advice

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

In the last episode of the Firewords podcast we talked all about the submission process and everything it involves. The following question was one we received afterwards, asking us to delve deeper on a specific point.“You mentioned past publishing credits briefly in this week’s podcast but I just wanted to ask a few follow-up questions…

‘Write with an active voice’ is advice that is often doled out, but what does it mean? Even if you know this already, brushing up on the basics is never a bad thing.Most verbs, or at least those that are related to something or someone (known as transitive verbs), have both an active and passive…

‘Write with an active voice’ is advice that is often doled out, but what does it mean? Even if you know this already, brushing up on the basics is never a bad thing.Most verbs, or at least those that are related to something or someone (known as transitive verbs), have both an active and passive…

This week’s article is going to come with a mainly editorial, rather than writer’s, hat on. It’s important to know that we expect some short stories to be submitted to other publications as well as to Firewords. We don’t think it’s right for a journal to demand any kind of exclusivity before they have even…