The Saturday Slash

Don't be afraid to ask for help with the most critical first step of your writing journey - the query.

I’ve been blogging since 2011 and have critiqued over 200 queries here on the blog using my Hatchet of Death. This is how I edit myself, it is how I edit others. If you think you want to play with me and my hatchet, shoot me an email.

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In a cryptic world, the biggest stranger Estelle meets is herself. Decent hook! I don't know what a cryptic world looks like, though. Hopefully clarified below.

Living with her guarded foster mother in Montreal, she flounders in a tangled web of unraveled mysteries, disconnected from the outer world she thinks she knows. This is pretty vague. What is the nature of these mysteries? Estelle pursues for need to strike "for" a life full of possibilities but unaware of the lurking threat of a sinister network of manipulation and villainy called Apex who’s in the hunt to exploit the innocent to destroy order. I don't know what this means, or why Estelle would be targeted. Your wording here is very vague so I feel like I don't have a good grasp on what the actual threat is. When she runs into her menace in the open far from safety, Estelle quickly realizes she is being hunted.

Fleeing for her life, Estelle escapes to her forgotten home of Auria, a fantastical world hidden in the shadows, where traces of her mysterious past linger. How aware was she of this mysterious past? Had she entirely forgotten this world? Or was just unable to access it? Realizing she is unknowingly gifted and powerful in her own ways, she is vulnerable to the various advances of Apex and the trials that await her, challenging her insecurity and her trust in others—including herself. What connection does Apex have to Auria?

When betrayal leads Estelle and her friends When did friends come into this? to a spiraling downhill of no return, it takes the power of self-sacrifice, confidence, and community to battle against Apex’s reign of evil and rescue all those who are captured. Even though Estelle saves Auria and finds salvation in herself with her new family, the mastermind behind Apex is still on the run and ready to retaliate with revenge.

THE CRYPTIC WORLD is a YA contemporary fantasy thriller of 87,000 words, the first in a planned series with the sequel currently in the works. I am a psychology student at Arizona State University with a creative passion of building enchanting worlds and challenging controversial ideas. I believe my book will appeal to young readers with its themes of confidence and innocence along with thought-provoking ideas embedded in the plot that will leave the reader questioning their reality and how they are represented and used in society.

This ending para is great, I really like it. However, you are too vague in your paragraphs above. All I know is that there's a girl with some abilities from a foreign world who never quite fit into reality, there's a bad force after her, and she isn't terribly confident in her new role. That plot that I just described could fit any hundreds of magical or fantastical novels. You need to get details into this to illustrate what makes your novel different from the hundreds of others that fit that mold. Also, you definitley need to find a way to make this a standalone with sequel possibility. Fantasy is a very tight market now in YA and pitching a debut fantasy series would be difficult.

10 Exercises To Inspire Your Writing

by Rhonda Martinez

As young aspiring authors, we all find ourselves at the crossroads called “Where to go and How to get there”. Looking up to masters in writing, it is so hard to discover your style and most importantly get your writing going.

If you are also facing the trouble of sitting and staring at the blank screen, here are some tips and exercises that will help you get inspired.

Word Box

Such an obvious, still such an effective exercise to try out. According to Gabriela Pereira, an author of “DIY MFA: Write with Focus, Read with Purpose, Build Your Community” who shared practical advice on WritersDigest, this method helps her to gain fresh inspiration. It works like this. She has a box with pieces of paper and single words written on them. Whenever she feels stuck or just wants to train her brain to get a creative impulse, she closes her eyes and takes from 5 to 7 words out of the box. After that she starts writing until she includes all of the words she has pulled out. Gabriela believes that not only this exercise helps to boost inspiration, but it also drills a brain to create unexpected connections, as you need to somehow include all the words in a short story.

Word Association

Another great exercise to give a shot. This one helps to experience the free flow of thought. We believe that James Jones would definitely approve this tip. So here’s what you should do. Write out the first word that comes to your mind, and then continue the chain of associations. For example:

inspiration, writing, book, award, glory, lightning, thunder, storm, a ship, cruise, a captain, strong, desperate, lady, find, lost, glove…

This exercise will give you this burst of creative ideas and energy that you are craving for. What is more, you can try this method to find inspiration related to a specific character you are thinking about, or setting a scene. One word seems like a no-brainer, but it is truly worth trying, as you will enjoy the innovative stimulation to your ideas.

Discover Negative Space

Another useful tip from Gabriela Pereira involves exploring the so-called “negative space”. This is an area in art and design that serves as an opposing setting or environment to an object itself. Whenever you read a good book, you probably have this feeling that you only have a glimpse at the small part of characters’ lives, as the rest is left unseen. The gist of this exercise is to explore “the rest”, and expand your story. To illustrate how it works, let’s consider the following example. So you are writing a love-story with two main characters involved, and some other characters. If you get stuck with your story, you can try out writing a short scene about this or that moment related to the life of your supporting characters (even if their role in the whole story is not crucial at all). What is more, you can as well try out this exercise on other writers’ books. Choose the book, choose any supporting character whose life isn’t in the limelight, and imagine your own version of it.

Respond to a Poem

A well-known and effective way to practice your writing and refresh your inspiration is to write a response to a poem, or in fact to any kind of story. You need to pick a piece of writing you like, and react to it. If it is a love-letter, write a love-letter back. If it is a prose, you can try out writing your own creative interpretation of it.

Plunge into Art

The classic that never gets old - seek inspiration in art. Go to museums, see plays, fall in love with different kinds of arts, spend hours contemplating a painting, listen to inspiring music - the list is endless. We never know when inspiration can strike us, but we can speed up the process. Here is how it works. You look at the painting and try coming up with a backstory to what is happening there. In case it is a portrait, think what this person did in their life, or what had happened just before they came to sit still as a model. This exercise teaches an author to see any situation from the bird’s eye view at first, and then get closer to examine every little detail that is essential when creating a character, for example.

Search New Studies

According to Tyler Moss, these days authors have a unique opportunity to find creative impulse by searching new studies in Google. Choose the topic you are interested in whether it is physics, chemistry, biology or psychological studies, and look for the recent updates in these fields. For instance, the headline “Water Splitting Advance for Renewable Energy” can serve as a good start for someone writing a sci-fi novel, and thinking about setting the scene of the world in 3030. While another article on “Artificial intelligence can help some businesses but may not work for others” can lead one into peculiarities of a society, and to a close-up imagining the life of some man not being able to find a job. This is how it works, you pick the topic, look for research and voila, your brain is already shooting with ideas.

Get Inspired by Real People

Curtis Sittenfeld, an American writer known for her sharp short stories as well as 5 novels, shed the light on an interesting tip during her interview to a Writers Digest. The approach involves choosing a real personality like a movie star, a politician, a musician, and getting inspired. This exercise provides you with a foundation that you can play with by imagining various scenarios that could have happened, and how the life of a chosen person would have changed. What is more, you can let your imagination dive behind the scenes of real life events and enjoy all of the ideas that come to your mind, no matter how mad they can be. By playing with your creativity like this, you can truly find an inspiration you’ve been looking for.

Use Quotes to Practice Short Stories

Another simple, yet a productive exercise. Pick a quote or a saying, and try writing a story to either support the idea or contradict. For example, “curiosity killed the cat”, you may take it literally and come up with a comic strip based on the saying, or try out writing more serious stuff being educational. The choice is yours. What is more, you can enjoy reading through famous people quotes and take some time to think them through. This will in turn provide you with your own great ideas.

Write Out Some Headlines or Story Starters

Choose a headline or pick a book and write out the first sentence. Then, try to continue the story by providing your own outlook. It is a perfect creative task to train your brain and seek inspiration. For those who don’t want to scroll through looking for a perfect starter, there are tons of resources with already-made story starters.

Explore New Things

The last exercise may seem overgeneralized. However, it often turns out to be one of the most effective ones. As a writer, you will be in constant search for inspiration. The main difficulty authors face is lack of ideas and getting fed up with a routine. For this reason, the best you can do is to try and explore new things whenever you can. It can be applied to anything you do in your life: from trying out a new cooking recipe to taking up salsa dancing, from going out to a new restaurant to traveling to a new country. When exploring something, we are alert and focused on the thing we are doing. This is a unique experience always full of amazing opportunities to find inspiration. Eleanor Roosevelt once said “Do one thing every day that scares you”. That is why, don’t hesitate to go for it.

Summing up, as any activity writing needs constant practice and dedication if you want to achieve the results. If you see yourself as a prospering author, don’t limit your imagination and work for it. Don’t let a writer’s block stop you from creating a masterpiece. You need to invest your time and energy in what brings you joy and fulfillment. 

We hope that this article helped you find some of the exercises you want to give a try this very moment. These methods are real life-savers when it comes to getting stuck, and speaking from personal experience, they have truly proven to be effective. So, what are you waiting for?

Rhonda Martinez is a blogger and reviewer of popular essay writing services at LegitWritingServices.com. As a content writer, she loves writing about education technology, psychology and digital learning.

Fredrick Soukup On Real Life Inspiring Fiction

Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview.

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

The three years I spent in correctional work, including a year and a half at a Juvenile Detention Center, had a significant impact on my worldview. The basic premise for Bliss arose out of my extraordinary and often jarring experiences with adolescent offenders. 

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

When I started Bliss four years ago, I was too naïve to know the advantages of developing a plot before starting the manuscript. I just jumped right in. (I think, however, this approach captured—if only by accident—the main character’s listlessness and disillusionment.) I knew I wanted a character from an affluent background to fall in love with a woman uncompromisingly devoted to her underserved community. After that, creating the rest of the story involved capturing his attempts to navigate two lives, one he does not want and one he cannot have. 

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

This has happened to me on every manuscript I’ve ever undertaken. I’ve learned to accept the fact that interesting characters, like people, are unpredictable. It’s impossible to plan for all the variables that go into a novel-length story, and every decision a character makes sends ripples throughout the rest of the work. Things I expected a character to do or want to do, perspectives I anticipated her having, feelings I anticipated her experience, aren’t always what they turn out to be. I appreciate this, because it’s difficult and it keeps me, as a writer, on my toes.

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

Though I only work one novel at a time, I always have plans for future manuscripts. It takes me about a year to complete a project, so I don’t need many ideas in order to stay busy or excited about what’s to come.

Although, for almost a decade now, I’ve been contemplating this story about an Amish man whose community is succumbing to modernization. I’ve started it three or four times, but can’t finish. It’s my White Whale.

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

My manuscript ideas always start with characters, and I gravitate toward characters who challenge me as a writer, those with unique motivations, dispositions, behaviors, and/or circumstances. I try to let the plot unfold from there.

I have 5 cats (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?

I used to have a Shih-poo (a mix dog between a Shit Zu and a Poodle) named Jackson, but, sadly, he passed away about a year ago. Now, my four month-old daughter, Clare, keeps me company while I work.*

*Just kidding: that’s impossible. I wait until she’s napping.

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