End of Year Tasks for Freelance & Professional Writers (Part 2 of 3)
Finish the year strong by doing a series of year-end tasks designed to help you analyze how you did last year and set you up for a more successful year in 2022.
Creating a Solid Writing Process: Finding What Works for You (Part 2 of 2)
Finding a productive writing process can help the act of writing come easier to you and reduce the friction associated with writing.
End of Year Tasks for Freelance & Professional Writers (Part 1 of 3)
Time has flown this year and it is time again to close out another year of writing.
This is a great time to take stock of where you are with your writing and get organized for the year to come. Finish our your freelance writing year with a few year-end tasks. Below you will find part one of our three-part series on steps writers and small businesses should take to finish out a year for better success in the new one.
Gifts for Writers 2021
Gift ideas for the writer and reader in your life, even if that’s you. Here is the 2021 holiday gift guide from Figments & Fables.
Creating a Solid Writing Process: Finding What Works for You (Part 1 of 2)
The hardest part about writing is starting. It’s like anything else in life, taking those first steps takes more energy than it does to keep going.
NaNoWriMo: The Halfway Point—How Are You Doing?
We are halfway through November, which means, if you are doing NaNoWriMo (writing a novel during the National Novel Writing Month of November), you should have at least 25,000 words on the page by now. How are you doing? Ahead of schedule? Behind? Hopelessly flailing or flying along?
Finding the Theme of Your Story: And Why It Matters
Themes enhance stories, making them more meaningful. It’s theme that makes a story linger in your memory. It’s theme that provides the touchstone for what happens. It’s what informs everything that follows the opening sequence. Themes matter to the story and your writing. But most of all, theme matters to your characters.
Rejection: It’s Okay to Feel the Pain
Writers get rejected. It’s part of the job. But the frequency with which it happens doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.
Recently I threw my name into consideration for a contract position I wanted. It would have meant a significant cut in my rate, but an increase in my quality of life. I would have been writing about a topic that would have brought me joy. It was a job I also would have excelled at doing. But therein lies the problem—I was overqualified and too expensive. Or maybe they just didn’t like my pitch or tone or samples. Who knows? I never heard. It was one of those situations where you apply and hear crickets.
16 Ways to Open a Script: The Opening Scene (Part II of II)
The first moments of your script or novel matter. They set up what is to follow and hook the audience. Or they don’t.
The best film openings establish tone, settings, and character. They establish context for what will follow or establish expectations that will be thwarted later on. They do more than simply open the film. They start the story and grab the audience.
16 Ways to Open a Script: Opening Scenes
How you start your script or screenplay matters. These opening scenes establish an expectation and either appeal or repel an audience. What a film shows in the first five minutes is critical to how an audience will react, how engaged they become, and how long they will sit watching your story unfold.
The opening shot is your chance to hook them. It’s the first exchange of information. The first connection. How you approach that is everything.
What You Read…Does It Matter?
Does it matter whether you fill your head with the classics or modern books? Manga or SciFi/Fantasy? Romance or nonfiction? The top 100 books by NPR or the Rory Gilmore Challenge? Does what you read matter as much as the fact that you are reading?
Care and Feeding of a Client (Part 2 of 2)
Part one of this blog covered the first five tips for caring for your clients as a freelance writer.
Clients are essential to running a successful freelance business. They keep the lights on and the dream alive. It pays to learn how to care for those relationships.