Creative Writing Blog for Young Writers | One Year Adventure Novel

Why Not Was? – The Case Against Using “Was” in Your Novel

Daniel Schwabauer Put briefly, was is a boring word. It denotes existence. The cat was. The car was. The knife was. Big deal. Lots of cats and cars and knives are. If you want to make me care, show the cat, car or knife doing something interesting: howling, crashing, stabbing.

Changing Values

Daniel Schwabauer One way to dramatically improve your manuscript is to go through it chapter by chapter and make sure the action of each brings about a corresponding change of values.

First Pages

Daniel Schwabauer Excerpt from guest post on KidLit Central The first pages of your manuscript are the most important ones you will write. If you do not capture an editor in the first few pages, she will not keep reading. Likewise with the casual reader. So how do you make the first pages interesting?

Mr. S. Reviews “Have Spacesuit – Will Travel” by Robert Heinlein

Daniel Schwabauer Anyone who reads science fiction with more than a passing interest will have heard of Robert Heinlein, grandmaster of the genre and writer of such classics as Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. More obscure are the dozen or so novels he penned for teens, many of which were published as serials in magazines such as Boy Life.

How Much is Too Much? – The Prologue Debate

Daniel Schwabauer A student asked, "I always like to write long prologues that give the history and culture of my story worlds, and set the stage for each novel. Is this bad?"