Writing Archives

Using Personality Tests to Develop Characters

Procrastinating again, I somehow went from freewriting to taking random personality tests online. And then it hit me: couldn’t this be put to use? Whether or not a personality test is accurate, the questions could certainly spark some ideas about a character!

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The Difference Between Plot and Story

When looking at some sites about plot and story, I ran across this quote (or misquote?) a few times:

The king died and then the queen died.

The king died and then the queen died of grief.

The first sentence is a story, while the second is a plot.

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Drabble: Stories Told in 100 Words

A drabble is a 100-word story, a special kind of flash fiction. The name comes from Monty Python’s Big Red Book: “Drabble. A word game for 2 to 4 players. The four players sit from left to right and the first person to write a novel wins.”

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Four Ways to Use Google as a Writing Tool

Aside from the obvious uses for research and finding writing-related sites, I often use Google to fine-tune my writing itself. Here are some tips with examples.

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Describing Color

After writing a few posts about color, I came across some interesting pages that made me think about the words used to describe colors.

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The Top 7 Writing Contests to Enter in 2007

Here’s some incentive to write more next year: the largest prize I’ve found so far is $100,000 for a novel, plus publication! If you haven’t written a novel yet, you can still win anywhere from $1,200 to $3,500 for your stories, poems, and essays. So, what are you waiting for? Start submitting!

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Copywriting for the College Application Essay

I’ve been following Brian Clark’s posts on Copyblogger for a while now, hoping I’d pick up some tips for writing catchy headlines and compelling blog posts. Little did I know that Brian’s copywriting advice would end up helping me with my college application essay!

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