Okay, so you should now have done the first 5 exercises and should be ready for Fiction Writing Exercises – Ideas for Writing Fiction #6. (No? If not, go back and see what you’ve been missing. Then come back to this one… =)

Here’s the next installment in the series:

6. Tales by Letter

Write a story in the form of a series of letters or postcards, faxes, official reports, (imaginary) newspaper stories, answerphone messages, e-mails, diary entries or a travel journal. Combine any or all of these in your finished story.

You may have used a little of this in an earlier exercise, but now you want to use it for your WHOLE story this time.

If you’re not sure how to do this, check out books like THE NOTEBOOK which uses a form of diary (journal) entries to forward the story along and which provide the ‘twist’.

One of my favorite examples of a story told in emails/official reports is Alan Dean Foster’s short story SWAMP PLANET CHRISTMAS (from …WHO NEEDS ENEMIES?) It’s funny, twisted, frustrating and a pointed commentary on bureaucracy all at the same time, done as transmissions between a colony and a home planet/government some time in the future. However, it’s so well written, it could just as easily be set today and still apply… Alan Dean Foster is a master of the short story and novel formats, along with many screenplay adaptations from STAR TREK to STAR WARS to ALIENS and even DARK STAR, so feel free to read any and all of his work to help you in yours, especially if you like to work in the Science Fiction genre.

(These fiction writing exercises are based on the work of Nick Daws, who is a best-selling author living in Staffordshire, England. His audio book, “Write Any Book in Just 28 Days OR LESS” is available at writequickly.com )

(With all the creative writing exercises you’ve been (hopefully) doing, here’s a great article on how to write and get a book published – the next step in your writer’s evolution.)

How to Author and Publish a Book
By Bob Burnham

1. The most important thing you can do before you write and publish a book is to make sure that someone out there wants to read it. Better yet, a couple thousand people want to read it. There is not much point to writing and publishing a book if you do not have an audience.
2. The good news is that there are many wonderful tools that you can use to determine if there is a demand for your book’s topic. Online keyword tools, forums, and even speaking with people in your industry will help you determine if people are actively searching for your information.
3. Begin by brainstorming specific book ideas. If you are using your book as a business card or a tool to build credibility in your career then you already have a place to start. If you’re starting from scratch then make a list of topics that you want to write about. It’s important to write about something that you are interested in and passionate about. Your love for your topic will come through in your writing and it will be a better book.

Once you have a general idea for your book’s topic, consider how the book is going to benefit your readers. What will they gain from reading it? Will they have pets that are better trained? Will they be able to purchase a software program that makes their lives easier? Will they be smarter, sexier, wealthier, thinner, more respected? Define exactly how your book is going to make their lives better and then write and structure your book to make it happen.

Consider writing a sales page or synopsis before you write your book. Your sales page or synopsis will highlight the benefits your book provides and the kind of information you cover. You can then use your sales page to structure your book – your sales page will work as a lighthouse to keep you focused and headed in the right direction.

Give yourself a certain amount of time to complete your book – whether you write it yourself or not. It’s easy to let other things sidetrack you and the book you planned on publishing this year does not get published for ten years or more.

Make a plan and stick to it even if it means that you only write for ten minutes a day. It is possible to write and publish a book in a month, but you have to commit to the process.

• Self publish for faster results and more money. We spend more than 14 billion dollars a year purchasing self published books. Someone is clearly making a lot of money. Self publishing gives you the power to see your book on store shelves in a tenth of the time that it takes to publish traditionally. It also gives you 100% control over your book and 100% of the profits.

You can self publish> your book electronically, in print, or a combination of both. In fact, many people that self publish go on to sign huge contracts with traditional publishing houses. Chicken Soup for the Soul started out as self published books and they have gone on to make Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen millions in sales and publishing contracts. Even better, the contents of those books are written by others!

Electronic publication is the fastest, easiest, and least expensive way to publish and market your book and it’s a great way to test the waters. It begins with a website to promote your book, a marketing plan, an auto responder campaign to distribute it via email, and a way to collect the money from your sales.

Really, it does not get any easier. You can author and publish your book quickly and easily. How soon do you want to see your name in print and reap the benefits of being an author? 20 days? 30 days? Get busy and make it happen.

For Your FREE MP3 (Value $97.00):
How To Make A 6 Figure Income Writing & Publishing Your Own Book

Go To: How To Publish A Book

Bob Burnham
Entrepreneur, Consultant and Author of Reasons Why You Must Write A Book

For Information on How to Write and Publish your own book go to Expert Author : http://www.expertauthorpublishing.com
Read More On: Write and Publish Your Own Book

If you’re like me, someone who’s not only a voracious reader, but someone who’s always wanted to write a book, novel, or even screenplay of their own but didn’t know even where to start, then you might like these fiction writing exercises I found on the internet. There were quite a few ideas for writing fiction provided, so I’ve decided to break them up into separate blog entries, letting each stand on its own and hopefully making it easier to try each out thoroughly before attempting the next (better practice that way, I feel, when you focus and learn a writing concept or trick well before going onto others.)

So here goes:

Ideas for Writing Fiction #1

Here is the first kick-starter for your imagination:

1. Dictionary Roulette

Open a dictionary at random and choose the first word that appears. Do this twice more, so that you have three randomly chosen words. Now try to incorporate all three words into a story.

Not only does it help you get over the ‘blank page’ syndrome since now you will have some ideas of what to write about, but it will also help increase your vocabulary, a definite benefit to any budding writer. And the best thing is you can do this over and over as needed until you are comfortable with the technique. (If you don’t happen to have a dictionary, then you can use any book handy to get your creative juices flowing – flip to a page, grab a word, and so on, then write your story, flexing and strengthening your imagination’s muscles at the same time.)

The stories don’t have to be long ones – the trick is to learn how and where to get ideas for writing, especially if you’ve been stuck at the starting point, wondering even where to begin.

This is also a great writing technique for people who’ve been doing it for a while and need a little jump-start when they’ve gone ‘stale’. Plus it has all sorts of opportunities for being pretty funny or very strange given what words could pop up at the top of a dictionary page. Here are a few that came up for me:

tediously, populate, liquefy
shipwreck, hallucination, hamster
generation, monitor, roulette

The possibilities are endless… Why not try them out for yourself?

(These ideas are based on the work of Nick Daws, who is a best-selling author living in Staffordshire, England. His audio book, “Write Any Book in Just 28 Days OR LESS” is available at writequickly.com )