Maybe you suffer from writer's block or maybe you feel your writing is flat. Perhaps, you're caught in a loop in which all of your work is starting to sound the same or just boring yourself to sleep. Calls for writing are all over the internet. Use them. Anyone who writes over the long-term has periods of flat, dull and uninspi...
Keep the words you want in for authenticity and describe the scene for accessibility. Ever found yourself deleting or avoiding Jewish words and expressions in your writing (whatever Jewish means to you, Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino)? Often writers tell me they are worried about alienating their general audience or sounding 'too Jewish' so they avo...
There are just so many problems that can be resolved in one novel. This article is advice for both editors and authors. It applies to fiction and memoir. If you think your manuscript suffers from "dancing at two weddings," I'd be happy to take a look. Many writers out there struggle with their manuscripts because they are trying to writ...
"An author working in good faith can't win at this game. If she is forced to confirm that her material is autobiographical, then she risks forfeiting both the privacy and the power of transfiguration that fiction promises. If she denies it, then she surrenders a badge of authenticity that she may never have wished to claim in the first place, and l...
Since July 2020, I've been teaching autofiction online (and now on zoom) and I've already received enough feedback to share with you not only my number one question, but the number one stumbling block at the beginning of each class. So at the risk of sounding redundant (yes, I answered this question back in June, but that was pre-teaching...
Guest post from Desiree Villena The first half of 2020 has wrought havoc on all our lives, writers and non-writers alike — but for professional authors in particular, the chaos and uncertainty of the past few months have been incredibly daunting. Book launches have been delayed, releases that forged ahead have gone unnoticed, and for some aut...
Thank you so much to Christi Craig who hosted me on her Sunday Series. From her site: In this Sunday Series, you'll meet writers new and seasoned as they share what inspires them to put #PenToPaper. I have never attended a Canadian creative writing program, so I cannot say with certainty that my distance from Ottawa, my hometown, allows me to ...
By Gila Green We live in a publishing world that not only craves categories; it demands them. These pigeonholes are like gasoline for the modern manuscript, which cannot even move through cyberspace to an agent's inbox without the fuel labeling supplies. For those who guide writers on query letters, one of our first lessons is to help authors defin...
By Gila Green When I tell people I teach a virtual flash fiction course, I often get strange responses bordering on laughter. Isn't flash fiction just really short fiction? What's the point of taking a specific Flash class? No, flash is its own genre deserving of its own class and in my opinion, it's still underrated as a way to break into p...
by Gila Green I have never attended a Canadian creative writing program, so I cannot say with certainty that my distance from Ottawa, my hometown, allows me to mentally glide over to the 1980s version of the city, pecking at bits and inserting them into my fiction, squirreling away savory pieces for later use, because I don't know any other writing...
Thanks to Chrissey Harrison for mentioning my suggestion to film an author read-aloud in her excellent post. Here she offers ten ways to promote your book and I have to agree with her number one suggestion, which is to write another book. Another book is your best marketing tool and you're a content creator after all. Check out the rest o...
By Gila Green The secret of getting ahead is getting started—Mark Twain Three deadlines coming up, dinner's not made, and you haven't even hit the grocery store yet? The short answer might be fast food or begging a colleague to take one of your assignments, but the long-term answer is to improve your efficiency. Here are eight tips to help you save...
This indirect or left-branching sentence builds tension and creates excitement because it slows down the pace of the story. by Gila Green Have you ever seen any of these comments in the margins of your work? Slow downUnevenLacks climaxFlat If you answered "yes," you should immediately browse through your writer's toolbox of literary devices for pac...
Are your notions about your birthplace outdated? By Gila Green Diction. Slang and other everyday words sneak into our vocabularies. If you don't live and write in the same language, it takes an extra effort to root foreign words out of your work, unless they're part of your story.Names. Many writers spend a great deal of time enhancing their work w...
What you need to work on in your writing isn't description it's imagery. By Gila Green If you write fiction you've probably been told dozens of times to include vivid description, work on your description, and not to forget description. Likely, you've also been reminded not to overdo it on the description. Unfortunately, being told to in...
By Gila Green We live in a publishing world that not only craves categories; it demands them. These pigeonholes are like gasoline for the modern manuscript, which cannot even move through cyberspace to an agent's inbox without the fuel labeling supplies. For those who guide writers on query letters, one of our first lessons is to help authors defin...
After writing three Jewish historical fiction novels (White Zion, Passport Control, and my as yet unpublished novel A Prayer Apart) here's my best advice for Jewish historical fiction writers: Sometimes research provides more than one answer and you'll have to use your best judgement: Someone may call you out on it but don't let that stop you...
Thanks so much to James Tormey, the host of Don Jimmy Reviews for having me on his site today. It's always a pleasure to spend time with book lovers all over the world. The Secret to Inspired Writing By Gila Green I don't get ideas. I feel ideas. Let me explain. I'm commonly asked where my ideas come from for my fiction. It's a leg...
by Gila Green Novels are peppered with males and females, young and old, witches, aliens, and murderers. Yet many writers still feel limited to topics they know inside and out. What a great pity. I published a young adult novel about a teen heroine who takes on an elephant poaching ring in South Africa's Kruger National Park and you know what? I'm ...
My "five worst writing tips" was such a popular post that today I'm re-posting more writing advice regarding what could easily have been worst writing tip number six: use the five senses. Do I disagree that we should use the five senses in our writing? Not at all. It's the number five that I disagree with. Read on to find out why. Beyond the 5...
There's more advice for writers out there than ever. You need to know that 1. A lot of it is bad 2. A lot of it doesn't apply to you; it was that writer's experience. 3. It doesn't go away, but happily, you can ignore it. Here are my top five worst pieces of writing advice: 1. Never respond to a potential publisher with mor...
1.Learn something that has nothing to do with writing--often. Take a gardening course, photography, dance, archaeology, religion, anything. Career writers must have compelling things to write about. Am I the only one who notices how often novel characters are magazine editors, journalists, and writers? Dentistry, law, accounting, welding, real esta...
If you read Passport Control, White Zion, or No Entry, please leave a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. It can be one line. It's tremendously helpful for all authors for people to leave reviews because people are naturally attracted to what others recommend. Here are some of my ideas for a one line review: I recommend this ...
"The job of the fiction writer, as I see it, is to get inside someone else's skin." by Julie Zuckerman I'm happy to present a guest post today by author and fellow writer in Israel, Julie Zuckerman. Welcome, Julie! Bio: Julie Zuckerman's fiction and nonfiction have appeared in a variety of publications, including The SFWP Quarterly, The MacG...
"Saying goodbye is the hardest part of life. We say goodbye to loved ones, to lost dreams and causes, to the crumbling expectations of life. The same is true with past books." by Rene Denfeld by Tara Lynn Masih I'm honored to have Tara Lynn Masih on gilagreenwrites. Not only does she have much wisdom to share, she has a new novel out, My Real Name ...
Like millions of other authors, I write because I have a message I'm passionate about; I want to express myself to the world. The problems with messages are long and complicated: people suffer from denial and refuse to hear them; they don't buy books to read sermons; preaching can engender resentment, come across as heavy- handed, and read as thoug...
This is a repost by fellow Stormbird Press author Rick Hodges. I enjoyed it so much I'm sharing it with you. You can read more about Rick on his site and check out his new book To Follow Elephants. I'm delighted that we are both writing about elephants and older teens traveling to Africa. I am thrilled to be publishing my first young adu...
Wanted to share this quotation I read today from prose editor at Tahoma Literary Review, Yi Shun Lai. "Years ago, I decided to stop telling young creatives that they should find what they're passionate about. Now I tell them to hunt down what they're willing to work towards. (I stole this from someone on LinkedIn and can't remember who ...
In 2013, I published my first novel, King of the Class (KOTC). Three months later, I wrote a post titled, "What I Learned from Publishing my First Novel." It was a necessary integration of what I'd gleaned after three months of full-time, dedicated hard work—the kind of twenty-four-hour work after which you can't even think about the topic. I...
