Aug 1, 2012 / General Advice & Pro Tips

Focus On: Fiction and Poetry Blogs

Did you know literature was an Olympic event until 1948? Of course, all creative submissions had to reference athletics in some way, and many think the quality of the work suffered as a result. That’s why blogging is such a great way to develop and showcase your creative writing – there are no restrictions or limitations beyond your own imagination!

If you primarily write fiction or poetry, or if you’d just like to try your hand at a poem or story, here are some ideas to get you started:

  • Focus. Sheer invention can be tough, and Facebook beckons just over on the other tab. Try minimizing distractions while you’re working. Hang a ‘do not disturb’ sign on your door, turn on some classical music (or put in earplugs), and give the Distraction Free Writing mode a try.
  • Format. When posting poems on your blog, getting the spacing right can be tricky. But there’s no need to sacrifice your perfect formatting to the HTML gods. This article has some tips to help you format your poems exactly as you envision them – whether you’re writing haiku or concrete poetry, or whether you just want some extra breathing room between your stanzas.
  • Add visuals. While stories and poems are all about the text, a well-chosen image can add visual interest and color to your posts. Many creative writers also dabble in drawing or painting, so if you have original work to share, go for it! If your work was inspired by a video, photograph, or song, add it to your post. Or go the other way and make your writing the focus with a clean, minimalist theme.
  • Participate. Perhaps fleeing to a cabin in the woods was the traditional way to finish a novel, but these days participating in a group writing challenge online might be more effective – and more fun. For some motivation, check out sites like Nanowrimo.org, storyaday.org, or NPR’s current revival of the Olympic poetry tradition.
  • Imitate. The best way to improve as a writer is to read and imitate excellent writing. If you’re blocked, nearly every literary magazine these days has web content. There are some fantastic lit mags on WordPress.com, and you can also browse the poetry and fiction Topic pages for writing inspiration.

Are you a novelist or a poet, or do you aspire to be? What tips do you have for how best to feature creative writing on a blog?

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  5. Hey! I didn’t realise that literature was in the Olympics! Does that mean I’m an athlete?!

    Strangely I wrote an Olympic related post today if anyone’s interested. It’s a satire of Olympics in the future – A Review of the Olympic Games, in 4024 http://wp.me/p28REp-5H

    Would love to know what you think, I’m thinking of doing more sports related writing on the back of this!

    Also – I’m aiming to post more regular “normal” blogs. Your site looks like it might be of use to inspire me! Thanks 🙂

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  7. Just a couple of days ago on my reader I caught a flash of a Daily Post about a new writing challenge but then I returned an hour or so later and it had disappeared. Did I imagine it? I’m sure I didn’t because it sounded really cool. Tell me I’m not going mad please!!!

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  9. I like the advice a lot, but I think there are a couple of things missing. A couple of other bloggers have commented on getting on and writing lots. Treating it like a discipline inevitably helps. But I think feedback is even more important.

    Learning to suss out what works and what doesn’t is immensely important, whether you’re writing satire or children’s fiction, or anything in between. I cannot recommend enough branching out into writing drama, and then getting it performed – or failing that, putting it on yourself. You get reactions throughout, from the actors and/or directors, and then from the audience, critics, and from watching it through on tape a few months afterwards once you’ve lost the buzz and are more minded to be critical. I’ve learned huge amounts from having 11 plays performed, some of them toured, and it was the later ones which brought in the awards. All of this helped my prose too, because some of the rules are just the same. Like working out when characters really wouldn’t act as you’ve written them.

    And as an additional point, a lot of people I know who write keep “blocking” on a scene or a chapter, and bang their heads against a wall. For me, having a block has one of two causes: 1) I simply haven’t thought that scene or chapter out enough, and need to have some thinking time, ideally whilst I get on with writing something else, or writing a later scene; 2) The scene or project isn’t working. The second one is depressing, but needs to be acknowledged sometimes. I have a play which I have tried to write off and on for a long time, and I’ve never been really engaged with it. Eventually, after a passing comment by a writer I know, I realised that the whole thing was never going to engage me because there wasn’t enough at stake in the piece. There was no threat, no deadly time on it, and whilst there was humour there just wasn’t enough interest. I put it down and have never regretted not picking it up again. It just wasn’t a runner and it’s worth knowing that sometimes. There are many, many other things my time would be better spent writing, and many of the ideas will find their way into those.

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  13. I’m an aspiring novelist and I find that blogging is a great way to keep up my writing skills and creative touch when I’m too lazy to work on the novel.

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  16. I went with my gut feeling and am posting my Flash Fiction (very short 75 word stories) and occasional Haiku. Oh and the odd pic of the beautiful place i live in! It seems to be working …

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  19. I think you are right about reading great poetry as a starting point for your own writing – but you must bring in your own concerns, experiences and ideas. I like imitating other poets’ style, but I always strive to find my own voice. It’s a game of to and fro. That’s the joy of reading and writing!

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  24. some excellent advice here. I am just finishing my first novel and the edits are taking forever. I need to make this project top priority to complete, I know that. It’s easy to get distracted. and in terms of advice for any creative project: just begin, the inspiration will follow. If we waited for the perfect time and mood to write, create…we would never accomplish anything!

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  27. People from the top of the organization is paid, as long as the point is not lost very rapidly to give back a certain point, were made in this article.

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  28. Thanks so much for posting this information. I’ve been writing my own poetry my entire life. And finally have posted my very first blog ever containing all of my personal work. So yepperz this is all new to me. I appreciate WordPress & all it’s awesome tips/articles.

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  29. Hi, I actually started blogging in wordpress with my “serialized” fiction novel. It’s actually hard writing fiction than non fiction because it takes so much energy from you. But now, after reading this post, I might actually go back and continue it.

    http://www.RedoftheMacabre.wordpress.com is the fiction blog by the way. 😀

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