Writer’s Digest Writing Kit

Writer’s Digest Writing Kit: Everything You Need to Get Creative, Start Writing, and Get Published
by the Editors of Writer’s Digest
ISBN: 1-58297-442-X
$24.99, 2 small books and cards

The Writer’s Digest Writing Kit serves people who have always thought about writing, but don’t know how to start, as well as the beginning/intermediate writer who wants to know how to get their work into print. It’s geared to all types of creative writers-poets, fiction or nonfiction. Plus, beginning writing groups will find activities and instructions and how to get a successful start.

No other writing kit on the market talks about how to really get your work in print. This one pulls valuable market listings from the Market Books series to show beginners where and how to start.

The kit includes two reference books, as well as two decks of cards to help get your creative juices flowing.

Book 1: 60 Solutions to Common Writing Mistakes (by Bob Mayer, all original)
This book includes the 60 most common mistakes made by beginners (across all genres), either in their approach/mindset, their writing, or their submission process.

Book 2: The Mini-Market Book: Everything You Need to Know to Get Published, Including 125 Markets for Beginners (repurposed from Writer’s Market)

  • 25 Best Markets for Fiction (Novel and Short Story Markets)
  • 25 Best Markets for Personal Essays
  • 25 Best Markets for Poetry
  • 25 Best Markets for Articles
  • 25 Best Markets for Children’s Fiction

This book also includes comprehensive appendices addressing:

  • How to Write a Solid Query Letter
  • How to Format & Submit Your Work
  • 10 Commandments No Writer Should Break
  • How to Start and Run a Writing Group
  • A One-Day Writing Retreat

Oversized Cards:

  • 30 Circle cards–Writing Prompts: Get ideas, get inspired
  • 30 Square cards–Writing Exercises: Writing and revising an existing project

Excerpts

Exercises

Character Development
Select a scene from your story that showcases a major confrontation between your protagonist and antagonist. Rewrite the scene, but assume that your antagonist is actually the story’s protagonist and vice versa. Does the scene play out differently under these conditions? Do your sympathies to either character change? Do you reveal anything new about how they might act or think? Use these discoveries to enrich the characters in their original roles.

Something From Nothing
Take a phrase such as “I forgot,” “I didn’t want to,” or “I was sorry.” Write as many sentences as you can think of using the same phrase at the beginning. Next, go back and remove the phrase. Look over the lines that remain and see if you can make a poem, adding or subtracting words as you need to. Were you able to create a diamond from your rough lines? What did you learn about trying to fill an empty page?

Prompts

Write a story that contains only three characters and that consists entirely of dialogue. Your story can take place anywhere—on an airplane, in line at a grocery store, or at a funeral. None of the characters can tell your reader where they are or describe their surroundings in any way. How will you convey your setting?

Write about your day. Include all the events, details, interactions, and thoughts. Then write about your day from the point of view of someone else with whom you interacted. Then do it again with from another point of view. How does the story change?