Monthly Archives: May 2012

What makes a book a page turner?

I don’t know who said it first, but the answer is simple: tension on every page. Actually accomplishing this is hard. Last week, I finished up the Hunger Games trilogy. Suzanne Collins is a master at creating tension and conflict. Every page is filled with unanswered questions, raising the stakes for her characters, and overall, […]

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Writing Efficiently Saves Lives

This is an excerpt from an upcoming book in the Writing Advice for Teens series: Editing Fiction. Enjoy! Every word you write takes time to read. When a reader has to reread something because they got confused, that’s time wasted. Let’s say that you have a manuscript with 100,000 words. What would happen if we […]

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How do I choose names for my characters, creatures, or settings?

This is an excerpt from the recently released Writing Advice for Teens: Creating Stories. Choosing names can be tough. On the other hand, they’re also one of the easiest things in your story to change. As William Shakespeare said in Romeo and Juliet: “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” What matters […]

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