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Article
Caro Clarke

Writing Advice: Don't Get It Right the First Time

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
How much of your novel have you written? Do you keep starting it and never finishing it? Learn the answers to these questions in this novel-writing advice piece.
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Article
Caro Clarke

Loving Your Characters Too Much

For Students 6th - 8th Standards
This article is the fifth in a series that is designed to help new authors with their new novels. This lesson focuses on your main character and what happens when that character lacks character flaws.
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Article
Caro Clarke

Caro Clarke: What Is Conflict?

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This is the sixth in a series of articles designed to help the new writer with their novel. This article focuses on conflict and how it effects the characters and the plot of the story. W.11-12.3a Narratives
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Article
Caro Clarke

Not Stopping the Reader: How to Avoid Stumbling Blocks

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This is the eighth article in a series that focuses on helping the new novel author. This article looks at how the author can avoid creating stumbling blocks that disrupt the flow of the novel.
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Article
Caro Clarke

A, B, and C Characters

For Students 6th - 8th Standards
This is the ninth article in a series that focuses on helping the new novel author. This article focuses on what the author calls "A, B, and C Characters," used to describe the different levels of characters.
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Article
Caro Clarke

Explaining Too Much: Why More Is Less

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This is the eleventh article in a series that is designed to help the new novel author. This article focuses on how to eliminate needless information in your novel. The key is to not explain too much about the action.
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Activity
Caro Clarke

The Art of the Unspoken: Saying More by Describing Less

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This is the thirteenth article in a series that was developed to help the new novel author. This article focuses on how good descriptions aren't necessarily connected with a lot of words, good descriptions are clean and to the point.
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Article
Caro Clarke

Historical Fiction: Who Rules?

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This is the fifteenth article in a series designed to help the new novel author. This article focuses on the genre of historical fiction and the role of the author. Is the author a researcher or a story-teller?
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Article
Caro Clarke

The Doldrums: When the Wind Leaves Your Sails

For Students 9th - 10th
This is the 16th article in a series that gives advice to the new novel writer. This is a particularly interesting and helpful article on how to deal with periods in writing when your enthusiasm wanes.
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Article
Caro Clarke

Rewriting

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This is the 17th article in a series that helps the new fiction author with the final step--revision.
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Activity
Caro Clarke

Caro Clarke: Description: What's It For?

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This is the twelfth article in a series that is designed to help the new novel writer. This article focuses on how to effectively use descriptions in any writing.
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Article
Caro Clarke

Writing Advice: Where to Start?

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This writing tutorial focuses on helping the aspiring author find a good place to start on his or her fiction.
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Article
Caro Clarke

Caro Clarke: Pacing Anxiety, or How to Stop Padding and Plot!

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This is the seventh installment of a series giving advice to the author who is new to writing novels. This article focuses on how to take your characters and use them and their conflicts to develop the plot of your story. W.9-10.3b...
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Handout
Caro Clarke

Caroclarke: Dialogue: The Best Action

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This is the fourteenth article in a series published with the goal of helping the new novel author. This article focuses on using dialogue to advance the action of the story. Links on the left offer other information about story writing.
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Article
Caro Clarke

Describing Your Characters Through Their Actions

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This is the tenth in a series of articles designed to help the new novel author. This article focuses on how to develop characters through their actions instead of simply relying on dialogue and description of thoughts. W.11-12.3d...
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Article
Caro Clarke

Caro Clarke: Writing Advice: Beginner's Four Faults

For Students 9th - 10th Standards
This site is a personal site from Caro Clarke. The third installment in this series looks at the four major mistakes made by beginning authors. The main idea of this article is that the author needs to be able to combine dialogue with...