I know that there are some people here who come up with all these strange ways of naming characters. Sometimes they think, “ZOMG*, my character is a hunter, therefore I shall name him… Hunter! No wait… Orion! No wait…Kdjsaha!” And they just come up with these ridiculous names and it is slightly horrible. 
1) Too obvious. [...]

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James Chartrand has a story up over at Copyblogger titled “Three Questions Your Copy Must Answer To Succeed.”  Needless to say, most of those who read this blog aren’t really interested in writing copy, at least not yet.  However, they are interested in writing stories that attract and hold readers’ interest.Producing good copy and producing [...]

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I don’t think it was until Seventh Grade when I finally understood the difference between too and to. In fact, I can actually remember when I did make this epiphany: it was in English class (or maybe Reading), and I was writing down a sentence about going to the store. I pondered for [...]

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Discussion on the web can be separated into two broad categories: casual and serious.  Casual writing occurs in IMs, e-mails to friends, posts in certain areas of a web forum, and even sometimes in blogs.  Serious writing occurs in professional e-mails, serious discussions, creative writing, and usually in blogs.
In the former - casual writing - [...]

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Can you spot the capitalization errors in the image above?
Believe it or not, but there’s a debate as to what constitutes proper capitalization in titles.  Fortunately enough, most people could care less as long the first word is capitalized and your spelling checks out alright.  Unfortunately, English teachers and professors are not counted among such [...]

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When do you write seven, and not 7? Should I write 738,163,291 or seven-hundred-thirty-eight-million-one-hundred-sixty-three-thousand-two-hundred-ninety and one? Do I have 10 fingers, or eight fingers and two thumbs?

Figuring out when to write out a number can be a tricky problem. Sometimes it’s obvious (as in 738,163,291), and sometimes it’s not (10 fingers or ten [...]

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· Don’t tell the readers what they already know about life.
· Don’t assume you’re the only one in the world who suffers.
· Some of the greatest poems in the language are sonnets and poems not many lines longer than that, so don’t overwrite.
· The use of images, similes and metaphors make poems concise. Close [...]

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Eminent.  Imminent.  Immanent.  Each is said the same way, and is even spelled similarly, which causes a lot of confusion.  However, they each have very different meanings.  So when to use which?
Imminent is the easy one; you use it when something is about to happen.  “He was in imminent danger of being run over by [...]

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Ha, a round-up of the Top 100 “Top 100 lists.”

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Coming from Black Cat Sachiko:
Very soon I am going to turn to my last resort. Plot webbing. Because I am stuck, but at least I can admit that. ^_^ I hate to do it. Admit that I’m stuck, I mean. And I hate plot webbing too. Does anyone on here hate plot webbing also? Or [...]

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Over at Copyblogger:

By definition a pun is “a play on words.” The “play” may be on the sound of a word or the similarity of a phrase to a well-known saying. Sometimes the pronunciation being played on is a stretch and deserves a groan, but sometimes the relationship is extremely apt and deserves the reward [...]

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I don’t know why, but in the past week I not only got my first message from a member at the Young Writers Society saying someone had stolen their password, but also got my second and my third message on the same subject.  It’s not like it hasn’t happened before, but for some reason this [...]

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As this is primarily a blog for, but not necessarily excluded to, young writers, I think there are a large number of our blog readers out there who are interested in pursuing a career in writing.  I think that nearly any career requires writing, and, as I’ve stated before, you cannot succeed in any career [...]

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Writing papers in college is very different from writing papers in high-school.  In high-school, there’s typically a drafting process your teachers force you to follow.  If not, then at least you have your parents asking you how much you’ve done.  If not that, then there’s something else!
Thus far, all the essay tips I’ve ever posted [...]

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Instinctually, all of us are quite aware of the power that words can hold. Saying just a mere ‘Hello,’ or ‘Thank you,’ can turn someone else’s day around. Equally, saying ’scum bag,’ or ‘doody head,’ can make what was a great day for someone turn terrible.
Yet, when I read stories not only [...]

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I think one of the questions I get most that’s not specifically YWS related is how to go about copyrighting your work.  Fortunately, copyrighting your work is incredibly easy and costs nothing to do.  Of course, everything I have to say is based on United States law.  However, United States law has its foundations in [...]

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Alright, I’m sitting here at around midnight, and I want to write a blog post.  In fact, I’ve been sitting here for thirty minutes fiddling around with random things.  Right now I’m taking a liking to the bottle cap of an Aquafina water bottle; it’s surprisingly malleable when applied to the crushing of teeth.
Do you [...]

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I’m thinking of putting together a testimonials page for YWS, so any comments here will help me in putting it together.  But caveat scriptor!  If you post a comment, you may just find it out on such a page!
In any case, has the Young Writers Society helped you with your writing?  And if so, how?  [...]

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Check out this article called “The Lazy Man’s Definitive Guide to Writing an “A” Paper” (rated PG13 for a small bit of language).  Personally, I love to read…I really do.  But, there are definitely those books I would prefer be locked in a closet never to rear their ugly heads with a professional backer behind them [...]

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….before they even know you!  There is a great article on the Writer’s Resource Guide about 10 things not to do when sendin a query letters.  Your query letter is, besides the rare (if even) occasion you have written something so life changing that they will notice it before you die and take it no matter [...]

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You know that college essay prompt, “Describe the most inspirational moment of your life,” or some derivation thereof that’s just screaming out for a terribly cliche answer?  The only problem is that even though the question itself is cliche, the folks at admissions hate cliche answers.   They’re looking for something personal, something unique about you, [...]

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I think everyone has different reasons for wanting to write a book, and I also think everyone out there would like to write a book.  For some, it’s the idea of seeing your name in print over in the local book store.  For others, it’s almost an obsessive complex disorder.  Whatever your reason, I think [...]

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The Shakespeare Insult Kit
Here’s a few:

froward base-court baggage!
unmuzzled fen-sucked pigeon-egg!
dankish pox-marked apple-john!

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Chances are that if you’re writing a fantasy story or novel, then you have a castle, palace, redoubt, fortification, or some other huge building.  In that case, it’s usually a good idea to do one of two things: (1) Draw a picture of the building to get a full sense of it, or (2) base [...]

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I always misspell beautiful and necessary.  Always.  It’s not that I don’t know how to spell the two words; it’s just that when I’m writing and not thinking, those two words always come out misspelled.  In fact, the only way I can remember to spell necessary is that the Latin version is necesse.  That is, [...]

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For me, the hardest thing to do in all of writing is editing my own work.  I do great with finding errors in someone else’s work, but my work always seems perfect when I edit it.I actually think a lot of people have the same problem.  It’s tough to edit your own work because you [...]

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As I’m pushing through this years NaNoWriMo, I’m finding that I am doing a really amazing job. I hit 20,000 words last night on the sixth day. On average, that meant that I wrote about 3,334 words each day. How did I do this? I’m not entirely sure.
But I’m starting to see the negatives of [...]

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This one is rather fun, actually
Write a paragraph in which every word starts with a vowel. Then write a second paragraph in which every word starts with a consonant. After you’re done, have a friend read it and see if he notices.

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 I have quite a few divorced socks.
 Three weeks ago, while folding laundry, you noticed a sock was missing. Last week, another sock disappeared. Where are they going? You’ve hidden a micro camera inside a sock to find out. Describe what is happening to your socks.

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Ever read Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes?  If you haven’t, you really should.  It’s a fantastic book about a severely mentally handicapped person who becomes super-intelligent thanks to medicine, then chronicles his mental decline back to an IQ of 60.
In the book, the protagonist (Charlie Gordon) keeps a journal of his mental rise then [...]

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