Nicole Bianchi

Writing, Copywriting, & Marketing Strategies

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How to Vividly Describe Emotions: 3 Powerful Strategies (Video)

Published December 10, 2020 | Last Updated December 10, 2020 By Nicole Bianchi 1 Comment

I’m excited to share a new video with you today!

In this video, I’m sharing three powerful strategies that will help you vividly describe emotion in your writing so you can connect with your readers on a deeper level. We’ll look at these strategies in action in the books of famous writers including J. R. R. Tolkien and Virginia Woolf.

I hope you find the video helpful! I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

If you enjoy the video, it would be awesome if you could give it a thumbs up on YouTube and leave a comment. And make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel if you’d like to see more videos like this one. 

I’ve just started making videos and really appreciate your support. I hope the video inspires you with your writing. Thanks for watching!

Filed Under: creativity, featured, fiction, writing

Fun, Unique, and Useful Gift Ideas for Writers

Published December 8, 2020 | Last Updated December 9, 2020 By Nicole Bianchi Leave a Comment

Photo by Joshua Lam on Unsplash

Happy December! Christmas and Hanukkah are right around the corner, and that means the gift-giving season is here.

Maybe you’re looking for a special gift for a friend or family member who is a writer. Or maybe you’re looking for a gift for yourself. After all, it’s been a crazy year, and you deserve something special too.

In today’s post, I’ve put together a list of lots of different gift ideas that would be perfect for writers. I haven’t used all of them myself, but after reading the reviews, I am considering adding several to my own Christmas list. 😉

I’d love to hear in the comments if you have any other gift ideas to add — maybe a writing gadget you love and can’t live without.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: featured, inspiration, writing

How to Use NaNoWriMo to Reach Your Writing Goals

Published October 29, 2020 | Last Updated October 29, 2020 By Nicole Bianchi Leave a Comment

November is only a few days away, and that means that National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo!) is nearly here.

If you’ve never heard of NaNoWriMo before, it’s a month-long event where writers challenge themselves to pen a 50,000-word novel (about the length of novels like The Great Gatsby or Fahrenheit 451).

The goal is to begin writing on the first of November and finish by midnight of November 30. You can plan and outline your story as much as you like beforehand, but the actual writing of the story can only be done during November.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Whoa, that sounds intimidating! Not for me.” Perhaps you don’t have any idea for a story, or you have an idea but not a plot, or maybe you’re not even interested in writing fiction.

Well, one of the cool things about NaNoWriMo is that you can adapt it to your own writing goals. Whether you want to start a daily writing routine or overcome writer’s block or begin working on a nonfiction project, NaNoWriMo can be the perfect way to motivate yourself to start writing.

In today’s post, I’m sharing three ways that I’ve used NaNoWriMo in the past to reach several different writing goals. 

[Read more…]

Filed Under: blogging, creativity, featured, fiction, inspiration, motivation, writing

3 Tips From F. Scott Fitzgerald for Writing Masterful Dialogue

Published October 3, 2020 | Last Updated October 3, 2020 By Nicole Bianchi Leave a Comment

September 22 marked the beginning of autumn, and it reminded me of this wonderful quote from The Great Gatsby,

Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.

As the quote repeated itself in my brain, I wondered what part of the book it came from. There are so many quotes like this one that people lift from books and share across Instagram and other social media sites, devoid of their original context.

So I went in search of the quote and found it on page 107 of my edition of The Great Gatsby. It’s a line of dialogue that the character Jordan says in reply to Gatsby’s love interest, Daisy:

‘What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon,’ cried Daisy, ‘and the day after that, and the next thirty years?’

‘Don’t be morbid,’ Jordan said. ‘Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.’

The writer in me sprang to attention and said, “What masterfully written dialogue!”

Perhaps I could glean several tips from Fitzgerald that would help me to write masterful dialogue as well.

So I continued reading a little more of the scene and came away with these three takeaways.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: creativity, featured, fiction, inspiration, writing

Create Compelling Characters with the Dinner Table Exercise (Video)

Published August 8, 2020 | Last Updated August 8, 2020 By Nicole Bianchi Leave a Comment

I’m excited to share a new writing resource with you today!

Recently, I dove into editing the first draft of my novel so I decided to re-read Robert Mckee’s book Story for editing tips.

While reading, I stumbled across a fantastic piece of advice that I thought would make an excellent writing exercise for creating compelling characters. I share all about it in the video:

I hope you find it helpful! I’d love to hear what you think in the comments.

If you enjoy the video, it would be awesome if you could give it a thumbs up on YouTube and leave a comment. And make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel if you’d like to see more videos like this one. 🙂

I’ve just started making videos and really appreciate your support. I hope the video inspires you with your writing. Thanks for watching!

Filed Under: creativity, editing, featured, fiction, inspiration, writing

Feeling stuck while writing? Try this strategy (Video)

Published July 25, 2020 | Last Updated July 25, 2020 By Nicole Bianchi Leave a Comment

I hope you’re crushing it with your writing this month and getting your unique message out to the world. 🙂 I’m really excited to share this week’s writing resource with you because…it’s a video!

For several years, I’ve wanted to revive my YouTube channel. I used to post educational videos there for my tutoring students quite a while ago. This summer, I finally decided to take the leap.

Here’s the first video I recorded for you:

In this video, I share a strategy that helps me overcome writer’s block when I’m beginning a new writing project (you can use it anytime you get stuck while working on a piece of writing).

I hope you find it helpful! I’d love to hear if you use it too.

If you enjoy the video, it would be awesome if you could give it a like and leave a comment. And make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel if you’d like to see more videos like this one. 🙂

Thanks for watching!

Filed Under: blogging, featured, inspiration, motivation, productivity, video, writing

Four Powerful Creative Writing Exercises From Famous Authors

Published May 30, 2020 | Last Updated May 30, 2020 By Nicole Bianchi 8 Comments

Pen resting on top of open book
Photo by Dewang Gupta

A few months ago, I wrote an article sharing five powerful writing exercises from famous authors.

Just as pianists practice scales to strengthen their skills like rhythm and timing, writers can sharpen specific skills through deliberate practice.

Since publishing that original article, I’ve been searching for more creative writing exercises, and I discovered four more gems that I’m excited to share with you today.

Struggling to write effective dialogue? Or craft vivid descriptions? Or maybe you’re facing writer’s block?

These creative writing exercises will help you overcome those obstacles.

Let’s dive in. [Read more…]

Filed Under: creativity, featured, inspiration, motivation, writing

7 Editing Tips That Will Make Your Writing More Engaging

Published May 21, 2020 | Last Updated May 21, 2020 By Nicole Bianchi 2 Comments

Blank notebook next to pair of glasses and three sharpened pencils | 7 Editing Tips That Will Make Your Writing More Engaging
Photo by Jess Bailey

A few months ago, I wrote a review of award-winning editor Jack Hart’s book Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction.

(That’s my Amazon affiliate link above — I’ll make a small comission if you buy a copy at no extra cost to you. Thanks!)

Storycraft is one of my favorite books on the craft of writing (I share several of my other favorite books in my article here). Even though Hart aimed his book at writers of nonfiction, I believe there is much that writers of fiction can glean from its pages too.

In fact, there’s one chapter in particular that’s a goldmine of editing tips for any kind of writing. Recently, I collected my top takeaways from the chapter and arranged them as an editing checklist for myself when I work on blog posts, essays, and short stories.

I’ve found these tips incredibly helpful so, today, I wanted to share seven of them with you!

These powerful editing tips will help you breathe life into your writing, turn plodding sentences and paragraphs into fast-paced narratives, and capture the attention of your readers.

Let’s dive in. [Read more…]

Filed Under: creativity, editing, featured, writing

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Hi, I’m Nicole! I help creatives, business owners, and writers take their writing and copywriting to the next level and grow their online audience. I’m also a published writer of essays and short stories. As a Christian, I seek to follow in the tradition of artists like Johann Sebastian Bach, dedicating all my work Soli Deo gloria.
Find out more about me here.
•••
“My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I recite my verses for the king; my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer.”
– Psalm 45:1

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