Pitching story ideas to magazines and newspapers is one of the essential skills I teach in my writing classes. Recently I had the pleasure of hosting Paulette Perhach, a Seattle-based freelance writer and author of Welcome to the Writer’s Life, …
Tag: writing courses
How to Write a Dramatic Scene
In my Seattle writing classes, I teach how to write a dramatic scene, an especially effective way of organizing stories. In my Seattle writing classes, I explain how to use dramatic scenes to give life and movement to stories, whether …
Five Best Openings in Seattle Writing Classes
The opening is the most important part of any story or book, one of the topics I’ll be discussing in my upcoming Seattle writing class, Tell Your Story, spend as much time as necessary finding a strong lead. Rewrite the …
Fish Tales in Seattle Writing Classes
Kevin Bailey knows fish. As founding director of the Man & Sea Institute and affiliate professor at the University of Washington, he developed a deep and profound knowledge of fisheries and love of the sea. Near the end of his …
In Medias Res Openings in Seattle Writing Classes
In my summer Seattle writing class, we’ll discuss In Medias Res openings, one of the most effective ways of opening a story. To write in medias res, you’ll need a strong scene from the middle of your story. Pick the …
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Social Media and Book Promotion
In my Seattle writing classes, I teach students the full range of narrative writing techniques as well as how to get published, including social media and book promotion. Now, obviously you have to write at a high level to get …
How to Make the Perfect Pitch
Pitching story ideas is a critical skill for every freelance writer. Virginia Smyth, the executive editor of Seattle Magazine, recently spoke to my Seattle writing classes about how to make the perfect pitch. “One of the most important questions in …
Ten Top Tips for Pitching: How to Get Happily Published
In my writing classes for The Writer’s Workshop, I always teach students how to pitch, including the Ten Top Tips for Pitching, the first step in getting happily published. There are so newspapers and magazines that neophyte writers often become …
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Summary Openings Taught in Seattle Writing Classes
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season …
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Story Openings in Seattle Writing Class
The story opening is the most important part of any story or book, one of the topics I’ll be discussing in my upcoming Seattle writing class, Revising Your Life. If your lead is not interesting, intriguing or entertaining, the reader …
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I was trying to write then and I found the greatest difficulty was to put down what really happened in action; what the actual things were which produced the emotion that you experienced…the real thing, the sequence of motion and fact which made the emotion and which would be as valid in a year or ten years or, with luck and if you stated it purely enough, always.
Ernest Hemingway -
Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I'm always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system.
Flannery O’Connor
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Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything really good.
William Faulkner -
“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”
Mark Twain -
And as imagination bodies forth
William Shakespeare (from A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a nam
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The Writer's Workshop, an on-campus and online program offering writing
classes in Seattle, online and travel writing classes.