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Short Non-Fiction Writing Exercises - Fictional Worlds

Review: Stephen King's On Writing

August 24th 2009 21:04
On Writing by Stephen King


Not having finished the book that I'm reading right now, which is a very very long book (but great) and not wanting to do a website review, I decided to review a great book I've already read.

Stephen King says early on that his book is short, because he doesn't want to fill it full of crap like most writing books are. (His words not mine) The book is half memoir, showing early experiences in his life that made him the writer he is today, and half writing tips and lessons.

Stephen King is a great writer, one of the most famous in the horror genre, and a favourite of mine that was also a favourite of Daddy's. Of all the books I've ever read by King, this is my absolute favourite. Why?

Because it doesn't have a bunch of nonsense in it, which was Stephen's goal. The information inside of it is pretty much applicable to any writer. The memories are funny and heart-wrenching and show us why Stephen chose to write horror. It's full of good advice, interesting information and it's all presented in a matter-of-fact kind of way, which I like.

On Writing is a great read for any writer, one to show a great style of writing, which would be King's, and two for great information and entertaining memories. It's totally worth the price.

On Writing On Amazon
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Outlines: An Article&Call For Help

August 23rd 2009 15:23
Fiction Factor: Outlining

The above is an article about outlining which some of you may find useful. It lists three different types of outline and describes them briefly with advantages and disadvantages. It's a good article on a great website for writers at every stage in their career.

There are also a couple outline-related questions that I would like to ask you guys, the readers. I gather you guys don't want to comment for whatever reason, because I rarely get comments, and when I do they're usually from one of two people. But I'm going to put the question out there and hope I get more of an answer this time.

The first question is what types of outlining methods have you tried? I'm looking to review a number of different types of outline. If you've tried a method of outlining, the information for which can be found online, either comment here with pros and cons of that method of outlining (and a brief description, plus a link to the article/site that talks about the outline) or send me an email with a critique of the method at diannalgunn@gmail.com

The second question is what is your favourite way to outline?

Leave a comment with your answers or email me at diannalgunn@gmail.com. I'd love to hear your opinions.

I will not be posting again until sometime tomorrow (Monday).

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Interesting Note

August 21st 2009 03:03
Looking through my daily Orble stats, I've noticed a trend. The entry that receives the most attention is an entry entitled The Hardships Of Character Death. This is a pretty old post and not nearly the most informative that I have written, but it seems to be drawing twice the attention of any of my other singular posts.

Just curious to my readers, what makes that post so special? Is it the personalization, the way I write to each of my characters, the descriptions of the characters, or is it just because a lot of writers struggle with killing their characters?

No matter what its appeal is, the appeal is definitely there because a lot of people are reading it;
makes me wonder. Eventually, I suppose, I will write more blog posts of the type, because I have a habit of killing a lot of characters and honouring them is a nice thing to do.

What do you like about that post? And if you have a blog, what is your most popular blog post, and can you figure out why?
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On Fiction: Outlining Part One

August 20th 2009 22:18
I've decided to write a series of posts about outlining. There will be five posts in this series, each one focusing on a different type of outlining. The first post will focus on my style of outline and the following ones will be reviews of different forms of outlining available online.

Not every type of outline works for every writer. Personally my outline is very basic, showing the biggest scenes that need to happen and what order they need to happen in. Some writers on the Nanowrimo forums (Kateness, who wrote 800K last year, being one of these) write outlines that can be up to 10, 000 words in and of themselves


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5 Fiction Markets

August 19th 2009 21:47
Here are 5 fiction markets I found on Duotrope's Digest:

1. Bards And Sages is a print/online magazine which publishes all forms of speculative fiction, short stories up to 2, 000 words. They pay $0.01 per word. Check out their guidelines, including some fine print at the bottom which clarifies copyright stuff


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Sunset On The Beach Part 2

August 19th 2009 18:18
sunset at Sauble beach

Sauble beach is pretty big. It's at least a few miles long, though I'm not sure where it ceases to be Sauble, or where it ceases to be beach. Earlier I saw at least a hundred people on the beach or in the water. Now most of them have gone back to their cottages for dinner, and many will not return until tomorrow afternoon.

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Sunset On The Beach Part 1

August 17th 2009 19:22
This exercise is a lot longer than the other so I'm going to post it in two parts. There will be a picture with the second part.
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Day #12: Editorial Calendar

August 17th 2009 07:53
I've been working through the 31 Days To A Better Blog workshop, and I've reached #12. Exercise number twelve is to design an editorial calendar, in other words a posting schedule.

Being a very fluid writer and blogger, I'm not sure how well this is going to work for me. I'm going to try a couple methods and see how they go. The first is a two week alternating schedule, which I'm going to try to keep to for at least three or four weeks to see how well it works for me


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5 Reasons To Start A Blog

August 17th 2009 06:32
In light of my recent blogaversary I've written some posts about blogging, which is not usually my focus here, as I like to focus more on fiction writing. (I do a lot more of that.) Over the last two years I've really come to love blogging. If you're a writer, and you don't have a blog, I think it's high time you started one.

Here are five reasons to start a blog


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Sunrise On The Beach

August 16th 2009 19:04
We arrived at the cottage around 3AM. People sat around, talked and drank until a little after 5AM at which point most of them went to bed. My mother's boyfriend and I went down to watch the sun rise over the water.

At Sauble Beach, the water goes as far as the eye can see, eventually blending with the sky at the horizon. Sauble is on lake Huron, and in the distance you can sort of see where Huron meets Michigan


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Book Review: Phantom Feast Diana Barron

August 16th 2009 09:23
There's a quite interesting story behind how I found this book. Diana Barron is a local (she's definitely Canadian, maybe not the same city but I think the same province) horror writer. In Toronto we have a literacy festival called Word on the Street every year. I don't always make it but I try to.

Two years ago I was there with my grandmother, and we ran into a good friend of mine. We were looking at the various horrors on the tables, and just happened to see this one. Diana Barron was there, signing books. My friend thought it would be pretty epic if I had a novel signed 'To Dianna from Diana' and bought me the book. We got her to sign it, and it is one of my autographed books-Newes from the Dead is as well-a collection I hope to build over the years


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I'm Back

August 15th 2009 20:50
Anyone who commented on the posts I've made over the last few days will notice that their comments are now being responded to-and thanks to everyone who's been reading-as I am back from the cottage.

I had a great time. I did pretty much everything I wanted to do in terms of writing except outlining the pre-Nano course I have planned. I went swimming twice every day except yesterday, when I only got down to the beach once (I wish I could've gone twice though). I watched the sun rise and set on the beach, and we had lots of fun with fire


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10 Things To Look Forward To On Fictional Worlds

August 14th 2009 00:11
This is a list of ten things you can look forward to here on this blog over the coming year. I've been planning quite a few workshops and things to do around here to make life more interesting. I've also been debating making a forum for these workshops. Anyone who would be willing to help me run it should contact me at diannalgunn@gmail.com about it.

Here are some things you can expect to see


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2 Year Blogaversary

August 13th 2009 23:40
This is my official two year blogaversary for Fictional Worlds. Today, that is. So I'm writing a special post to talk about the last two years of my writing.

When I first came here, I had never had a poem published. I was completely unknown, unheard of, and no, I could not be found on Google. But I did have one good thing going for me: a talent and passion for writing


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Day #7: Link Post-5 Great Writing Blogs

August 11th 2009 22:28
Continuing along, plodding as slowly as I am, I am now on the seventh excersize in 31 Days To A Better Blog. The ones that have been going on behind the scenes have been reading exercises and I've found some great reading along the way. I'm happy with the way this is going so far.

So I'm going to link to five great blogs for writers, and tell you exactly why they are great blogs for writers. They aren't in any particular order of awesomeness, it's just in the order I thought of them


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Harry Potter Review: Part One

August 10th 2009 17:47
Just thought I would let you guys know that I decided to do the first part of my Harry Potter review lens before leaving for the cottage. I've also decided not to do any best-of posts, seeing as how I worked my butt off yesterday making a best-of lens. I spent two or three hours working on the darn thing, so I figure I'm going to just leave that as it is and not to a best-of at this moment in time.

Here's the link to the Harry Potter review lens


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Squidoo: An Experiment

August 10th 2009 03:09
There's a website called Squidoo which allows you to create webpages, essentially. It's a pretty popular website from what I can gather, and a good place to market yourself. I've just joined up and can be found here:

Dianna L. Gunn
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Water!

August 9th 2009 17:57
Well, I got great news today. Tomorrow night I will be heading off to the cottage. This means a few things, but the most important two are 1. No internet and 2. No computer which means no real writing will get done. I probably won't be back by the thirteenth, which is my two year Blogaversery (whoever gave me this word, I love you. I think it may have been Wilson, not sure).

What does this mean? It means that I need to write 10, 000 words today for AugNoWriMo, meaning I need to write a few thousand words in Eternia Falling and I really need to write out the myth of the Green Man, the one I've decided would be best for the AugNoWriMo short story anthology


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Some Links

August 9th 2009 07:04
Really Long Link

Just a funny little thing I found a link for


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Best Of...

July 30th 2009 05:34
So. My two-year anniversary of blogging is coming up. (Agust 13th) I've decided that on the date itself I will be doing a special post, thanking those who have inspired me since I came here, talking about why I blog etc. etc. It will also have links to some of my best posts since January.

I'm going to do four posts, total, in relation to this. Each one will contain 10 of my favourite posts from a certain time period since I've been here


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