For our September Book of the Month, we brought you Quarantine: The Loners by Lex Thomas -- and asked you to imagine you and your classmates were trapped — quarantined — inside your high school. Then, we had you write about life trapped inside your high school in 250-500 words. Three winners will each be... Continue Reading →
For our July Book of the Month featuring Innocent Darkness by Suzanne Lazear, we asked you to submit your own writing that combined steampunk and another genre -- much like Suzanne did in her book! (Steampunk meets faeries!) One lucky winner gets a finished copy of Innocent Darkness courtesy of Suzanne herself. And that lucky... Continue Reading →
For our July Book of the Month featuring Innocent Darkness by Suzanne Lazear, we asked you to submit your own writing that combined steampunk and another genre -- much like Suzanne did in her book! (Steampunk meets faeries!) One lucky winner gets a finished copy of Innocent Darkness courtesy of Suzanne herself. And that lucky... Continue Reading →
Do you have what it takes to spook, scare, shock? We want you to try your hand at writing a scary story for our Haunted Reads writing contest! The Contest With Halloween in mind, write a story that is: scary, spooky, or just plain creepy! You can write something that's traditional horror, or something a... Continue Reading →
This month's Writing Prompt is more of an Exercise, and it's inspired by this blog post on Tinderbox, which is a homeschool blog: Assignment: Write two short descriptions of the same thing. One description should use only action verbs. The other should use only linking verbs. The blog post talks about active vs. linking verbs,... Continue Reading →
Dialogue is a key element to any story. It's used to show conflict, advance the plot, expose characterization, and explore theme. Here's an exercise that can help you improve your dialogue. Take one of your scenes and convert it into a screenplay. You can look up screenplay formats on a website such as this, but... Continue Reading →
Submission from a previous writing prompt: SweetSarcasm shared this take on "London Bridge" for the "Twist a Nursery Rhyme" prompt. Thanks, SweetSarcasm! This month, we'll focus on conflict. And I don't mean a big ol' fight to the death between characters. This prompt is inspired by an exercise from a class on conflict I took last month. Conflict is... Continue Reading →
All this month, we're taking a splash with Of Poseidon by Anna Banks, our June Book of the Month! And to really kick off this celebration, we're offering a fantastic mermaid writing contest! The Contest: Write your own piece of flash fiction about mermaids & life under the sea! It can be funny, dramatic, romantic,... Continue Reading →
All this month, we're taking a splash with Of Poseidon by Anna Banks, our June Book of the Month! And to really kick off this celebration, we're offering a fantastic mermaid writing contest! The Contest: Write your own piece of flash fiction about mermaids & life under the sea! It can be funny, dramatic, romantic,... Continue Reading →
For our February Book of the Month, we featured Darkness Becomes Her and the sequel A Beautiful Evil by Kelly Keaton. Both books feature the significant influence of Greek mythology, so for our writing contest we asked you to write your own modernized twist on a classic myth! Our two winners will each receive a... Continue Reading →
Novel Novice 