Novel writing
Friday Fiction – Evaluation

Friday Fiction – Evaluation

Welcome to Friday Fiction and it's linky week too! Click on the blue frog below to link up your fiction and review posts and don't forget to comment on other posts too. My post this week is a fiction piece from my Nano novel, pieces of which I have posted before,...

‘The End’ – When Do You Really Stop Drafting?

‘The End’ – When Do You Really Stop Drafting?

'The End' Those two words can mean so much, especially to me this week. I finished the draft of my manuscript re-write. I wrote the end of my story. Except I never actually wrote those two words because I know that it's far from at that point. It felt good though....

How do you keep up your writing mojo?

How do you keep up your writing mojo?

If there’s one thing that throws me off with my writing, it’s a break in the routine. A week off for the school holidays is fine, but if I leave it any longer than that, it's much harder to get back in to. That’s what happened this week. Half term came and went, then...

Friday Fiction – How Do You Measure Author Success?

Friday Fiction – How Do You Measure Author Success?

Friday Fiction is here and as it's the first Friday of the month it's link up time! Join me by linking up and sharing your own fiction works and book reviews. Have a read of what others are sharing and don't forget to leave a comment to let them know. All you need to...

Friday Fiction

Friday Fiction

My Friday Fiction extract this week comes from a manuscript that waits patiently in the background for me to edit it. In the meantime, I often find myself delving in to it looking for interesting passages to share for this weekly post. I chose this piece as it fits...

Friday Fiction – Dark Days

Friday Fiction – Dark Days

This is a scene from the story I'm working on at the moment. It is an exchange between the main protagonist (Jake) and his brother (Mattie). I hope you enjoy it. ‘You don’t remember anything from back then do you?’ he says, shaking his head in disbelief. I feel hot...

Children’s Picture Books and Moving On

Children’s Picture Books and Moving On

We met children's book illustrator and author, Katherine McEwan at my writing group last week. What a lovely lady she is and such beautiful work too. People might think it's easy to write picture books when in fact the opposite is true. The word count is limited and...

Is It Ever Too Late To Save A Story?

Is It Ever Too Late To Save A Story?

When I came across the ten to one story, I knew I had to try it for myself. That set me off looking for similar writing exercises and I found and completed another three. Lots of you joined in too and it was great to see the variations in interpretation and ideas. The...

Friday Fiction – NaNoWriMo re-visit

Friday Fiction – NaNoWriMo re-visit

Welcome to Friday Fiction. Thanks to those who came along last week and linked up. It was nice to be back and I enjoyed reading your stories. This week I've chosen an extract from the novel I wrote for NanoWrimo. I haven't had much time to work on it, as I've been...

Writing and Editing – Making Progress

Writing and Editing – Making Progress

Re-writing a manuscript is daunting and when I started mine, I wasn't sure how I would get on. I found part way through, I had to stop and take stock of what I'd written so far: do some editing, check for unnecessary adverbs and clichés etc. Since then I've spent...

Friday Fiction – Some Tough Decisions

Friday Fiction – Some Tough Decisions

Welcome to Friday Fiction, my weekly fiction post and link-up. Thanks to all those who dropped by last week to read and add their own work. It's great to have the company here at Nikki Young Writes! The link is open for adding your posts (see the blue frog link at the...

Creating Fictional Characters

Creating Fictional Characters

Writing inspiration can come from many sources, whether it's through music, images, or newspaper articles. It can also come from the most unlikely of sources and when my son came home with this painting he had created at school, I immediately fell in love with this...

Friday Fiction – The Girl on the Outside

Friday Fiction – The Girl on the Outside

Welcome to Friday Fiction, my weekly fiction post. It's also an opportunity to link up your own fiction posts, so if you are working on anything at the moment, please feel free to share it here (using the blue frog link below). Thanks to those who joined in last week....

Friday Fiction – Gift

Friday Fiction – Gift

Welcome to Friday Fiction, my weekly fiction post. It's also an opportunity to link up your own fiction posts, so if you are working on anything at the moment, please feel free to share it here (using the blue frog link below). Thanks to those who joined in last week....

Friday Fiction – Anticipation

Friday Fiction – Anticipation

Welcome to Friday Fiction, my weekly fiction post. It's also an opportunity to link up your own fiction posts, so if you are working on anything at the moment, please feel free to share it here (using the blue frog link below). Thanks to those who joined in last week....

Friday Fiction – A to Z Story

Friday Fiction – A to Z Story

Welcome to Friday Fiction. Regular visitors will know that I share a fictional piece here every week and invite others to link up their own work. Thanks to all those who linked up last week. It's great to see so many of you trying the exercises that I've been...

Story Structure

Story Structure

If all stories were as simple as a beginning, middle and end, then writing a novel would be easy. They would also be a bit dull, which is why longer stories are structured to include sub plots. Yes, there is still a beginning, middle and end, but it's not quite as...

Inspirational Writing

Inspirational Writing

I’ve been a closet writer for the last few years and it wasn’t until I did NaNoWriMo last November, that I actually plucked up the courage to socialise with other writers. I surprised myself by making such a bold step and I haven’t looked back since. Now I’ve gone...