'Growing up isn't easy, but sometimes being true to yourself is even harder.'
Ellen's blog for New Writers
playing with sentence structure
01/26/15 This month, we've been looking at the importance of sentence structure. If you missed our refresher, check it out here. Hopefully, you had time last week to read some great first lines in YA literature. Perhaps you've even practiced some of your own writing. If you want to improve your skills, it's important to take time daily to study and exercise your writing muscles. Today, I have a visual exercise for you. I will present three images, and you will tell the story. You can write as much or as little as you want. However, for this exercise to have meaning, you should try to focus on a beginning, middle and end. It can be flash fiction or an opening to a longer story; but it must tell the three parts. To help you get started, consider what just happened before the picture was taken. Think about where the characters in the photos might go in a moment or what they might do next. This is a great chance to explore sentence variation. read the rest here 
Don't have time to write? Pick up simple tips from The10MinuteNovelists. Check out my guest post there, and read why I write YA.
The latest Goodreads' Review for BIRDS ON A WIRE
Tamara's review Sep 07, 14 4 of 5 stars bookshelves: read-in-2014 Read from July 26 to September 07, 2014 "Birds on a Wire is the story of three boys growing up in the 90s. Matt, Miguel, and Jesse have been friends since they were kids and now they are going through their last few days of junior year and thinking about their future. I really enjoyed the friendship between these three boys. They look after each other and are like brothers. They are all so different yet they still make this great team together. The three musketeers, what one lacks the other two make up for. Miguel is the macho soccer star, with dreams of making it big and getting out of their little town. Jesse is the artist who is all about love and his girlfriend Ruby. Matt is the smart one, who works hard so he can get into college and not only make his mom proud but make his own dreams come true. As the story goes on we see there is a lot more to each boy than we saw in the beginning. We get to see not only their back stories but their parents as well and we find out that they are all more connected than even they know." READ MORE HERE |
Meet Ellen
Author, reader, poet, teacher, mom. Take time to peruse this site and get to know her YA books (THIS GIRL CLIMBS TREES and BIRDS ON A WIRE), thoughts on writing, and advice to young writers. Watch This Girl's book trailer here. Connect with Ellen here or online. Even more here. (Soon, you'll know more about me than my mom.) Check out the latest issue of The Writing Disorder, and read an excerpt from Ellen's next YA.
What's a galley, you ask? Look here.
Best tips for storytelling. Ever. (thanks @A_WritersStudio @DisneyPixar) If you're a teen, this site has great ideas to get you started on your writing path. (thanks @writing_tips) Join me on Sound Cloud for some original poetry. Discover your live voice! More tweets here. |
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