New writer

Hey, what writing course are you doing?

Use the 'inspiration points' on the Front Page for inspiration! An 'outline' is essentially a condensed version of what you are going to write. Try and get your story line into two or three paragraphs and then add another par on the style you are going to use, think about appropriate imagery, characterisation and language - and then get going! Good Luck!

Write about what you know.Write about the difficulty of finding ideas.Write about ABCtales!!

One way is to do a mind map. There is a book by Tony Buzan you can get from your library. Essentially take a sheet of paper and draw a circle in the centre. Place the title(one word only) inside the circle. Next draw lines from that circle as each new idea comes to you. Aim to keep your notes down to one word. Use colour pens if you can. Work your way through your ideas until you end up with something radiating like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. The order does not matter. Being creative and organised does. When you have finished go back an read your notes on the page. Number them in order of importance or how they could appear in your finished article. The single words will act like bullets so now you can fill in the other bits and write something on each topic. After you've done that I'm sure you will word count, remove overused words and edit like a pro. There you have finished your article. I just wrote a 2 page article in WF September issue and it was very easy. Have fun .