HowTos Index

How To Find a Literary Agent
Finding a literary agent can be one of the hardest steps in getting your book published. This how-to breaks the process of finding an agent into manageable tasks.

How To Publish Your Short Stories
How to publish your short stories published in journals and magazines, for fiction writers interested in publishing their work for the first time. Everything from how to format your work to tracking submissions to dealing with rejection.

How To New Short Story Ideas from Pictures -- Getting Short Story Ideas from Pictures
A creative writing exercise for writing groups or individuals to help generate writing ideas using pictures. By using an image you did not create, you are more likely to free associate and come up with original ideas.

How To Use the Dictionary to Discover New Writing Prompts
The dictionary is a wealth of story ideas and writing prompts. This exercise will guide you through the process of unlocking this tool.

How To Employ All Five Senses in Creating Your Setting
Many writers swear that setting is the most important element of any fictional work -- that story and character grow out of setting. Here, you will devote some time reflecting on your story's setting.

How To Start Writing in the Third Person
In a rut with the first person? It's common for beginning writers to avoid writing in the third person initially, but some stories benefit from the freedom it allows you. This exercise will help you rewrite a story in the third person.

How To Use Modifiers More Effectively
While modifiers -- adjectives and adverbs -- can add to a story, too many, or the wrong ones, can bog down your prose and lead to weaker nouns and verbs. This writing exercise, by forcing you to hold off on modifiers altogether, will challenge you to choose your nouns and verbs more carefully.

How To Avoid Too Much Back Story
Does your fiction tend to get bogged down in back story? Are you unsure of how to stay in the present with a piece? This exercise will help you learn to create forward-moving fiction.

How To Use Freewriting to Get Short Story Ideas
Freewriting is one of the best tools for generating short story ideas. It is a simple writing exercise that can be done anywhere and requires a minimum of time. The only thing free writing does require, in fact, is a pen and paper. Even the willingness to let go is provided by the exercise.

How To Use Secrets to Find Short Story Ideas
It's sometimes hard to come up with original short story ideas. This game involving secrets helps writing students discover new inspirations for their short stories.