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Should you ever give up on a story?
The answer is, yes and no.Put very simply, you shouldn’t walk away from everything that gets you frustrated. In every story I’ve written I’ve felt that way at some point. It is a natural part of the writing process. The trick is to realise when enough is enough…
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008: What have you got to lose?
In this week’s podcast, I keep the topic a surprise from Jen and put her on the spot about what’s holding her back from putting her work out there more. Here are some of the reasons we touch on in this episode. Maybe you can relate to some of them? Perfectionism and never being completely…
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How artwork brings writing to life
This week, I am extremely excited to be writing an article about the illustrations used in Firewords. I deal with the proofreading and editorial side of each issue so I approach the illustrations as an enthusiastic reader. This article will come from the eyes of a novice. It will describe what illustrations can bring to…
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Strong verbs for powerful writing
Those of you who read our article about the middle of short stories and how important it is to keep reader engagement will remember that we touched on the significance of strong verbs. These can be replaced by writers who think it is more effective to use adverbs say, for example, ‘He laughed heartily’, when…
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006: What makes a winning story?
With Issue 8 fresh off the press, we are excited to be publishing the winners of our visual prompt competition, run in partnership with Bloomsbury and Writers & Artists. Maggie Chiang, illustrator and past-contributor of Firewords, created a wonderful visual which we asked people to base a short story on. The response and results were…
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Crafting the perfect story – Part 2: The middle
This is part 2 of a series of articles about the different elements of a short story. If you followed Part 1, you’ve now got a strong opening and the reader is in the palm of your hand. The middle can be difficult to get right because it’s the meat of the story. The start…
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005: Why feedback is the secret to improving your writing
In this week’s episode, we discuss different ways that you can use feedback – both from Firewords and other sources – to improve your writing on a continual basis. We also have three suggestions on where you can find this elusive feedback. A lot of people treat writing as a solitary activity, but putting your…
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Make your reader feel something
Writing with a good degree of sentimentality is a tricky thing for any writer to do well. There is a fine line to walk between being sickeningly sweet and turning your back on emotion altogether. These two pitfalls, which we see regularly, are:Writing for sentimentality’s sake. Here, the writer seems more concerned about the effect…
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Make your reader feel something
Writing with a good degree of sentimentality is a tricky thing for any writer to do well. There is a fine line to walk between being sickeningly sweet and turning your back on emotion altogether. These two pitfalls, which we see regularly, are:Writing for sentimentality’s sake. Here, the writer seems more concerned about the effect…
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Crafting the perfect story – Part 1: The beginning
This is the first of a series of articles in which we split the short story form into 3 parts: the beginning, the middle and the end. Each is important to get right in order to grab your reader’s attention, keep them entertained and make the whole thing worth their while. No pressure then!We’re starting…