Writing

FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES Prompt Challenge #17-A Friend Shows Up.

Ronovan Friday Fictions , , , , , , , , , ,

Click HERE for last weeks Entries-A lie is told.

Useful links:
Grammarly.com
Click HERE for STRIPPING for FICTION or HOW TO WRITE FLASH FICTION.
Click HERE for Dialogue Tags, Action Beats, and the Dialogue Comma.
Click HERE for What’s a GL and PSS got to do with writing.

Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes Challenge

IF YOU WOULD LIKE COMMENTS ON YOUR WRITING, PLEASE NOTE AT THE END OF YOUR ENTRY THE AREAS YOU WISH FOR THE READER TO COMMENT ON, OR IF YOU WISH FOR AN OVERALL OPINION.

If you’ve been here before click Skip To Prompt.

Refresh yourself on the Content Guidelines

FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES

With decades of writing behind me and daily learning of how to be a better writer, and by daily, I do mean constant, I wanted to give a way for current friends and future finders of this blog a way to push themselves to improve as well.

Through this challenge my hopes are you will:

  1. Find your voice
  2. Step out of comfort zones to discover a genre where your talent truly lies
  3. Perhaps make connections that will help you become a better writer

DEADLINE IS:

23:59 EST (New York Time) Wednesday. I will then have Thursday to complete reading the entries and compiling the links and such. I do read all entries. You can ask any of my Haiku Challenge family/community members.

I DO ASK THAT YOU:

  • Keep it PG as all ages do follow the blog and may click through and read the entries. (Continue for exceptions.)
  • If you do write a piece of fiction that goes past the PG level, copy the link into the comments of this post and make a note of it being such and give the reasons you think it is, such as violence (See below for clarification.), sexual content, language/profanity.
  • No violence toward children by adults or predatory aspects toward children. I know you may have two kids have a fight. I get that, but I don’t want gratuitous violence such as glorifying bullying. Also I can see you having a kid kicking some bad guy in the face for some reason. I get it.
  • No sexual assault against anyone.

WHEN YOU HAVE COMPLETED YOUR WORK OF FICTION: (The below guidelines are less than they look.)

Copy and paste your URL in the comments of the challenge post, or do a ping back to this post. This does not mean you must share a link today, Friday, just because the challenge says Friday in it. It means you must return to this post or ping back to this post.

A ping back is copying and pasting the URL of the challenge post into your post. That lets people know about the challenge, sort of, and is one way to let me know you’ve entered. Just make certain to visit back here to see your ping back is showing. Confused? Click HERE to see how to do a ping back.

If your blog is with WordPress, TAG your post as Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes. This way people may find your work in the WP Reader.

IMPORTANT! For those wishing to participate in the possible FREE eBook Project for Fiction, click HERE for the Challenge Page with information at the bottom along with a form of agreement to fill out.

Click HERE for STRIPPING for FICTION or HOW TO WRITE FLASH FICTION.

Prompt for Challenge

FIRST OF ALL: Please remember, this is NOT a race. Take your time. Friday is only a part of the title, not a deadline. SECONDLY, if the story is flowing, don’t let the word count stop you; keep writing. THIRDLY, if you are an ACTIVE challenge participant and you just aren’t feeling the prompt, write something and ping back or paste your link. I’ll still include it in the #Links post the following Friday.

  • See if you can come in at more than a Word Count of 700. Control your word usage. (SUGGESTED)
  • Using the prompt of ‘A Friend Shows Up‘ create a scene. This scene about a friend arriving at an embarrassing or perfect time. It could be, if a series is being written, a new friend we haven’t met before that changes the dynamic of the story. (REQUIRED)

For proofreading of your work you might check out Grammarly.com. They have a free option to download for Word or that will even work right here in the WordPress Post Editor. It also works in the comments of sites. An additional feature is you can turn Grammarly off and own for each site you visit.

Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling on Amazon

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

@RonovanWrites

© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2016

Writers Quote Wednesday Writing Challenge – “Romance”

Ronovan Writing , , , , , ,

Here is the new challenge I am co-hosting with Colleen on SilverThreading.com. It combines BeWoW and Writer’s Quote Wednesday. We both felt a need to change things up and move forward. Instead of simply stopping all together, we decided to open things up even wider, give people more opportunities to join in and connect. Any kind of talent can be expressed with this challenge. We even include a Theme of the Week if you need inspiration. Or ignore that and do what you like as long as it involves a quote. Join in and have fun! And most of all CREATE!!!

 

HERE is my entry this week. https://ronovanwrites.wordpress.com/2016/03/09/the-fortunate-one/

FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES Prompt Challenge #16-A lie is told.

Ronovan Friday Fictions , , , , , , , , , ,

Click HERE for last weeks Entries-A Spill Occurs.

Useful links:
Grammarly.com
Click HERE for STRIPPING for FICTION or HOW TO WRITE FLASH FICTION.
Click HERE for Dialogue Tags, Action Beats, and the Dialogue Comma.
Click HERE for What’s a GL and PSS got to do with writing.

Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes Challenge

IF YOU WOULD LIKE COMMENTS ON YOUR WRITING, PLEASE NOTE AT THE END OF YOUR ENTRY THE AREAS YOU WISH FOR THE READER TO COMMENT ON, OR IF YOU WISH FOR AN OVERALL OPINION.

If you’ve been here before click Skip To Prompt.

Refrehs yourself on the Content Guidelines

FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES

With decades of writing behind me and daily learning of how to be a better writer, and by daily, I do mean constant, I wanted to give a way for current friends and future finders of this blog a way to push themselves to improve as well.

Through this challenge my hopes are you will:

  1. Find your voice
  2. Step out of comfort zones to discover a genre where your talent truly lies
  3. Perhaps make connections that will help you become a better writer

DEADLINE IS:

23:59 EST (New York Time) Wednesday. I will then have Thursday to complete reading the entries and compiling the links and such. I do read all entries. You can ask any of my Haiku Challenge family/community members.

I DO ASK THAT YOU:

 

 

  • Keep it PG as all ages do follow the blog and may click through and read the entries. (Continue for exceptions.)
  • If you do write a piece of fiction that goes past the PG level, copy the link into the comments of this post and make a note of it being such and give the reasons you think it is, such as violence (See below for clarification.), sexual content, language/profanity.
  • No violence toward children by adults or predatory aspects toward children. I know you may have two kids have a fight. I get that, but I don’t want gratuitous violence such as glorifying bullying. Also I can see you having a kid kicking some bad guy in the face for some reason. I get it.
  • No sexual assault against anyone.

WHEN YOU HAVE COMPLETED YOUR WORK OF FICTION: (The below guidelines are less than they look.)

Copy and paste your URL in the comments of the challenge post, or do a ping back to this post. This does not mean you must share a link today, Friday, just because the challenge says Friday in it. It means you must return to this post or ping back to this post.

A ping back is copying and pasting the URL of the challenge post into your post. That lets people know about the challenge, sort of, and is one way to let me know you’ve entered. Just make certain to visit back here to see your ping back is showing. Confused? Click HERE to see how to do a ping back.

If your blog is with WordPress, TAG your post as Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes. This way people may find your work in the WP Reader.

IMPORTANT! For those wishing to participate in the possible FREE eBook Project for Fiction, click HERE for the Challenge Page with information at the bottom along with a form of agreement to fill out.

Click HERE for STRIPPING for FICTION or HOW TO WRITE FLASH FICTION.

Prompt for Challenge

FIRST OF ALL: Please remember, this is NOT a race. Take your time. Friday is only a part of the title, not a deadline. SECONDLY, if the story is flowing, don’t let the word count stop you; keep writing. THIRDLY, if you are an ACTIVE challenge participant and you just aren’t feeling the prompt, write something and ping back or paste your link. I’ll still include it in the #Links post the following Friday.

  • See if you can come in at more than a Word Count of 600. Control your word usage. (SUGGESTED)
  • Using the prompt of ‘A lie is told’ create a scene. This scene can be about what happens because of the lie, or how it makes the person lying feel, or anything you can come up with. If a series is being written, like some are doing, this lie can come back later to haunt the liar. (REQUIRED)

For proofreading of your work you might check out Grammarly.com. They have a free option to download for Word or that will even work right here in the WordPress Post Editor. It also works in the comments of sites. An additional feature is you can turn Grammarly off and own for each site you visit.

Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling on AmazonRonovan Hester is an author, with his debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling is available now for pre-order on Kindle or the Paperback is ready to ship now. Click HERE to choose. He shares his life through his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

@RonovanWrites

© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2016

What’s a GL and PSS got to do with writing?

Ronovan Writing , , , ,

If you’ve been following my Flash Fiction prompt on Fridays, you may notice I mention things called GL and passive sentence structure. Why do I do that and why are those things important?

Some people think if you write, then you’re all good. The problem with that is, you are only as good as your editor when it comes to publishing.

You must know what writing is about.

You must know what it takes to make a story you like.

You must always be learning and realize you don’t know everything and never will, and that’s okay.

Writing Tips with Ronovan-Passive Sentences and Reading Level

Grade Reading Level

GL is the reading grade level of a book. For fiction, you generally want your book not too difficult so the reader can get lost in the story and forget they are reading at all. If you can do that, you have a good reading level.

There are many ways the grade reading level is determined. The one I use it strictly based on the length of sentences and the syllables used. I don’t take into consideration the content of your work. That is something for professionals to determine. I think most of us know if we have violence, profanity, or sex in a book, the reading level is going to go up.

As time goes by, the suggested grade reading level drops according to what society sees as acceptable. In addition, you need to keep in mind the level will be different for the general public than it might be for schools where books are for educational purposes in classrooms.

You might think adults would read books at a level of 12 or higher. Realistically we want something simpler, where we know most of the words if not all of them. Most of the greatest fiction, or most popular, is written around a grade level of five or six, and that is for adult readers as well as teens.

Harry Potter is a GL of around five. Tolkien is around GL 6.5. In other words, don’t knock a GL of 5-6 when you see it in the weekly #Links post I put out.

If you are participating in the weekly prompts and are not writing around that level, it’s up to you to decide if you want to adjust. Now you know how to adjust. If you want a higher GL, use longer words and sentences. If you want a lower GL, then shorter words and sentences.

How do I determine the GL of the entries into the challenge? Word has a built in tool that does it for me.

Now you know why I include the GL in the comments/links for the entries to the challenge.

How about PSS?

I’ve more recently begun including the passive sentence structure percentage. Why did I do that? Passive sentences normally end up being longer and somewhat convoluted, causing the reader to do more to understand the sentence. Passive slows down the reading, the progress, and action of the story.

I know, some of you are thinking your book is not an action story, but each book has something going on that needs to move forward. You want to carry the reader onward. You don’t want to have your reader bogged down and their brain getting tired or bored.

Doing prompt challenges like the one I host, or any blog for that matter, helps you get in the habit of writing in the grade level you like and in an active voice. You don’t want to write an entire book and realize you need to change it all. 350 pages of do over is a daunting thing to face.

Use Word, if you have it, and set things up to check for passive voice. Yes, Word has that ability. Check out Using Proofing To Help Your Fiction Diction & More! to see how to set Word to work for you.

I don’t give much feedback about how to improve writing, because when I have given serious feedback I ended up with anger and defensiveness. That is another reason I put the GL and passive sentence structure percentage in the links.

Ronovan Hester is an author, whose debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling is available now on Kindle and in Paperback is ready to ship now. Click HERE to choose.

My Book SupportersClick the image for Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling on Amazon.com.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

@RonovanWrites

 © Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2016.

FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES Prompt Challenge #15-A spill occurs.

Ronovan Friday Fictions , , , , , , , , , ,

Useful links:
Grammarly.com
Click HERE for STRIPPING for FICTION or HOW TO WRITE FLASH FICTION.
Click HERE for Dialogue Tags, Action Beats, and the Dialogue Comma.
Click HERE for What’s a GL and PSS got to do with writing.

Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes Challenge

IF YOU WOULD LIKE COMMENTS ON YOUR WRITING, PLEASE NOTE AT THE END OF YOUR ENTRY THE AREAS YOU WISH FOR THE READER TO COMMENT ON, OR IF YOU WISH FOR AN OVERALL OPINION.

If you’ve been here before click Skip To Prompt.

Refrehs yourself on the Content Guidelines

FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES

With decades of writing behind me and daily learning of how to be a better writer, and by daily, I do mean constant, I wanted to give a way for current friends and future finders of this blog a way to push themselves to improve as well.

Through this challenge my hopes are you will:

  1. Find your voice
  2. Step out of comfort zones to discover a genre where your talent truly lies
  3. Perhaps make connections that will help you become a better writer

DEADLINE IS:

23:59 EST (New York Time) Wednesday. I will then have Thursday to complete reading the entries and compiling the links and such. I do read all entries. You can ask any of my Haiku Challenge family/community members.

I DO ASK THAT YOU:

 

 

  • Keep it PG as all ages do follow the blog and may click through and read the entries. (Continue for exceptions.)
  • If you do write a piece of fiction that goes past the PG level, copy the link into the comments of this post and make a note of it being such and give the reasons you think it is, such as violence (See below for clarification.), sexual content, language/profanity.
  • No violence toward children by adults or predatory aspects toward children. I know you may have two kids have a fight. I get that, but I don’t want gratuitous violence such as glorifying bullying. Also I can see you having a kid kicking some bad guy in the face for some reason. I get it.
  • No sexual assault against anyone.

WHEN YOU HAVE COMPLETED YOUR WORK OF FICTION: (The below guidelines are less than they look.)

Copy and paste your URL in the comments of the challenge post, or do a ping back to this post. This does not mean you must share a link today, Friday, just because the challenge says Friday in it. It means you must return to this post or ping back to this post.

A ping back is copying and pasting the URL of the challenge post into your post. That lets people know about the challenge, sort of, and is one way to let me know you’ve entered. Just make certain to visit back here to see your ping back is showing. Confused? Click HERE to see how to do a ping back.

If your blog is with WordPress, TAG your post as Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes. This way people may find your work in the WP Reader.

IMPORTANT! For those wishing to participate in the possible FREE eBook Project for Fiction, click HERE for the Challenge Page with information at the bottom along with a form of agreement to fill out.

Click HERE for STRIPPING for FICTION or HOW TO WRITE FLASH FICTION.

Prompt for Challenge

FIRST OF ALL: Please remember, this is NOT a race. Take your time. Friday is only a part of the title, not a deadline. SECONDLY, if the story is flowing, don’t let the word count stop you; keep writing. THIRDLY, if you are an ACTIVE challenge participant and you just aren’t feeling the prompt, write something and ping back or paste your link. I’ll still include it in the #Links post the following Friday.

A spill occurs, what do you do next?
Use your imagination for what a spill is. Click HERE for the Thesaurus for spill.

  • See if you can come in at more than a Word Count of 600. Control your word usage. (SUGGESTED)
  • Using the above scenario, create a scene about a spill of some kind and what you happens. Is it related to you, to someone around you, the world, love, death, sports. Get creative. (REQUIRED)

For proofreading of your work you might check out Grammarly.com. They have a free option to download for Word or that will even work right here in the WordPress Post Editor. It also works in the comments of sites. An additional feature is you can turn Grammarly off and own for each site you visit.

Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling on AmazonRonovan Hester is an author, with his debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling is available now for pre-order on Kindle or the Paperback is ready to ship now. Click HERE to choose. He shares his life through his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

@RonovanWrites

© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2016

FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES Prompt Challenge #14 -You’ve been given a message.

Ronovan Friday Fictions , , , , , , , , , ,

Check out the new THIRDLY included in the blurb right before the prompt reveal.

Useful links:
Grammarly.com
Click HERE for STRIPPING for FICTION or HOW TO WRITE FLASH FICTION.
Click HERE for Dialogue Tags, Action Beats, and the Dialogue Comma.

 

Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes Challenge

IF YOU WOULD LIKE COMMENTS ON YOUR WRITING, PLEASE NOTE AT THE END OF YOUR ENTRY THE AREAS YOU WISH FOR THE READER TO COMMENT ON, OR IF YOU WISH FOR AN OVERALL OPINION.

If you’ve been here before click Skip To Prompt.

FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES

With decades of writing behind me and daily learning of how to be a better writer, and by daily, I do mean constant, I wanted to give a way for current friends and future finders of this blog a way to push themselves to improve as well.

Through this challenge my hopes are you will:

  1. Find your voice
  2. Step out of comfort zones to discover a genre where your talent truly lies
  3. Perhaps make connections that will help you become a better writer

DEADLINE IS:

23:59 EST (New York Time) Wednesday. I will then have Thursday to complete reading the entries and compiling the links and such. I do read all entries. You can ask any of my Haiku Challenge family/community members.

I DO ASK THAT YOU:

  • Keep it PG as all ages do follow the blog and may click through and read the entries. (C0ntinue for exceptions.)
  • If you do write a piece of fiction that goes past the PG level, copy the link into the comments of this post and make a note of it being such and give the reasons you think it is, such as violence, sexual content, language/profanity.
  • No violence toward children by adults or predatory aspects toward children. I know you may have two kids have a fight. I get that, but I don’t want gratuitous violence such as glorifying bullying. Also I can see you having a kid kicking some bad guy in the face for some reason. I get it.
  • No sexual assault against anyone.

WHEN YOU HAVE COMPLETED YOUR WORK OF FICTION: (The below guidelines are less than they look.)

Copy and paste your URL in the comments of the challenge post, or do a ping back to this post. This does not mean you must share a link today, Friday, just because the challenge says Friday in it. It means you must return to this post or ping back to this post.

A ping back is copying and pasting the URL of the challenge post into your post. That lets people know about the challenge, sort of, and is one way to let me know you’ve entered. Just make certain to visit back here to see your ping back is showing. Confused? Click HERE to see how to do a ping back.

If your blog is with WordPress, TAG your post as Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes. This way people may find your work in the WP Reader.

IMPORTANT! For those wishing to participate in the possible FREE eBook Project for Fiction, click HERE for the Challenge Page with information at the bottom along with a form of agreement to fill out.

Click HERE for STRIPPING for FICTION or HOW TO WRITE FLASH FICTION.

Prompt for Challenge

FIRST OF ALL: Please remember, this is NOT a race. Take your time. Friday is only a part of the title, not a deadline. SECONDLY, if the story is flowing, don’t let the word count stop you; keep writing. THIRDLY, if you are an ACTIVE challenge participant and you just aren’t feeling the prompt, write something and ping back or paste your link. I’ll still include it in the #Links post the following Friday.

You’ve just been handed a message that makes you drop to the floor, trembling uncontrollably.

  • No more than a Word Count of 600. (SUGGESTED)
  • Using the above scenario, create a scene of what the note is about, and why it makes you react the way you do. (REQUIRED)
  • No external dialogue for this scene. (SUGGESTED)

For proofreading of your work you might check out Grammarly.com. They have a free option to download for Word or that will even work right here in the WordPress Post Editor. It also works in the comments of sites. An additional feature is you can turn Grammarly off and own for each site you visit.

Amber Wake: Gabriel FallingRonovan Hester is an author, with his debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling is available now for pre-order on Kindle or the Paperback is ready to ship now. Click HERE to choose. He shares his life through his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

@RonovanWrites

© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2016

Blog Tour – AMBER WAKE: Featured Post – How to Create a Man for Romance

Ronovan Writing , , , ,

Here’s a guest post I did on a blog that leans toward enjoying the romantical. Make sure you check it out. Vanessa asked me to provide a post and I read her blog to see what might be of interest, just as I mentioned you should do in another guest post on my blog tour. I thought how I went about, and the thought process behind, the creation of Captain Gabriel Wallace would make a good guest post.

Fellow Bloggers Publish Book

Ronovan Interviews , , , , , , , , ,

Our friend Nato asked me a few questions for my book blog tour. Check her out. I mean the interview people! Geesh.

Nato's avatarChasing Life and Finding Dreams

What do you get when you mix a handsome virile sailor with the seductively beautiful wife of an admiral? You get an intense barroom brawl that ends in murder, and that’s only the first chapter! What happens in the second chapter? I can’t say. Well, not yet.

That’s because the book, Amber Wake-Gabriel Falling, just came out yesterday. The interesting thing about the book, well outside of the sex, lies and murder, is that it was written by fellow bloggers, P.S. Bartlett and Ronovan Hester.

One of my blog ideas for this year was to expand into doing interviews. And with the publishing of a new book, I knew I needed to start with Ronovan. As a fairly new blogger, I stumbled upon Ronovan’s blog in late 2014. For over 82 weeks now, he has been hosting a weekly Haiku Challenge. I can’t say I had really written many…

View original post 1,492 more words

FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES Prompt Challenge #13

Ronovan Friday Fictions , , , , , , , , , ,

Useful links:
Grammarly.com
Click HERE for STRIPPING for FICTION or HOW TO WRITE FLASH FICTION.
Click HERE for Dialogue Tags, Action Beats, and the Dialogue Comma.

 

Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes Challenge

IF YOU WOULD LIKE COMMENTS ON YOUR WRITING, PLEASE NOTE AT THE END OF YOUR ENTRY THE AREAS YOU WISH FOR THE READER TO COMMENT ON, OR IF YOU WISH FOR AN OVERALL OPINION.

If you’ve been here before click Skip To Prompt.

FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES

With decades of writing behind me and daily learning of how to be a better writer, and by daily, I do mean constant, I wanted to give a way for current friends and future finders of this blog a way to push themselves to improve as well.

Through this challenge my hopes are you will:

  1. Find your voice
  2. Step out of comfort zones to discover a genre where your talent truly lies
  3. Perhaps make connections that will help you become a better writer

DEADLINE IS:

23:59 EST (New York Time) Wednesday. I will then have Thursday to complete reading the entries and compiling the links and such. I do read all entries. You can ask any of my Haiku Challenge family/community members.

I DO ASK THAT YOU:

  • Keep it PG as all ages do follow the blog and may click through and read the entries. (C0ntinue for exceptions.)
  • If you do write a piece of fiction that goes past the PG level, copy the link into the comments of this post and make a note of it being such and give the reasons you think it is, such as violence, sexual content, language/profanity.
  • No violence toward children by adults or predatory aspects toward children. I know you may have two kids have a fight. I get that, but I don’t want gratuitous violence such as glorifying bullying. Also I can see you having a kid kicking some bad guy in the face for some reason. I get it.
  • No sexual assault against anyone.

WHEN YOU HAVE COMPLETED YOUR WORK OF FICTION:

Copy and paste your URL in the comments of the challenge post, or do a ping back to this post. This does not mean you must share a link today, Friday, just because the challenge says Friday in it. It means you must return to this post or ping back to this post.

A ping back is copying and pasting the URL of the challenge post into your post. That lets people know about the challenge, sort of, and is one way to let me know you’ve entered. Just make certain to visit back here to see your ping back is showing. Confused? Click HERE to see how to do a ping back.

If your blog is with WordPress, TAG your post as Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes. This way people may find your work in the WP Reader.

IMPORTANT! For those wishing to participate in the possible FREE eBook Project for Fiction, click HERE for the Challenge Page with information at the bottom along with a form of agreement to fill out.

Click HERE for STRIPPING for FICTION or HOW TO WRITE FLASH FICTION.

Prompt for Challenge

FIRST OF ALL: Please remember, this is NOT a race. Take your time. Friday is only a part of the title, not a deadline. SECONDLY, if the story is flowing, don’t let the word count stop you; keep writing.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.~Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

  • Word Count of 500. (SUGGESTED)
  • Take your favorite quote from a movie and use it as inspiration for your entry this week. If you want more direction, make it the last sentence in your piece. (REQUIRED)

For proofreading of your work you might check out Grammarly.com. They have a free option to download for Word or that will even work right here in the WordPress Post Editor. It also works in the comments of sites. An additional feature is you can turn Grammarly off and own for each site you visit.

Amber Wake: Gabriel FallingRonovan Hester is an author, with his debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling is available now for pre-order on Kindle or the Paperback is ready to ship now. Click HERE to choose. He shares his life through his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

@RonovanWrites

© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2016

FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES Prompt Challenge #12

Ronovan Friday Fictions , , , , , , , , ,

Useful links:
Grammarly.com
Click HERE for STRIPPING for FICTION or HOW TO WRITE FLASH FICTION.
Click HERE for Dialogue Tags, Action Beats, and the Dialogue Comma.

 

Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes Challenge

IF YOU WOULD LIKE COMMENTS ON YOUR WRITING, PLEASE NOTE AT THE END OF YOUR ENTRY THE AREAS YOU WISH FOR THE READER TO COMMENT ON, OR IF YOU WISH FOR AN OVERALL OPINION.

If you’ve been here before click Skip To Prompt.

FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES

With decades of writing behind me and daily learning of how to be a better writer, and by daily, I do mean constant, I wanted to give a way for current friends and future finders of this blog a way to push themselves to improve as well.

Through this challenge my hopes are you will:

  1. Find your voice
  2. Step out of comfort zones to discover a genre where your talent truly lies
  3. Perhaps make connections that will help you become a better writer

DEADLINE IS:

23:59 EST (New York Time) Wednesday. I will then have Thursday to complete reading the entries and compiling the links and such. I do read all entries. You can ask any of my Haiku Challenge family/community members.

I DO ASK THAT YOU:

  • Keep it PG as all ages do follow the blog and may click through and read the entries. (C0ntinue for exceptions.)
  • If you do write a piece of fiction that goes past the PG level, copy the link into the comments of this post and make a note of it being such and give the reasons you think it is, such as violence, sexual content, language/profanity.
  • No violence toward children by adults or predatory aspects toward children. I know you may have two kids have a fight. I get that, but I don’t want gratuitous violence such as glorifying bullying. Also I can see you having a kid kicking some bad guy in the face for some reason. I get it.
  • No sexual assault against anyone.

WHEN YOU HAVE COMPLETED YOUR WORK OF FICTION:

Copy and paste your URL in the comments of the challenge post, or do a ping back to this post. This does not mean you must share a link today, Friday, just because the challenge says Friday in it. It means you must return to this post or ping back to this post.

A ping back is copying and pasting the URL of the challenge post into your post. That lets people know about the challenge, sort of, and is one way to let me know you’ve entered. Just make certain to visit back here to see your ping back is showing. Confused? Click HERE to see how to do a ping back.

If your blog is with WordPress, TAG your post as Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes. This way people may find your work in the WP Reader.

IMPORTANT! For those wishing to participate in the possible FREE eBook Project for Fiction, click HERE for the Challenge Page with information at the bottom along with a form of agreement to fill out.

Click HERE for STRIPPING for FICTION or HOW TO WRITE FLASH FICTION.

Prompt for Challenge

FIRST OF ALL: Please remember, this is NOT a race. Take your time. Friday is only a part of the title, not a deadline.

February 5th is National Wear Red Day, or Shower With a Friend Day. There are much more serious International Days the 5th is set aside for, but the challenge at this point in its growth is not a place to explore those quite yet. Although I’m not stopping anyone. If you know of another National/International Day you want to write about this week, go for it.

  • Word Count of 500. (SUGGESTED)
  • Some great stories were written last week. Continue those stories this week! (SUGGESTED)

OR

  • If you are not writing a series then It’s National ? Day and you are in charge of the party. Create your own National/International Day and spread the news. (REQUIRED if not in the middle of writing a series OR doing the above Suggested Prompt.) You can always mention a national day in a series.

For proofreading of your work you might check out Grammarly.com. They have a free option to download for Word or that will even work right here in the WordPress Post Editor. It also works in the comments of sites. An additional feature is you can turn Grammarly off and own for each site you visit.

Amber WakeRonovan Hester is an author, with his debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling due out in February of 2016. He shares his life through his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

@RonovanWrites

© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2016

FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES Prompt Challenge #11

Ronovan Friday Fictions , , , , , , , , ,

Useful links:
Grammarly.com
Click HERE for STRIPPING for FICTION or HOW TO WRITE FLASH FICTION.
Click HERE for Dialogue Tags, Action Beats, and the Dialogue Comma.

Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes Challenge

IF YOU WOULD LIKE COMMENTS ON YOUR WRITING, PLEASE NOTE AT THE END OF YOUR ENTRY THE AREAS YOU WISH FOR THE READER TO COMMENT ON, OR IF YOU WISH FOR AN OVERALL OPINION.

If you’ve been here before click Skip To Prompt.

FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES

With decades of writing behind me and daily learning of how to be a better writer, and by daily, I do mean constant, I wanted to give a way for current friends and future finders of this blog a way to push themselves to improve as well.

Through this challenge my hopes are you will:

  1. Find your voice
  2. Step out of comfort zones to discover a genre where your talent truly lies
  3. Perhaps make connections that will help you become a better writer

DEADLINE IS:

23:59 EST (New York Time) Wednesday. I will then have Thursday to complete reading the entries and compiling the links and such. I do read all entries. You can ask any of my Haiku Challenge family/community members.

I DO ASK THAT YOU:

  • Keep it PG as all ages do follow the blog and may click through and read the entries. (C0ntinue for exceptions.)
  • If you do write a piece of fiction that goes past the PG level, copy the link into the comments of this post and make a note of it being such and give the reasons you think it is, such as violence, sexual content, language/profanity.
  • No violence toward children by adults or predatory aspects toward children. I know you may have two kids have a fight. I get that, but I don’t want gratuitous violence such as glorifying bullying. Also I can see you having a kid kicking some bad guy in the face for some reason. I get it.
  • No sexual assault against anyone.

WHEN YOU HAVE COMPLETED YOUR WORK OF FICTION:

Copy and paste your URL in the comments of the challenge post, or do a ping back to this post. This does not mean you must share a link today, Friday, just because the challenge says Friday in it. It means you must return to this post or ping back to this post.

A ping back is copying and pasting the URL of the challenge post into your post. That lets people know about the challenge, sort of, and is one way to let me know you’ve entered. Just make certain to visit back here to see your ping back is showing. Confused? Click HERE to see how to do a ping back.

If your blog is with WordPress, TAG your post as Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes. This way people may find your work in the WP Reader.

IMPORTANT! For those wishing to participate in the possible FREE eBook Project for Fiction, click HERE for the Challenge Page with information at the bottom along with a form of agreement to fill out.

Click HERE for STRIPPING for FICTION or HOW TO WRITE FLASH FICTION.

Prompt for Challenge

FIRST OF ALL: Please remember, this is NOT a race. Take your time. Friday is only a part of the title, not a deadline.

  • Use the first line of one of your favorite song and begin your story with that line. (REQUIRED)
  • Word count of no more than 300. (STRONGLY SUGGESTED but I don’t want you to let it get in the way of creativity.)

For proofreading of your work you might check out Grammarly.com. They have a free option to download for Word or that will even work right here in the WordPress Post Editor. It also works in the comments of sites. An additional feature is you can turn Grammarly off and own for each site you visit.

Amber WakeRonovan Hester is an author, with his debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling due out in February of 2016. He shares his life through his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

@RonovanWrites

© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2016

Louis Nizer-“The excitement has never diminished.”

Ronovan #BeWoW, Quotes , , , , , , , , , ,

Who in the world is Louis Nizer? It might sound a bit crazy to some people to have a man who once held the title of highest paid attorney in the world.

Nizer was the senior partner of the law firm he began in 1926, Phillips, Nizer, Benjamin, Krim & Ballon. At the age of 92, he was still going to work almost every day until 10 days before his death in 1992. Was he a workaholic, control freak, or a man passionate about his choice of career? I’ll take that last one. For some reason I can’t see a person devoting 70+ years to unless they were passionate about it.

“The excitement has never diminished. Indeed it has grown. The challenge is ever new. The contest is ever intense. Surprise is ever present.”-Louis Nizer Attorney and Author February 6, 1902 – November 10, 1994

Louis Nizer quote Excitement Grows

A partial list of his clients:

  • Johnny Carson
  • Charlie Chaplin
  • Salvador Dali
  • Eddie Fisher
  • Alan Jay Lerner
  • Mae West
  • Julius Erving

My Life in Court was a New York Times bestseller in 1962. Included in the book, Nizer recounted the trial of Quentin Reynolds vs the columnist Westbrook Pegler. The trial became the basis for the Broadway play A Case of Libel.

Even today, at the time of this writing, My Life in Court is among the Top 10 in its category on Amazon for Kindle and Paperback.

“A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.”-Louis Nizer Attorney and Author February 6, 1902 – November 10, 1994
Louis Nizer quote Hands, heart, and Brains make an artist.

“Books are standing counselors and preachers, always at hand, and always disinterested; having this advantage over oral instructors, that they are ready to repeat their lesson as often as we please.”-Louis Nizer Attorney and Author February 6, 1902 – November 10, 1994
Louis Nizer quote Books as Our Instructors

“A beautiful lady is an accident of nature. A beautiful old lady is a work of art.”-Louis Nizer Attorney and Author February 6, 1902 – November 10, 1994

Part of #BeWoW and Writer’s Quote Wednesday. Click HERE for more Quotes on SilverThreading.com hosted by Colleen Chesebro. See the comments here for any links to more #BeWoW articles and check out the hashtag on Twitter to ReTweet those positive posts that apply to the #BeWoW message of positivity sharing.

Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling by PS Bartlett and Ronovan HesterRonovan Hester is an author, with a debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling due out in February 14, 2016. He shares his life on his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of writing, authors and community through his online world has led to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge, Weekly Fiction Prompt Challenge, and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

@RonovanWrites

 © Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2016

 

 

Dialogue Tags, Action Beats, and The Dialogue Comma.

Ronovan Writing , , , , , , ,

As some of you know, I host a Fiction writing challenge on Fridays here on Ronovan Writes. It’s funny how I use Ronovan Writes as if it’s not me. Sometimes I shorten it to RW. That has nothing to do with this article, merely an aside.

Dialogue Tags and More by Ronovan Hester


One of the goals of the Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes is to improve the writing of those who participate. At the moment my goal with the challenge is to encourage the improvement of the basics of writing Fiction. Some problems I see, not just in a few challenge entries, but in books I review, are the use of Dialogue Tags, Action Beats, and Dialogue Punctuation. Also today I’ll introduce some of you to Grammarly.

This piece today is not just for those doing the challenge. This is for anyone who:

  • Writes.
  • Writes short stories
  • Writes novellas, or novels.

What I have here will help you. For some of you it will be a reminder.

 

Let’s begin with Dialogue Tags. A Dialogue Tag is when you have a speaker identified along with the dialogue and a word such as ‘said’.

Example: “The dog jumped the fence,” Bob said. OR Bob said, “The dog jumped the fence.”

Example: “Did the dog jump the fence?” Sally asked.

Notice there are words used to show what kind of speaking Bob and Sally are doing. Let’s change one to see what happens.

“The dog jumped the fence.” Bob pointed to Fido racing across the field after the sheep.

We know who is speaking here, Bob because he is the only one mentioned and he is doing an action associated with the act of seeing the dog jump the fence. Now let’s see what happens with Sally.

“Did the dog jump the fence?” Sally pointed to Fido racing across the field after the sheep.

You’ll run into some people who despise Dialogue Tags, regardless of the situation. They would like you to use something like an Action Beat instead. What are Action Beats? An Action Beat is the actions taking place between the dialogues. The two examples above with Bob and Sally pointing are Action Beats. Notice there was no mention of the people speaking. You assumed who was speaking.

My personal opinion is you need a combination of Beats and Tags and nothing at all. Sticking to one and one tool only, in my opinion, would be boring.

Let’s take a look at passage using all three tools.

Example with Dialogue Tags and Action Beats.

“This class is crazy.” Billy ducked the dark rectangular object on its way toward his head.
Larry picked up the weapon, marker dust covered his hand. He threw the eraser back at the offender. “We’re not playing! Find someone else!”
“Thanks, Larry.” Billy’s muffled voice came from the floor.
“You can get up now, Billy.”
“Do you think Ms. Willett will be mad when she sees what they did to her notes on the board?”
“If I were you, I’d be reading a book when she comes in. Act as innocence as possible.”
“Will that work?”
“Did last year. This is my second year in the class. I failed by a point last time. She’s tough. They don’t call her hard butt because she works out so much.”
Billy laughed, and said, “Either way she’s my favorite teacher.”

The above is not the best example, but it gives you an idea of what I’m talking about. I used one dialogue tag, and then only to keep the reader on track. I didn’t want to throw in lots of Action Beats. Action Beats work great, but can be overdone.
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Then you might have a passage with only Dialogue Tags.

All Dialogue Tags:

“This class is crazy,” Billy said and ducked the dark rectangular object on its way toward his head.
“We’re not playing! Find someone else!” Larry said.
“Thanks, Larry,” Billy said.
“You can get up now, Billy,” Larry said.
“Do you think Ms. Willett will be mad when she sees what they did to her notes on the board?” Billy asked.
“If I were you, I’d be reading a book when she comes in. Act as innocence as possible,” Larry said.
“Will that work?” Billy asked.
“Did last year. This is my second year in the class. I failed by a point last time. She’s tough. They don’t call her hard butt because she works out so much,” Larry said.
“Either way she’s my favorite teacher,” Billy said.
How boring is that? Annoying? Except for the exclamation marks for Larry there is no personality or life to the scene. Now you see why you use dialogue tags as little as possible. You also use Action Beats only when you need to. Of course you can pep up the dialogue itself and accomplish a lot.
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One thing you need to do when writing is, give each character a distinctive voice. I always try to do that in every story I write. One character might speak in short sentences, another in long. This guy doesn’t use contractions, this guy uses them even when they don’t exist.

By giving distinctive voices, you can have a conversation without a lot of tags or beats. Beats are good. You do need them. However, if you can get as much as possible across in your dialogue you are a long way to being a success.

No Dialogue Tags and No Action Beats.

“Billy, duck!”
“These people are insane. That could’ve hit me in the eye. Thanks Larry.”
“We’re not playing! Find someone else!”
“Ooo, you nailed him with that eraser.”
“He shouldn’t’ve thrown it in the first place. Uh, Billy?”
“Yeah?”
“Stop hiding.”
“Oh, yeah. Thanks. Do you think Ms. Willett will be mad when she sees what they did to her notes on the board?”
“Put it this way, if I were you, I’d be reading a book when she comes in. Act like an angel.”
“Will that work? This place is a disaster area. There is no way she will think we didn’t do some of this.”
“Worked last year.”
“Last year?”
“Uh, Billy, I’m a year older than you, remember? I failed by one point last time. But as bad as my grades were, I never got in trouble with Ms. Willett.”
“Larry, you’re always getting into trouble.”
“I know, but every time something happened, I stuck my nose in a book. She’s tough but fair. They don’t call her hard—”
“Larry!”
“Okay, they don’t call her hard ‘butt’ because of how much she works out.”
“I don’t care why they call her that, she’s my favorite teacher.”
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Along with dialogue, one thing I notice in books I read and blogs I read is Dialogue Punctuation. I’ll only mention one form of punctuation at this time.

I’ll also make this as simple as I can. Where does the comma go?

Example: “The dog jumped the fence,” Bob said. OR Bob said, “The dog jumped the fence.”

In dialogue, we all know to use the quotation marks around the speech, the dialogue. Where does the comma go? Yes, there is a comma in most dialogue IF there is a normal expression of speech. Look at the example above. There is no exclamation nor a question mark, therefore you put a comma inside the quotation mark.

If you have an exclamation or question mark, then put the mark and close with the quotation, no comma is required.

Example: “The dog jumped the fence!” Bob said.

Example: “Did the dog jump the fence?” Sally asked.

No comma was required in the examples above.

You can do away with commas by not using Dialogue Tags and sticking with Action Beats. Yawn. Okay, not really yawn, if done correctly. When you have a scene with two people conversing, you can easily do away with Dialogue Tags and stick with Action Beats and no manner of denoting who is speaking at all based on the rhythm of the exchange.
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Grammar and Spelling

For those without Word to help catch spelling and grammar errors, I have a suggestion for you. However, first if you do have Word, I’m going to refer you to Using Proofing To Help Your Fiction Diction & More!, for how you can make the most of Word

Another TOOL to use, if you don’t have Word is Grammarly.com. It can be used inside of WordPress or any place you type, even comments on blogs. Also, they have a FREE version, which I use.
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Ronovan Hester is an author, with his debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling due out in February 14, 2016. He shares his life through his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

@RonovanWrites

© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2016

FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES Prompt Challenge #10

Ronovan Friday Fictions , , , , , , , ,

Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes Challenge

IF YOU WOULD LIKE COMMENTS ON YOUR WRITING, PLEASE NOTE AT THE END OF YOUR ENTRY THE AREAS YOU WISH FOR THE READER TO COMMENT ON, OR IF YOU WISH FOR AN OVERALL OPINION.

If you’ve been here before click Skip To Prompt.

FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES

With decades of writing behind me and daily learning of how to be a better writer, and by daily, I do mean constant, I wanted to give a way for current friends and future finders of this blog a way to push themselves to improve as well.

Through this challenge my hopes are you will:

  1. Find your voice
  2. Step out of comfort zones to discover a genre where your talent truly lies
  3. Perhaps make connections that will help you become a better writer

DEADLINE IS:

23:59 EST (New York Time) Wednesday. I will then have Thursday to complete reading the entries and compiling the links and such. I do read all entries. You can ask any of my Haiku Challenge family/community members.

I DO ASK THAT YOU:

  • Keep it PG as all ages do follow the blog and may click through and read the entries. (C0ntinue for exceptions.)
  • If you do write a piece of fiction that goes past the PG level, copy the link into the comments of this post and make a note of it being such and give the reasons you think it is, such as violence, sexual content, language/profanity.
  • No violence toward children by adults or predatory aspects toward children. I know you may have two kids have a fight. I get that, but I don’t want gratuitous violence such as glorifying bullying. Also I can see you having a kid kicking some bad guy in the face for some reason. I get it.
  • No sexual assault against anyone.

WHEN YOU HAVE COMPLETED YOUR WORK OF FICTION:

Copy and paste your URL in the comments of the challenge post, or do a ping back to this post. This does not mean you must share a link today, Friday, just because the challenge says Friday in it. It means you must return to this post or ping back to this post.

A ping back is copying and pasting the URL of the challenge post into your post. That lets people know about the challenge, sort of, and is one way to let me know you’ve entered. Just make certain to visit back here to see your ping back is showing. Confused? Click HERE to see how to do a ping back.

If your blog is with WordPress, TAG your post as Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes. This way people may find your work in the WP Reader.

IMPORTANT! For those wishing to participate in the possible FREE eBook Project for Fiction, click HERE for the Challenge Page with information at the bottom along with a form of agreement to fill out.

Click HERE for STRIPPING for FICTION or HOW TO WRITE FLASH FICTION.

Prompt for Challenge #10

FIRST OF ALL: Please remember, this is NOT a race. Take your time. Friday is only a part of the title, not a deadline.

January 22, which is Friday’s date, is Celebration of Life Day.

  • Take a moment in your life of which you would celebrate and use that as inspiration for a no more than 750 word story, but don’t let that stop you if you are enjoying yourself and the story is going well. (SUGGESTED)
  • If you are not doing a series, write the story as if the characters were animals living in the roles of humans. An example would be the policemen might be German Shepherds and other Police type dogs. (REQUIRED if not in the middle of writing a series.) OR
  • Use the same experience for a story in one of the following Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Thriller. (Required if not using the above.)

For proofreading of your work you might check out Grammarly.com. They have a free option to download for Word or that will even work right here in the WordPress Post Editor. It also works in the comments of sites. An additional feature is you can turn Grammarly off and own for each site you visit.

Amber WakeRonovan Hester is an author, with his debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling due out in February of 2016. He shares his life through his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

@RonovanWrites

© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2016

FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES Prompt Challenge #9

Ronovan Friday Fictions , , , , , , , ,

Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes Challenge

IF YOU WOULD LIKE COMMENTS ON YOUR WRITING, PLEASE NOTE AT THE END OF YOUR ENTRY THE AREAS YOU WISH FOR THE READER TO COMMENT ON, OR IF YOU WISH FOR AN OVERALL OPINION.

If you’ve been here before click Skip To Prompt.

FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES

With decades of writing behind me and daily learning of how to be a better writer, and by daily, I do mean constant, I wanted to give a way for current friends and future finders of this blog a way to push themselves to improve as well.

Through this challenge my hopes are you will:

  1. Find your voice
  2. Step out of comfort zones to discover a genre where your talent truly lies
  3. Perhaps make connections that will help you become a better writer

DEADLINE IS:

23:59 EST (New York Time) Wednesday. I will then have Thursday to complete reading the entries and compiling the links and such. I do read all entries. You can ask any of my Haiku Challenge family/community members.

I DO ASK THAT YOU:

  • Keep it PG as all ages do follow the blog and may click through and read the entries. (C0ntinue for exceptions.)
  • If you do write a piece of fiction that goes past the PG level, copy the link into the comments of this post and make a note of it being such and give the reasons you think it is, such as violence, sexual content, language/profanity.
  • No violence toward children by adults or predatory aspects toward children. I know you may have two kids have a fight. I get that, but I don’t want gratuitous violence such as glorifying bullying. Also I can see you having a kid kicking some bad guy in the face for some reason. I get it.
  • No sexual assault against anyone.

WHEN YOU HAVE COMPLETED YOUR WORK OF FICTION:

Copy and paste your URL in the comments of the challenge post, or do a ping back to this post. This does not mean you must share a link today, Friday, just because the challenge says Friday in it. It means you must return to this post or ping back to this post.

A ping back is copying and pasting the URL of the challenge post into your post. That lets people know about the challenge, sort of, and is one way to let me know you’ve entered. Just make certain to visit back here to see your ping back is showing. Confused? Click HERE to see how to do a ping back.

If your blog is with WordPress, TAG your post as Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes. This way people may find your work in the WP Reader.

IMPORTANT! For those wishing to participate in the possible FREE eBook Project for Fiction, click HERE for the Challenge Page with information at the bottom along with a form of agreement to fill out.

Click HERE for STRIPPING for FICTION or HOW TO WRITE FLASH FICTION.

Prompt for Challenge #9

FIRST OF ALL: Please remember, this is NOT a race. Take your time. Friday is only a part of the title, not a deadline.

Ticks and tocks of essential time, sink the spirits lower than wine.

  1. Include the above sentence somewhere in your work of fiction. (Required.)
  2. Keep your word count at no more than 500 words this week. (Suggested.) Do NOT let your story suffer because of the word count limit. Remember, it is a suggested part of the prompt.

Some of you are now yelling at me. This can be a clue, an incantation/spell, a part of a poem, an ad a character reads in a paper or hears on the radio/TV, or just about anything. We often make using a prompt a lot more difficult than it needs to be.

Something to keep in mind this week is to proofread. Before you hit publish, spell check your work. Then read your work again, line by line. Seriously. One thing to do is to take your writing in a Word document and make each sentence a line all its own. There would be no paragraphs. By reading each line one at a time, you will see mistakes easier. I for one know the word you’re has been missed by two authors several times, when it should have been the word your. That could have made it to the published version.

Amber WakeRonovan Hester is an author, with his debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling due out in February of 2016. He shares his life through his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

@RonovanWrites

© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2016

Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes Prompt #8 Entries: THE LINKS

Ronovan Friday Fictions The Writers with The Links , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The order appearing is the order in which the entry was received.

GL below stands for the reading Grade Level. Harry Potter is a GL of around 5. Tolkien is around GL 6.5.

The Writers with The Links

The Prompt for the Challenge was this famous Boab tree in Western Australia. The various takes on the prompt were surprising and there are some great ones in there. Some are begging for a series to continue the stories and I so hope the authors do decide to pick up the stories with the next prompt.

Boab tree
The Tree of Life
Kim Russell (Writing in Northfolk)
A story of a girl, her mother, and a twist of an ending. 249 Words and GL of 1.5 @kim88110

Recovery From Birth
by Teresa Smeigh (Writing is my Life)
This week Teresa has more excitement going on and drama as well. 880 Words and GL of 2.9. @TeresaSmeigh

Talitha Emerging
Natalia Erehnah (Weaving Gold)
Natalia used the prompt to write a passage for her work in progress, Spinning Stardust. I’d say it worked out quiet well. 230 words and GL of 6.3. @weavinggold

Curled Within
Lady Joyful (The Joyful Soul Creates)
The first installment of a possible series. A great start. Make sure to comment on what you think. I believe she gave just enough, and actually plenty in the 200 words limit she set for herself. 200 Words and GL of 3.3.

The Wish Eating Tree
by Ritu (But I Smile Anyway…)
Hmm, well that was an interesting read. Ritu has one serious imagination. 1848 Words, 4.4 GL. @PhantomGiggler

Melancholy Through a Looking Glass
Nandini Bharadwaj (Pages That Rustle)
Very nice first time entry. I very much want to see where this one might lead. Hoping there is a part two with the next prompt. 641 Words and 5.8 GL.

Larrkardiy
TJ Paris (La vie est trop courte pour boire du mauvais vin)
Good story of fiction based on traditional history of the particular tree used in the prompt. I knew when I saw TJ pop up and knowing the tree is located in Western Australia, I figured I might get a good retelling of facts. He also shares some history, myths, and facts following the story itself. 608 Words and 6.0 GL. @Roccoco_a_GoGo

A Night Shift Dreamtime Story
by Kat Myrman (like mercury colliding…)
Another great story. And another one that needs to keep going. Don’t believe me? Check the comments out. 664 Words. 5.3 GL.

Feverish-Part Two
by Melissa Barker-Simpson (Author Blog)
Melissa, or Mel, has jumped into this series of challenges. A two parter has turned into three. Check out the action, mystery, and fantasy now. 1036 words and a 4.0 GL.

Of Finding Oneself
Solveig Werner (Solveig Werner~eclectic, multilingual…)
Oh, what a wishful story this one is. One I believe we all would like to live. Another excellent first entry to the challenge community we’re growing here. (You all need to go check out her awesome glasses.) 548 Words and 5.5 GL.

Under the baobab tree.
Geetha Balvannanathan (Geetha Balvannanthan’s Blog)
An interesting story. I see a good social commentary on a time gone by, and in some parts of the world, still exists. 382 Words and 5.4 GL. @geethap2007

Promises
anghulinghugotero (anghulinghugotero)
A myth, folklore, fantasy, and a feel of scifi all rolled into one. At least it all seems that way to me. A great story. 1885 Words and 5.4 GL.

Ronovan Hester is an author, with his debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling due out Valentine’s Day of 2016. He shares his life through his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge, a new Friday Fiction Writing Prompt Challenge, and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.

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“TV’s sameness has destroyed … urge toward independent thought.”

Ronovan #BeWoW, Quotes , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Here is the final of a Big Three I have been doing.
First it was:

Dorothy Kilgallen-Her Pen was Her Scalpel.

Groundbreaking journalist, TV legend, and hard as nails crime investigator, Kilgallen was generations and decades ahead of her time. If not for her, Harrison Ford wouldn’t have a hit in The Fugitive. (Click to Read More.)

The Second was:

Arlene Francis-The first lady of television and charm.

During the 1950s, Newsweek put her on the cover as the “first lady of television”. You need to remember something very important about this time; Lucille Ball was a big hit with ‘I Love Lucy’. (Click to Read More.)

The Final is the other mainstay panelist of the hit game show What’s My Line?. A show that you needed to be on when promoting any entertainment coming out or going on. Class, with ties, dresses, and manners. Witty patter, friendship, style, and credentials. Here is the anchor of the panel itself, the co-founder of Random House Publishing, Bennett Cerf.
A public school kid in New York, who graduated from Columbia University. he went to High School with Richard Simon of Simon and Schuster Publishing.
A list of few ofCerf’s Authors:
Ayn Rand
Theodore Seuss Geisel
Truman Capote
William Faulkner
James Michener
Sinclair Lewis

A good deal of Cerf’s time was spent playing nursemaid to some of his more temperamental authors. Among the writers in that category was Sinclair Lewis. Cerf later recalled an occasion when Lewis was spending the night at his apartment and William Faulkner called to announce that he was in town. “I told Lewis and asked him, could Bill come over? Lewis said, ‘Certainly not. This is my night!’ ” Later that night, according to Cerf, about an hour after Lewis had retired, the author called down for Cerf from upstairs. “I answered him, and he said, ‘I just wanted to see if you sneaked out to see Faulkner.”‘~http://biography.yourdictionary.com/bennett-cerf

Cerf has stayed relevant to this day through his son, Christopher Cerf, know for his over 300 songs for Sesame Street and being a force behind the PBS series Between the Lions, a series teaching and encouraging reading.
This more measured assessment of Cerf came from the Saturday Review shortly after his death: “He gave full measure to his profession. Everyone connected with the world of books is in his debt.”~http://biography.yourdictionary.com/bennett-cerf
“Good manners: The noise you don’t make when you’re eating soup.”
Bennet Cerf
Bennett Cerf Good Manners Quote
Coleridge was a drug addict. Poe was an alcoholic. Marlowe was killed by a man whom he was treacherously trying to stab. Pope took money to keep a woman’s name out of a satire, then wrote the piece so that she could still be recognized anyhow. Chatterton killed himself. Byron was accused of incest. Do you still want to be a writer? And if so, why?
Bennet Cerf on being a Writer Quote
Reading is a pleasure of the mind, which means that it is a little like a sport: your eagerness and knowledge and quickness count for something. The fun of reading is not that something is told to you, but that you stretch your mind. Your own imagination works along with the author’s, or even goes beyond his, yields the same or different conclusions, and your ideas develop as you understand his.
 Bennett Cerf Reading is like a Sport Quote
TV’s sameness has destroyed many things, such as the American urge toward independent thought.
Bennett Cerf TV and Independent Thought Quote

Part of #BeWoW and Writer’s Quote Wednesday. Click HERE for more Quotes on SilverThreading.com hosted by Colleen Chesebro. See the comments here for any links to more #BeWoW articles and check out the hashtag on Twitter to ReTweet those positive posts that apply to the #BeWoW message of positivity sharing. Also check out #IWSG, or Insecure Writer’s Support Group brought to my attention by Author Rose B. Fischer at RoseBFischer.com.

Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling by PS Bartlett and Ronovan HesterRonovan Hester is an author, with a debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling due out in February 14, 2016. He shares his life on his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of writing, authors and community through his online world has led to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge, Weekly Fiction Prompt Challenge, and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.

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@RonovanWrites

 © Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2016

Writing Motivation.

Ronovan Writing , ,

Why do you write? What’s your motivation?

Money?

Fame?

I read an article recently that included a comment about a writer’s motivation and it began the hamster running like mad. Smoke started coming out the auricles of the cabeza. The article didn’t quite go in the direction I’m headed today, but as with all articles about, I got something out of it and ran with it.

When I write, I have something to say. Sounds a bit obvious, right? All authors have something to say, but some will roll over and compromise out the wazoo in order to be published. Once you begin that compromise process, you’re doomed.

There is going to be a certain level of give and take, and editing, but you need to stay true to what you are. If you don’t, you will be miserable. At least I find myself fighting inside when those moments come up for me.

What is my motivation?

I always like to have believability in my stories. Then I like to find ways of using words, sentence length, and sentence structure to denote mood and tone, rather than using profanity. Now, you may say, and I say it too, that some people in certain situations are going to use certain words. If you are creative, you can relay that to the reader without resorting to actually saying it.

With my debut novel coming out, sooner or later, I say sooner or later because my co-author and I are first and foremost devoted to a quality product, it’s in editing now, but with the book coming out soon, You’ll see two styles of writing blended together. Those that have read the book can tell what writing is mine. That is not saying either writing is better than the other, but the two combined to give each other’s what the story needed to some extent.

There may be a word here or there I would not have used, but then that is part of the collaboration. I fortunately have a partner who knows me and how far I am willing to go.   And the words used aren’t the profanity type.

My motivation is to give information, a lesson, some type of message, insight, hopefully a different take on things, and to put voice into the story. That is one thing you will have difficulty with, keeping your voice. Again, those who have read the book say they hear me in the book. My partner, PS Bartlett, has done a good job of not overpowering with her own style by changing things. And we go back and forth about certain aspects to make certain things flow properly.

Deep down, I am not after fame or money. I would like to someday, make a living as a writer. I don’t mean a big house, or lots of vacations, maybe a couple of vacations a year, to a beach I could drive to and have a nice little house big enough to provide what’s needed.

I want to people to think of me as a great writer, with a genuine voice they recognize when they read it, and have a confidence when they see my name on the cover of a book that the book will be a good read.

I’m not 100% positive what happens after Amber Wake-Gabriel Falling, as far as my writing. I have a book in the somewhat editing stage right now. It’s a contemporary, literature, romance, Sothern, New Adult thing based here where I live in places I’ve been. And several others in the seasoning stages that I will be returning to after the debut drops.

One thing, one piece of advice I’ve read that I agree with is, authors become successful not by the marketing they do, but by the writing the do. The more they write, the more quality books they get in front of the readers’ eyes, the better the author’s chances of success becomes.

Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling by PS Bartlett and Ronovan HesterRonovan Hester is an author, with his debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling due out in February 14, 2016. He shares his life through his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has led to the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.

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@RonovanWrites

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FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES Prompt Challenge #8

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Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes Challenge

IF YOU WOULD LIKE COMMENTS ON YOUR WRITING, PLEASE NOTE AT THE END OF YOUR ENTRY THE AREAS YOU WISH FOR THE READER TO COMMENT ON, OR IF YOU WISH FOR AN OVERALL OPINION.

If you’ve been here before click Skip To Prompt.

FRIDAY FICTION with RONOVAN WRITES

With decades of writing behind me and daily learning of how to be a better writer, and by daily, I do mean constant, I wanted to give a way for current friends and future finders of this blog a way to push themselves to improve as well.

Through this challenge my hopes are you will:

  1. Find your voice
  2. Step out of comfort zones to discover a genre where your talent truly lies
  3. Perhaps make connections that will help you become a better writer

DEADLINE IS:

23:59 EST (New York Time) Wednesday. I will then have Thursday to complete reading the entries and compiling the links and such. I do read all entries. You can ask any of my Haiku Challenge family/community members.

I DO ASK THAT YOU:

  • Keep it PG as all ages do follow the blog and may click through and read the entries. (C0ntinue for exceptions.)
  • If you do write a piece of fiction that goes past the PG level, copy the link into the comments of this post and make a note of it being such and give the reasons you think it is, such as violence, sexual content, language/profanity.
  • No violence toward children by adults or predatory aspects toward children. I know you may have two kids have a fight. I get that, but I don’t want gratuitous violence such as glorifying bullying. Also I can see you having a kid kicking some bad guy in the face for some reason. I get it.
  • No sexual assault against anyone.

WHEN YOU HAVE COMPLETED YOUR WORK OF FICTION:

Copy and paste your URL in the comments of the challenge post, or do a ping back to this post. This does not mean you must share a link today, Friday, just because the challenge says Friday in it. It means you must return to this post or ping back to this post.

A ping back is copying and pasting the URL of the challenge post into your post. That lets people know about the challenge, sort of, and is one way to let me know you’ve entered. Just make certain to visit back here to see your ping back is showing. Confused? Click HERE to see how to do a ping back.

If your blog is with WordPress, TAG your post as Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes. This way people may find your work in the WP Reader.

IMPORTANT! For those wishing to participate in the possible FREE eBook Project for Fiction, click HERE for the Challenge Page with information at the bottom along with a form of agreement to fill out.

Click HERE for STRIPPING for FICTION or HOW TO WRITE FLASH FICTION.

Prompt for Challenge #8

Boab treeUse the photo above as inspiration. This is a Adansonia gregorii or boab tree found in Australia. I see a lot of possibilities for stories from this one, ranging across genres. This week, don’t worry about word count and let the mind go where it wants.

I know some of you are doing a series, but I can see how this tree could fit in with the stories that are ongoing.

Amber WakeRonovan Hester is an author, with his debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling due out in February of 2016. He shares his life through his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.

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@RonovanWrites

© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2016

Friday Fiction with Ronovan Writes Prompt #7 Entries: THE LINKS

Ronovan Friday Fictions The Writers with The Links , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The order appearing is the order in which the entry was received.

GL below stands for the reading Grade Level. Harry Potter is a GL of around 5. Tolkien is around GL 6.5.

The Writers with The Links

The Newborn
by Teresa Smeigh (Writing is my Life)
Tessa makes a mad dash to the hospital with a newborn a lot less stressful in a lot of stressful ways. Humor was the goal this week and she accomplished that, even though it wasn’t where she originally intended to go with the 7th installment of her series. 281 words. GL of 5.6.

How not to start the New Year
by KL Caley (New2Writing)
A great start for our new to the challenge member. I have a bad feeling this was based on fact rather than fiction. Isn’t that where the best humor comes from? At least she can laugh about it, or maybe this was a cathartic endeavor. 283 words and 7.3 GL.

Purple Haze
by Kat Myrman (like mercury colliding…)
Hooch for the pooch brings about an intoxicating smooch. Kat pulls out all the stops in her Humor piece this week. 255 words. 6.8 GL.

Caring For Your Schnauzer by Ima Le’Amature
by Meredith Haynes (Meredith’s Musings)
This week Meredith shares a chapter from a book that’s helped her with Nick all this time. Um, sort of. Chuckles and squeaker toys abound. You know that combination can’t be good … for the owner, not the Schnauzer. 487 words and 5.3 GL.

Stag Don’t
by Ritu (But I Smile Anyway…)
Where does her mind go for these things. The next prompt might be for her to explain what happened in this one. 142 words, 3.2 GL.

Feverish-Part One
by Melissa Barker-Simpson (Author Blog)
Talk about Cats and Dogs. Melissa gives us a sci-fi/fantasy type trip here. And it’s only part one. 1003 words and a 4.6 GL.

Cat’s Rule
by R. Todd (A Flash of Fiction)
Seeing inside the minds of Cats and Dogs. This is evil. And I somehow think it just may be true. 338 words and a 2.8 GL.

The Right and the Wrong Umbrella
by Alka Girdhar (Magnanimous Word)
Alka thought there wasn’t much humor here, but she was only being modest. Her style gives a subtle touch to humor and you begin to chuckle because you see what’s coming before she tells you. Very nice. 324 words at a GL of 4.8.

Fluffy, the Matchmaking Cat
by Michelle ‘Nato’ Lunato (Chasing Life and Finding Dreams)
Seduction, romance, humor, and a cat toy? I enjoyed this one a lot. She’s got some promise. 845 words. GL of 2.4.

Ronovan Hester is an author, with his debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling due out Valentine’s Day of 2016. He shares his life through his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has lead to a growing Weekly Haiku Challenge, a new Friday Fiction Writing Prompt Challenge, and the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

@RonovanWrites

 © Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2016