First of all, we at Writers in the Storm must let you know that we continue to be blown away by your  first lines. Your responses rained tantalizing hooks across pages of comments. Today we are pleased to welcome back Shannon Donnelly with another one of her fantastic writing lessons to help you turn those […]

Here's Shannon Donnelly with 12 tips to help you gather "just enough" details for your story! ************* There's a dilemma that faces every writer of fiction—when is enough enough? When do you need more details to help the reader “see” the scene? And when do the details become distracting devils? The answer seems obvious: When […]

By Shannon Donnelly When I first started writing, I found out you needed a synopsis to submit to agents. Okay, I thought, I can do that. Well, I did, but not so well—twenty pages later I had a synopsis that rambled, wandered, and just did not do the job. Thankfully, someone pointed this out to […]

Shannon Donnelly is back this month with a topic that I have spoken with other authors about, but never seen in a blog before. I can't wait to read the comments, to see what you all think!  Here's Shannon: Something happens when you read a lot—very often stories come to you. A lot of folks […]

Writers in the Storm welcomes Shannon Donnelly back, as this month, she makes an excellent argument for writing what you know-and better yet-tells us how. by Shannon Donnelly Writing advice can often seem mysterious. The phrase “write what you know” at first left me shaking my head. It’s often seemed to me that when you […]