs either (eg. not needed in: Florian angrily smashed his fist’)
This is my last post. Thank you Zac and the Christchurch libraries, it’s been fun.
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October 21, 2011 · Filed under Author Interview, Books, Star Author, writers, Writing Tip of the Week · Tagged Huber, Star Author, writing, writing tips
There are four forces involved in writing fiction: imagining, writing, editing, and hoping.
1. Imagination is the basis of all writing. This force is centred in your brain which is incredibly powerful 
at wielding it. The force of imagination has infinite range and you’ll find there’s no shortage of story ideas in the world. Science is a wonderfully bizarre source (I even used it to frame this blog). Photo: story characters are everywhere.
2. Writing is work. It seems to be such a weak force: putting one word after another; sentence by sentence. But if you keep going, the force evolves the words into something remarkable– story.
3. Editing is the refining force in fiction. It’s a strong force that can be applied by cutting needless words and shaking the story up.
4. Hope is vital for a writer. When you feel your story is worthless and you think you can’t write, hope keeps you going. Like gravity, it keeps writers grounded, and like imagination, it has infinite range.
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September 28, 2011 · Filed under Children, Fun, Star Author, Writing Tip of the Week · Tagged Authors, Sally Murphy, September Star Author, writing, writing tips
Oh dear. My month as Star Author is rapidly drawing to a close. I have really enjoyed spending time, if only virtually, in Christchurch.
As this is one of my last posts, I thought I might stop talking about myself and offer something to you. If you are reading this, chances are you love reading and/or writing. So I thought you might enjoy some quick writing activities that you can do to get yourself writing. Grab a pen and paper, and sit yourself down, then choose one of these exercise and just write.
- Write a sentence where every word starts with the next letter of the alphabet – a, b, c and so on. (for example A brown cat dropped everything…). Don’t worry if it is silly or even ungrammatical. Just see what comes out.
- Write for as long as you can without using the letter ‘e’. Again, don’t worry if it’s a little ungrammatical or silly.
- Same as 2, but this time see how long you can write without using the word ‘and’.
- Find five random words by opening a book or dictionary and picking the first word you see on five different pages. Or get someone else to give you five random words. Then write a sentence, paragraph or even a story which includes all five words.
- Open the book you’re currently reading (you are reading one, aren’t you) at any page, and copy out the first sentence of the second paragraph. Now, close the book and start writing, using that sentence as the first sentence of a completely new piece of writing.
Chances are, none of these exercises will produce an absolute masterpiece. But they will challenge you, might make you laugh, and will help get your creative juices flowing.
Have fun. If you’re brave enough, post one of your efforts here as a comment for the world to see.
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June 22, 2011 · Filed under Authors, Books, Children, writers · Tagged June Star Author, Kyle Mewburn, narrative, tips, writing tips, zombies
Hi again!
So did anyone notice last night was the longest night of the year? I didn’t. I went to bed very early and slept right through until 7.30 this morning. I love sleeping. It’s my third favourite thing after eating and writing. What’s YOUR favourite thing?
Speaking of writing, Alara asked yesterday if I could give some tips on writing a professional narrative. So here are my top tips.
- Start off with a BANG!! The library is full of books. (If you haven’t noticed!) So, as a writer, you have to hook your reader from the first few lines. Your story might be the most exciting story in the world, but if the first page isn’t exciting, only your mother or teacher will keep reading. So before you start writing, you have to figure out the most exciting starting point for your story. Writing the first few lines is usually the hardest part.
- And then … While writing your story, keep asking yourself “and then what happens?” Once you think you know what’s going to happen, stop for a second and ask yourself – “Is that really the most exciting thing that can happen?” or “Is that the best thing that can happen to make my story the best story it can be?” When I’m writing, I have hundreds of ideas whizzing around in my head. The hard part is choosing which one of my ideas is the best idea for my story. Like when I was writing DO NOT PUSH, I didn’t know what was going to happen when Cam pushed the button. All I knew was he WAS going to push the button. Anything could have happened, really. And I could probably write a thousand different stories about it. (Especially if I stole some of YOUR ideas! hehehehehehe) But in the end I had to choose just ONE idea – the idea I thought would make the best story.
- Remember your characters are NOT ZOMBIES! I bet you can all write amazingly exciting stories with lots of action. But to make your story even better, try to remember that your characters are always THINKING and FEELING. Every time something happens, ask yourself – “What is my character thinking or feeling?” The readers don’t need to know everything your character thinks and feels, but YOU DO! By adding a thought or feeling sometimes, the reader gets to know your character a bit better. And the more your readers like your characters, or understand them, the more likely they’ll not only finish your story, but like your story!
- Learn to be a reader! I don’t read boring books. Or books that are badly written. I bet YOU don’t either. And when I write a story, I always think MY stories are brilliant!! Even when they’re not. So I have to put my story away a while then read it again, this time pretending I DIDN’T write it. I pretend I just found the story lying around and don’t know who wrote it. Is it a story worth reading? As I read my story, I try to be super-critical. I try to find every mistake, every bad sentence and every bit that isn’t totally exciting. Then I go back and re-write my story.
- Re-write!! Re-write! Re-write! Keep writing your story until it’s as good as you can make it.
Oh, and there’s one more important tip - MAKE SURE YOU FINISH!! Once you start a story, you have to finish it!
OK, so those are a few of my tips. Every writer has their own tips, and their own way of writing. In the end, you have to figure out how YOU write best. Good luck!
Kyle
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May 11, 2011 · Filed under Authors, Books, Children, New Zealand, Star Author, writers · Tagged May Star Author, New Zealand author, Sharon Holt, Star Author, writing secrets, writing tips
Hello from another dank and dull Waikato Wednesday!
I hope you enjoy alliteration. And I hope your Christchurch weather is brighter than mine. You may or may not have noticed that I have been blogging on the even numbered days of the month. This is partly deliberate and partly to keep me organised. However, I am off to Auckland early tomorrow morning (the 12th) for secret research mission and I won’t be near a computer with bloggability. So I’m giving you tomorrow’s writing tip today. Hopefully I’ll be back to even numbered days on the 14th. We won’t mention Friday the 13th for obvious reasons. Anyway, here’s another tip! This is actually one of my favourites because it is SO GOOD IN SO MANY WAYS!
Writing Secret 2: Read your writing out loud
You can read your writing out loud to yourself or to another person. It doesn’t matter, as long as you read it out loud. I always do this. Here are the reasons:
1. When you read your writing out loud, you hear the rhythm of your words. Rhythmic language is much more satisfying to read. If your writing sounds like it flows, great. If you stumble when you read… not so good. Try rewriting those bits so they flow more easily when you read them aloud.
2. When you read your writing out loud, you find lots of errors that you missed before. I like good spelling, punctuation and grammar but sometimes my eyes miss the errors when I’m reading silently. Reading out loud makes it harder to miss the errors. If you find some, correct them.
3. When you read your writing out loud, you can tell if it’s boring or exciting! Enough said about that.
So there are three good reasons to read your writing out loud. Hope that helps.
Until next time,
Sharon
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May 10, 2011 · Filed under Authors, Children, Star Author, writers · Tagged Sharon Holt, Star Author, writing, writing secrets, writing tips
Hi there
In my first blog post I promised that I would reveal a few writing secrets. Here’s the first one: Write about what you Know
This morning my daughter told me about a writing assignment she has to do at school today. She has an idea for a story, but wasn’t sure how to stretch the idea out. I told her one of my writing secrets… write about things that you have really done, felt and experienced. So if you want to write about a farm, think back to a farm you visited. Remember the smells, sounds, sights and thoughts you had that day. You can put several ideas together from different farm visits too. The key is to make your writing seem “real” to the reader. If you haven’t been to a farm – ever – then it’s pretty hard to write about it. Seeing something on television or in a picture helps a bit, but your writing isn’t quite the same as the writing of someone who has really experienced a visit to a farm. It’s the real life experiences you write about that make your reader want to keep reading.
For example, in my book called “No Survivors”, I wrote about the main character being bullied at the bike shed for the diary entry on Tuesday 4 September. If you get a chance to read that bit, you’ll understand what I mean. There is no way I could have written that if it hadn’t really happened to me. Your writing doesn’t have to be totally about things you have really done and seen. However, if you add plenty of “real” stuff from your own experience, it will be much more interesting to the reader. Hope that helps!
Sharon
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October 15, 2010 · Filed under Authors, Children, New Zealand, writers, Writing Tip of the Week · Tagged author, Brian Falkner, LibraryZac, New Zealand author, writing, Writing Tip of the Week, writing tips
This week’s writing tip comes from Brian Falkner, author of Tomorrow Code, Henry and the Flea, Brainjack, and his new book The Project.
“Writing is like learning to walk. You fall down, you get back up and try again. Little by little you learn from your mistakes. You get better and better at it, and one day it just happens and it is a magical moment.”
If you want to find out more about Brian Falkner’s books and writing, you can visit his cool website or read his Star Author posts here on the blog.
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October 8, 2010 · Filed under Authors, Children, writers, Writing Tip of the Week · Tagged Authors, David Hill, writing, Writing Tip of the Week, writing tips
This week’s writing tips comes from New Zealand author David Hill, author of See Ya Simon, Fat, Four-Eyed and Useless, and Running Hot.
“a. Read heaps. The more you read, the more ideas you get.
b. Don’t throw any of your writing away.
c. Start sending work away to places like The School Journal.”
You can read our full interview with David Hill on the Interviews with New Zealand Authors page.
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October 1, 2010 · Filed under Authors, Books, Children, Fantasy, writers, Writing Tip of the Week · Tagged Erin Hunter, LibraryZac, Seekers, Warriors, writing, Writing Tip of the Week, writing tips
This week’s writing tip comes from Erin Hunter, creator of the Warriors and Seekers series.
“Make sure you read a variety of stories: fantasy stories teach you about making up completely new worlds, crime-solving stories teach you about handling a complicated plot, stories with lots of characters teach you how to describe relationships. Also, write as many stories as you can, even if no one else reads them.”
If you want to find out more about Erin Hunter and her books, check out her website. One thing I learnt from her website is that ‘Erin Hunter’ is actually four different authors writing under the same pen name.
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September 24, 2010 · Filed under Authors, Books, Children, writers, Writing Tip of the Week · Tagged Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Jeff Kinney, LibraryZac, Writing Tip of the Week, writing tips
This week’s writing tip comes from Jeff Kinney, author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.
“I would recommend to any kid out there to keep a journal. Most of my friends can’t remember much about their childhood at all, and they wish they could. Even if you only keep a journal for a short while, I guarantee that you’ll treasure it for the rest of your life.”
Check out Jeff Kinney’s very funny website if you’d like to find out more about the author and his books. You can also watch video’s, play games, and go behind-the-scenes of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie.
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September 17, 2010 · Filed under Authors, Books, Children, writers, Writing Tip of the Week · Tagged Astrosaurs, Steve Cole, Writing Tip of the Week, writing tips
This week’s writing tip comes from Steve Cole, author of Astrosaurs, Cows in Action, Slime Squad and Z-Rex.
“Grow a very thick skin and ask for criticism. Listening to criticism can help you to write better. Also, write as much as possible – the more you do, the better you get.”
You can read our interview with Steve Cole here on the blog. Also, check out Steve’s website for more information about his books, videos and cool free downloads.
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