by Emily Wenstrom and Elizabeth Nettleton |
For many writers, November used to be synonymous with NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Over thirty days, writers would knuckle down and attempt to write a 50,000 word novel. Just thirty days of work for a complete first draft? Awesome.
Unfortunately, NaNoWriMo has now closed its doors. But don’t worry, NaNoWriMo isn’t the only way to join a community and work toward all your writing goals. Here are five excellent alternatives to help you smash your word count goal before the end of the year.
by Kellie McGann and Elizabeth Nettleton |
Recently Joe asked me to be the World Impact Director for The Write Practice—a fancy title for making sure we stay involved in helping writers across the globe. Details of our first project will be coming soon, but until then, I wanted to share with you a few other ways I believe our writing can change the world, starting with these sixteen story ideas for world-changing writers.
by Elizabeth Nettleton |
ProWritingAid has always been a great tool for catching my spelling and grammar mistakes, but I was curious: could it handle bigger-picture problems like plot holes and character inconsistencies? And if so, how accurate would it be? I tested both features on the first draft of my novel, and here are my honest thoughts.
by Liz Bureman and Elizabeth Nettleton |
In speech, when you contract “could have,” “would have,” or “should have,” you end up with what sounds like, “could of,” “would of,” and “should of.” However, that is not what should be written. The proper contracted forms of could/would/should have are could’ve/would’ve/should’ve.
And yes, could’ve is an acceptable contraction. What is not acceptable is saying “could of” instead, because that is just plain wrong.
by Liz Bureman and Elizabeth Nettleton |
One of my all-time favorite movies is The Usual Suspects. I could watch it on a loop, and I’d still never get sick of it. If you haven’t seen it, I’m going to spoil the ending, and if you keep reading and get mad at me, it’s your own fault because that movie has been around since 1995 and you really should have seen it by now.
The vast majority of the movie is Kevin Spacey’s con man character telling a cop about a job that results in a huge explosion and lots of deaths. He says the mastermind behind the job is a man named Keyser Soze. At the end of the movie, we learn that Kevin Spacey is Keyser Soze, and a good number of details from the story that he told the police were made up from things he observed in the cop’s office.
The first thing your brain does after it picks itself up off the floor is get confused: Wait—if he made up those details, what other bits of information did he make up? Was anything he just told us real? Is Keyser Soze even real?
And just like that, the movie that was so straightforward for the first 100 minutes is suddenly a completely different movie.
