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...
Friday Fiction – The Departing
Anna sat, consciously unmoving in the leather chair of the Headmaster’s office, aware that any sudden movement might make the old leather groan and squeak to penetrate the already tense and embarrassing silence. Though a fully grown adult with three young children,...
Friday Fiction Is Changing
I've been writing weekly fiction posts for some time now and I created the Friday Fiction link so that others could join me. It's difficult to come up with new material week after week though, so I'm widening the remit of this slot to include book reviews. I already...
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
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...
Friday Fiction – The Outsider, by Emily Organ
Welcome to Friday Fiction. I'm excited to have guest author, Emily Organ taking over this post today with an extract of her new book, The Outsider. I hope you enjoy reading it. Don't forget the link is open as usual, so it would be lovely to read and share your own...
Friday Fiction – Living Up To The Challenge
Hello and welcome to Friday Fiction, my weekly fiction link up. I have a short story today - a stand alone story, not related to anything else I am working on. I hope you enjoy it and maybe it will inspire you to write your own short story or flash fiction piece....
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
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
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
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
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
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....
Clichés and Adverbs – Editing your Work
This weekend I spent a lot of time editing my manuscript. As I said last week, I had to stop and take a step back from it in order to check that I was going in the right direction. I decided to start editing from the beginning, especially after giving the first few...
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
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...
Friday Fiction – Jokes for Dads
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. The blue frog below takes you to the link-up page, where you can either add your own blog pieces or read others. My...
Friday Fiction – 10 Verbs, 10 Nouns
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. The blue frog below takes you to the link-up page, where you can either add your own blog pieces or read others. For my...
Writing Exercises – Creating Fiction and Exercising the Brain
I finally feel like I am making some headway with my novel re-write. This is thanks, in part, to my daughter doing a two-hour gym session every Saturday. It gives me the opportunity to sit down and write for a reasonable length of time without any interruptions. I’m...
Friday Fiction – Surviving the Winter
This week's Friday Fiction is inspired by a post I saw last week on Jay C Wolfe's blog. The challenge was to write a 55 word story in which the first line has ten words, the second has nine, the third eight and so on, ending with just one word. I wanted to have a go...