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  • Josiah DeGraaf replied to the topic Tips for Writing an Article for Story Embers in the forum General Writing Discussions 6 years, 8 months ago

    @wisdomofprose That’s a great question! And I definitely second all the tips Jane provided. In addition to what she mentioned, here’s a couple other tips I’d give as acquisitions editor:

    • We tend to look for articles that are exploring a less-common angle on a fiction writing topic. Some of that comes from wanting to weave our faith into all aspects of writing, like Jane says. But it also means we tend to look for more than generic advice someone could find a dozen other places on the internet. There’s nothing truly original under the sun, but we want it to stand out in some way. One of the best ways to do that is…
    • …Include several examples of the principles you’re explaining. I’m a huge fan of examples as being one of the best tools for explaining and teaching different fiction writing concepts, so if you can find good examples to illustrate your points, that will strengthen your submission.
    • With regards to your outline, there are a couple different formats you could use. One is the “standard” “X number of ways to do __________” type that many sites (including ours) utilize where you’re giving a list of different techniques writers can use to fix _________ problem. Most articles on our blog follow this technique. Another option is a format where your points follow each other in natural succession like a story where you address one problem/question with one answer, which leads to another question/problem leading to another answer and so on until you fully explore the topic. Daeus’ article two months ago on if you’re publishing too soon or not would be one example of this: https://storyembers.org/are-you-publishing-your-book-too-soon/

    Hope that helps! As Jane said, feel free to ask follow-up questions here. 🙂

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