Writing Short

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    Then God said: "Let there be light," and there was light. Genesis 1:1 Hello! Maureen Pratt here with my first CAN Blog post. I've been asked to write once a month about writing – one of my favorite topics! Today, I'm going to start off with a topic that sometimes confounds many writers – "writing short." As I'm the author of a 600-word syndicated, international column, I'm steeped in this style with each piece I file. And, more than ever before, we use this kind of writing, especially on the Internet. But it can be so difficult to adapt…

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PUGS Pointers #7

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Hi! I’m Kathy Ide. In addition to being a published author, I’m a full-time professional freelance editor. For CAN, I’m blogging about “PUGS”–Punctuation, Usage, Grammar, and Spelling…tips for writers based on the most common mistakes I see in the manuscripts I edit. Each blog post will have one tip for each of the four categories, as well as a reason it’s important for authors to “polish their PUGS.” (For more PUGS tips, check out my website, www.KathyIde.com, or get a copy of my book “Polishing the PUGS” (available through the website or at the conferences where I teach). If you’re interested in…

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Intimate Storytelling – Part I Character Viewpoint

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Hi from Gail Gaymer Martin at www.gailmartin.com One of an authors goals is to have our characters connect with our readers. They begin to care about them and to relate to their joys and sorrows. They don't want to put down the book because it's like saying good bye to a good friend.  As writers, then, we try to use writing techniques that connect in an intimate way with our readers and this can happen by our storytelling style.  One thing that first person offers that third doesn’t is an intimacy between the POV character and the reader. In first person,…

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Poetry Basics: Organizing the Poem I

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      Hello. I'm Donn Taylor, here again to talk more about poetry writing and ways to achieve the "higher voltage" that distinguishes poetry from most prose. We've talked about putting strong words in emphatic places, use of images, and a little bit about figurative language. Reserving that last for further treatment later, today we'll begin looking at ways to organize a poem. Those ways are infinite, or course, so we'll confine ourselves to some of the most common. Today, only one.       First, some generalizations: In narrative poetry, the structure of the story becomes the structure of the poem. That…

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PUGS Pointers #6

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Hi! I’m Kathy Ide. In addition to being a published author, I’m a full-time professional freelance editor. For CAN, I’m blogging about “PUGS”–Punctuation, Usage, Grammar, and Spelling…tips for writers based on the most common mistakes I see in the manuscripts I edit. Each blog post will have one tip for each of the four categories, as well as a reason it’s important for authors to “polish their PUGS.” (For more PUGS tips, check out my website, www.KathyIde.com, or get a copy of my book “Polishing the PUGS” (available through the website or at the conferences where I teach). If you’re interested in…

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Hopes and Fears

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Good morning from Ava Pennington, CAN Secretary, in sunny Florida… The week between Christmas and New Year is a time between times. The build up to Christmas is over. The new year has yet to begin. Anticipation gives way to fatigue. The Christmas decorations seem to have outlasted their welcome, but I’m not ready to take them down yet. And as much as I love Christmas hymns and carols, they seem anticlimactic. But one Christmas hymn in particular speaks to the writer in me this week.

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Poetry for Christmas

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Hello. I'm Donn Taylor, here again with comments on writing poetry. But this month, in honor of Christmas, I'm taking a break from describing the elements that make good poetry. Instead, I'm inviting you to join in celebrating the birth of our Lord with two of my poems (one negative, one positive) that are quite different from the usual Christmas poems. See what you think and leave a comment if you choose.    

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PUGS Pointers #5

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Hi! I’m Kathy Ide. In addition to being a published author, I’m a full-time professional freelance editor. For CAN, I’m blogging about “PUGS”–Punctuation, Usage, Grammar, and Spelling…tips for writers based on the most common mistakes I see in the manuscripts I edit. Each blog post will have one tip for each of the four categories, as well as a reason it’s important for authors to “polish their PUGS.” (For more PUGS tips, check out my website, www.KathyIde.com, or get a copy of my book “Polishing the PUGS” (available through the website or at the conferences where I teach). If you’re interested in…

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Basics in Poetry Writing: Figurative Language I

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    Hello. I'm DonnTaylor, writing again about the basic elements of poetry writing. In previous blog sessions we've mentioned the late Lawrence Perrine's statement that poetry speaks "in higher voltage" with greater compression of meaning than most prose. We've also spoken of placing strong words in the emphatic positions of the poetic line, and we've discussed the necessity of using strong images. Now we move to one of the most important elements that achieve compression of meaning, often with striking effect: figurative language. In this session we'll look at personification, simile, and metaphor. We'll cover other figures later.  

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PUGS Pointers #4

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Hi! I’m Kathy Ide. Iin addition to being a published author, I’m a full-time professional freelance editor. For CAN, I’m blogging about “PUGS”–Punctuation, Usage, Grammar, and Spelling…tips for writers based on the most common mistakes I see in the manuscripts I edit. Each blog post will have one tip for each of the four categories, as well as a reason it’s important for authors to “polish their PUGS.” (For more PUGS tips, check out my website, www.KathyIde.com, or get a copy of my book “Polishing the PUGS” (available through the website or at the conferences where I teach). If you’re interested in…

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