(Free) Lessons for Novices Eager to Write

Aside from my off-line Service offerings I also offer this site for novices new to writing fiction. Jump right in and learn online.

We’ll offer a new lesson here weekly. That’s 52 free lessons per year.

Contact us later for more in depth coaching, editing, or workshops.

• 1-to-1 coaching in fiction and memoir writing
• In depth editing focused on scene purpose & storytelling style
• 3-day workshops held on-site @ your locations (limited to 8 participants)

Welcome to Bridge to Story

Take work from your mind to the page now. Coaching sharpens storytelling craft & style. See your story shine. All genres, memoir.

Novice writers spend a lot of time reading how-to books and attending workshops and classes. A lot of these offer exercises, story starters and prompts to try out your writing skills.

• Write ten opening lines

• Keep a list of unusual names for future characters

• Write a paragraph beginning with the phrase _____

But if you exercise then set aside your resulting work in notebooks and journal you will never discover where those exercises might take you. In this lesson we’ll take the steps of looking at your own work and expanding your exercises by questioning them. The goal is reviewing with an eye for turning exercises into scenes, short stories or novels; by looking at your work and taking the next step: reworking exercises to actually writing more.

Examples

Seeing is believing. The example linked to this week’s lesson is written by real novice writers. See where they began and how they worked the lessons in a before and after editing example. This Lesson’s Examples.

Exercises

The exercises linked to this week's lesson are based on several resources. For each fiction lesson we present a specific exercise. We also provide links to help you build a personal library of How-to books by wonderful authors. This Lesson's Exercise.