FaithWriters.com-Christian Writers Forum

One of my entries with a surprise ending was "Teen Town". I don't know exactly what rating the ending received but the entry itself was 1st in Advanced and 7th in Editor's Choice. Therefore I am assuming that the judges rating the ending fairly high, even though it breaks Rule #1 listed by...

Thanks Jan. I have a question. In our previous Challenge quarter each topic was based on an animal idiom. Some of these idioms, including "Elephant in the Room", might be considered clichés. Yet some participants said they had never heard of some of these idioms and took their meanings lit...

Oh--this assignment is so much fun! :D I can only think of a few of the answers right now but I will try to do more later. 1) "Elephant in the room" might be replaced by "hippopotamus in the swimming pool". 4) I used a cliché in "The Courier": http://www.faithwriters.co...

Thanks Jan for your kind words!

The Bear

Looking over my previous entries, readers' comments, and Deb's ratings feedback, it seems that great beginnings have historically not been my strong point. Even those entries that placed are flawed. For example, beginning with dialog and/or a question, or beginning with a quote from Scripture. I thi...

Oh--ho--ho! Very good Steve! "Interrobangs"---I never knew that a "?!" was called an interrobang.

And Jan thanks for a great beginning for the lesson on how to write Great Beginnings.

Cinnamon Bear

Jan, thanks for your reply which was indeed very helpful. I know that you already provided a great deal of helpful information in your initial post regarding three ways of achieving characterization. But I am bit of a dolt and have to be reminded two and three times to read everything carefully. :oo...

I would like to learn more about how I can breathe more life into the characters in my Challenge entries and still stay within the 750 words.

Cinnamon Bear

This gave me the idea to start a Pinterest board for Kristen, called "Kristen's Favorite Things." On this board, I collect pictures that tie back to the story and pictures of all the things Kristen would like. Theresa, thanks very much for the link to your Pinterest board. What a great id...

I am following this thread with great interest. I am not quite ready to add anything of substance so I am making this "Hello" post so that I will receive notices of new posts.

Cinnamon Bear

Shann, I can only speak for myself here, but maybe some of your readers share my opinion: I'm not fond of the non-human POV. For me, stories like that (and not necessarily yours, but ANY story with this sort of POV) more often than not seem like children's stories. I realize that many people really...

Some Good Online Websites for Grammar and Usage Online Quizzes GrammarBook https://www.grammarbook.com Pull down the “Quizzes” menu and select “Free Quizzes”. Scroll down a short way to see the list of free quizzes. Or you can pull down the “English Rules” menu and select a general category of your...

This week's lesson provides so much to think about. Regarding grammar: As as biologist I need to be able to write reasonably well. But professional biology writing is always pretty much in the same style. So previously, I didn't often encounter punctuation, capitalization, spelling, usage, etc. issu...

Oh---excellent, JayDavid.

The Bear

Yes, Jan. Tension is just the mood I hoped to create. With a few more words I could show that Violet's tension is significantly greater than that of her fellow students. The reader would then be left to speculate why Violet, more than any of her classmates, fears failure.

The Bear