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Get 1 Month for Free! Use Code WDTUTORIAL25 Subscribe today and gain access to all Writer's Digest Tutorials for free. Watch every instructional writing video whenever you like, as often as you would like, all from the comfort of your home. With over 350 instructional writing videos available instantly, we have all the writing instruction you need. Presented by proven, expert instructors, you'll get everything from advice on how to improve your craft to tips on getting published. Click here to browse available videos. Start tackling your writing goals today!  START YOUR SUBSCRIPTION Select monthly subscription at checkout and use code WDTUTORIAL25 to receive a discount of $25 for one free month! Cancel anytime! Your subscription will automatically renew after one month and you will see a charge from "Active Interest Media" on your credit card.  Popular Videos: Building Your Story Arc FREE PREVIEW Create Your Writer Platform FREE PREVIEW Essential Tips on How to Write a Novel in 30 Days FREE PREVIEW Merge Complex Science Seamlessly Into Your Fiction FREE PREVIEW BROWSE ALL VIDEOS Must use code WDTUTORIAL25 for discount to apply. Discount applies to the FIRST month of your subscription only. Coupon expires on July 31, 2020. Writer's Digest an Active Interest Media company Active Interest Media, 5720 Flatiron Parkway, Boulder, CO 80301, USA

Each Flashback Friday throughout 2020, we'll be sharing an article from our archives to celebrate our 100th anniversary. Tweet your favorite WD memory to us @WritersDigest using the hashtag #WritersDigest100. Thanks for celebrating with us! Back to Fundamentals By Leon Byrne, Writer's Digest, April 1938 An excellent analogy to the writer who has difficulty getting across is found every fall in the newspaper sports pages, where time and again, season after season, headlines will announce that Coach Soandso, after his football team has suffered a couple of early-season drubbings, has gone back to fundamentals—the fundamentals of blocking, tackling, kicking, and passing. The boys started the season with a bagful of tricks, a repertoire of clever plays evolved by the coach, but tricky plays get nowhere, can’t even be executed properly, without the players being so well grounded in fundamentals that their blocking and tackling is automatically perfect. In six years of editorial work with the Munsey Publishing Company and Popular Publications, I’ve read and passed judgment on at least 50,000 manuscript, good, bad, and indifferent. Too many young writers either fail to master the simple fundamentals or forget them in a desire to be dazzling. How many times I have written on a manuscript report: “This author has forgotten that before he sits down to write he must have either a story to tell—in other words a plot to develop—or a character to delineate.” If a story has character development as well as plot, or action, so much the better, but it must have at least one of those fundamentals. There are authors, of course, who can sit down with only a vague idea of what they are going to do, pound the typewriter for a few hours, and turn out a finished story that has literally grown out of the typewriter. They are experts who have mastered all of the rules and niceties of technique until these mechanical things have become second nature to them. Personally, I write a story almost completely in my mind before I begin to set it down on paper. In fact, I sometimes carry it to the extreme of writing the ending of a yarn before I have done the middle part—that’s when I’m so much interested in the piece myself that I can’t wait for the filling in—I have to get the climax down on paper. Naturally, I know just what that center portion is going to be. The ideal of the classic short story is to counterpart the flight of the arrow—leaving the bow with a twang, flying straight and true, thudding home in the heart of the target. Too many writers draw a bow at the moon; their arrow goes up, falters, starts to fall, is blown by the wind, clatters aimlessly to the ground. If, when starting their story, they would say to themselves, “I am going to create one single, crystal-clear, decisive effect, so that the whole story, when finished, is a mathematical procession of events leading logically and irrevocable from the first sentence to the last.” Then they could be sure that their story would do what it should—strike one clear chord in the reader’s emotional reactions. As the story is built, piece by piece, as the plot convolutions are taken up, the threads of the story intertwined, the characters shaped by their actions and their conversation, as each sentence is added to the story structure, the writer should bear in mind his finished job, the completed, unified picture. If a phrase sounds pretty, but has no bearing on that completed picture, he should throw it out. If an actor in the drama gets out of character, does something on page two that does not fit in with the picture we have of him on the last page, he should be recast, redrawn, rewritten. Continue reading this article on our website. Amy Jones Amy Jones is the editor-in-chief of Writer’s Digest and the former managing content director for WD Books. Prior to joining the WD team, Amy was the managing editor for North Light Books and IMPACT Books. Find her on Twitter at @AmyMJones_5 Final Call: Plot Perfect Boot Camp Starts Monday Whether you're writing a novel, short story, memoir, stage play, or screenplay, this boot camp will show you how to craft a great narrative scene-by-scene. Receive personalized agent feedback in this hands-on and entertaining event. Click Here to Learn More Writer's Digest an Active Interest Media company 5720 Flatiron Parkway, Boulder, CO 80301

DEADLINE EXTENDED! Enter by June 22. This is your last chance to enter your best in the Writer's Digest 89th Annual Writing Competition for a chance to win $5,000 in cash, a feature interview in our special 100th Anniversary issue, and a paid trip to the ever-popular 2021 Writer’s Digest Annual Conference in New York City. Simply choose your favorite categories and enter your best work. inspirational/spiritual memoirs/personal essays print or online article genre short story (think romance, thriller, mystery, sci-fi, etc.) mainstream/literary short story rhyming poetry non-rhyming poetry script (think stage play or television/movie script) children’s/young adult fiction Enter Now! LEARN MORE Writer's Digest an Active Interest Media company 5720 Flatiron Parkway, Boulder, CO 80301

In this issue, learn how writers get paid for their writing, why one writer failed to find success during his lifetime, what this week's spotlight market is seeking, and more!  How Do Writers Get Paid for Writing? This is sort of a big topic, because there are so many ways that writers can get paid for their writing. Many people think of writing and selling books or writing articles for magazines. But there many other ways writers can freelance as well. (Should writers use social media?) For instance, they can write copy for local and national businesses. They can craft newsletters or grant proposals. That's without taking into account that many writers are well positioned to get paid to speak at live and online events and create podcasts and videos. And don't forget freelance proofreading, fact checking, and copyediting.  In this post, we'll look at how writers get paid for their writing, including payment terms, kill fees, and more. Read the full article... Craft & Business of Writing Mother Jones: Market Spotlight The editors say, "Our readership is nationwide, so please, no local issues unless they have national interest or implications. At the same time, anything that has already been covered extensively in the major national media will probably not work for us, unless you have some new unique angle. We will look at cultural essays, but not travel pieces. Save yourself and us time and effort by taking a good look at our site and/or the magazine before you send a query." Read More... Gary Reilly's 25 Unpublished Novels How a Great, Late Writer Lacked This One Necessary Thing to Find Writing Success in His Lifetime There was one thing about the writing business that the late Gary Reilly didn't get. But that thing had nothing to do with writing. I know those first two sentences appear to be contradictory. But they're not.  And I'm here to encourage you—if you're also making this same mistake—to fix it. If you're not making the same mistake, you might need this reminder nonetheless. We can all get better at everything we do, right? (Rewriting book one of a book series.) Let me explain. Read More... Advice vs. Advise (Grammar Rules) With all the advice doled out on this site, it's sort of surprising that I'm only now getting around to advising writers on when to use advice versus advise. But better late than never, right? (21 Authors Share One Piece of Advice for Writers.) Let's look at the difference between advice and advise, along with advice on when to use each and examples of correct usage! Read More... Send Your Work to 2nd Draft Critique Services! No matter your style or genre, Writer's Digest Shop offers a high-level view of your writing. After an evaluation of your submission, one of the professional 2nd Draft critiquers will provide feedback and advice. You’ll not only learn what’s working in your writing, but what’s not, and—most important—how to fix it. Gain a critique of your manuscript, query letter, synopsis, and more! Click here to learn more >> How Much Should Writers Charge? Recently, I saw a job posting for freelancers "with initiative" to curate content on social media. They were offering up to 75¢ per social post, based on quality and quantity. While 75¢ per Tweet or Instagram post sounds great, most writers would probably find it difficult to create 10 "quality" posts per hour (or every six minutes). If they could, that rate would come out to $7.50 per hour—or just 25¢ better than the national minimum wage and below most state minimum wages. (When and how should writers negotiate better terms?) In other words, many serious freelance writers would skip on this job posting. Or if they responded to it, they would try to negotiate a better rate. But how much should writers charge? And how should they determine what an appropriate rate would be? These are common freelance writing questions. So let's look at how to handle them. Read More... Robert Lee Brewer Robert Lee Brewer is a senior editor for Writer's Digest and former editor of the Writer's Market book series. He is also the author of Smash Poetry Journal and Solving the World's Problems. Find him on Twitter at @RobertLeeBrewer Writer's Digest an Active Interest Media company 5720 Flatiron Parkway, Boulder, CO 80301

Next Week's Boot Camp Plot Perfect Boot Camp The agents of Talcott Notch Literary Services share the secrets of creating a story structure that works - no matter what your genre - in this entertaining and informative online event. June 22-26, 2020 LEARN MORE! Next Weekend's Virtual Conference Breaking In: Publishing Your Debut Novel Virtual Conference Spend the weekend hearing from five debut authors who recently broke into the industry and were finally published. Experience the education, camaraderie, and opportunities provided by a live writing conference without ever having to leave your home! June 26-28, 2020 LEARN MORE! Featured Resources May/June 2020 Issue Writing & Selling the Historical Novel: From Idea to Publication Short Story Critique Character Development Premium Collection Explore More Resources Writer's Digest an Active Interest Media company 5720 Flatiron Parkway, Boulder, CO 80301 63 Grammar Rules for Writers If you're anything like me, you have a love-hate relationship with grammar. On one hand, grammar rules are necessary for greater understanding and more effective communication. On the other hand, there are just so many rules (and so many exceptions to the rules). It can be overwhelming. (How to get started as a writer.) But fear not! We are here to share a plethora of grammar rules for writers that we've tackled over the years. If you have a question, we may have the answer. So let's dig into these grammar rules together. Read the full article... FREE MASTER CLASS WEBINAR: 3 THINGS AGENTS & PUBLISHERS MUST SEE IN YOUR FIRST 30 PAGES. Industry pros decide quickly whether your manuscript’s opening intrigues them enough to read on – or reject. Award-winning author Barbara Kyle shows the three elements your story’s beginning must have to succeed. Read more. Plot Twist Story Prompts: Weather Breaks For today's prompt, let the weather get involved in the story. This could be as simple as having the sun get in somebody's eyes while they're driving on a winding road, which causes a crash. The weather could also act as an agent to thwart the protagonist's plans or even lend a helping hand. (5 tips for building a house or setting that comes alive for readers.) In Watership Down, Richard Adams uses a thunderstorm to add to the sense of danger and chaos of an escape from the Efrafan society of rabbits. And in this example, Adams doesn't just throw it in as an afterthought or cute little plot point. Rather, he spreads it over multiple chapters titled "Approaching Thunder," "The Thunder Builds Up," and "The Thunder Breaks." Of course, writers don't have to use the weather as a three-chapter arc like in Watership Down. But it shows that the weather can work in hand-in-hand with the action and add to the stakes involved in the story. In this example, Adams used this three-chapter arc to complete the penultimate third section of his novel and set up the grand conclusion of the book. Read More... This Week in Writing 6/16—Nelson Doubleday born 1889 6/16—Joyce Carol Oates born 1938 6/16—Andy Weir born 1972 (8 Andy Weir Quotes) 6/18—Paul McCartney born 1942 6/19—Blaise Pascal born 1623 6/19—Salman Rushdie born 1947 6/20—First Day of Summer (10 Best Summer Poems) 6/20—Paul Muldoon born 1951 6/21—Jean-Paul Sartre born 1905 Robert Lee Brewer Robert Lee Brewer is a senior editor for Writer's Digest and former editor of the Writer's Market book series. He is also the author of Smash Poetry Journal and Solving the World's Problems. Find him on Twitter at @RobertLeeBrewer Writer's Digest an Active Interest Media company 5720 Flatiron Parkway, Boulder, CO 80301