Nicole Bianchi

Writing, Copywriting, & Marketing Strategies

A Flock of One Hundred Birds (Short Story)

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I have something a little different to share with you today: a new short story! When the spring weather arrives here in North Carolina, I always feel more creatively inspired. So here’s a spring gift for you:

A Flock of One Hundred Birds (A Short Story)

“If it hadn’t been for the war, he might never have met her. It happened on one of those nightmarish evenings when above ground the city rocked with bombs while below ground crowds of people huddled together in subway stations converted into air raid shelters. He stood alone in the wavering electric light and scanned the surrounding faces. His eyes searched for a friendly one that would allow him to exchange a few words and forget the worry that his apartment building might soon be replaced by a giant crater. Then he saw her…”

I hope you enjoy the story!

How To Use “The Hero’s Journey” in Fiction and Nonfiction Writing (video)

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

It’s all about the fantastic story template called the Hero’s Journey. In this video, I look at how you can use this template for both fiction and nonfiction to make your writing more compelling and captivate your readers.

I hope you enjoy the video! It would be awesome if you could give it a thumbs up and leave a comment. Have you used the hero’s journey before or will you use it in a future piece of writing? Also make sure to subscribe to my channel if you haven’t already!

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

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3 Powerful Writing Exercises from Ursula K. Le Guin’s “Steering the Craft”

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Last year, I compiled two articles sharing writing exercises from famous authors. Writing exercises give you a fantastic way to strengthen specific skills through deliberate practice. They can also help you spark new ideas for stories or memoir essays or blog posts (very helpful if you’re struggling with writer’s block!).

In response to the articles, a reader asked if I had ever read Ursula K. Le Guin’s book Steering the Craft, saying it was filled with a powerful set of writing exercises too.

Well, of course, I immediately put it on my to-read list. This past month I found a copy at my local library, and I dove in.

Le Guin was a sci-fi and fantasy author, but her book Steering the Craft is a useful guide for both fiction and nonfiction writers.

It deals with the nuts and bolts of the craft of writing and the subtle stylistic choices that will help you take your writing to the next level. For example, there’s a chapter on how to select the best point of view for your piece. Each chapter ends with several writing exercises so you can put into practice what you learned.

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How to Turn an Idea into a Story (Video)

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

As you may know, this past year I wrote a novel. I wanted to make a series of videos sharing the storytelling tips that helped me write the novel from beginning to end and not get overwhelmed by the process. I thought you might find them helpful as well.

In this first video, I go back to the very beginning and look at the four elements you need to turn an idea into a story.

I hope you enjoy the video! It would be awesome if you could give it a thumbs up and leave a comment because this encourages YouTube to show the video to more writers on the platform. Also make sure to subscribe if you haven’t already!

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

The Ladder of Abstraction: Make Your Writing Memorable (Video)

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I’m excited to share a new video with you today! It’s all about a fascinating writing concept that I discovered while reading Jack Hart’s book Storycraft. It will help you make your fiction and nonfiction writing more memorable and meaningful to your readers.

I hope you enjoy the video! It would be awesome if you could give it a thumbs up and leave a comment because this tells YouTube to show the video to more writers on the platform. Also make sure to subscribe if you haven’t already!

The Lost Diamond (Short Story)

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If you’re celebrating Christmas next week, I hope you have a lovely, joy-filled holiday. If you don’t celebrate or if this is a difficult time for you, I wish you peace and happiness this December.

And I have a little gift for you — I’ve just published this Christmas-themed short story:

The Lost Diamond (A Short Story)

“Laura did not notice the diamond was missing until the subway reached 42nd street. She had been playing with the engagement ring, twirling it back and forth around her finger, while she tried not to stare at the other passengers. When the subway stopped at the station platform, she jumped to her feet and bent down to collect her two shopping bags. It was then that she saw the ring’s empty prongs...”

I wrote this story several years ago so it depicts a New York City that will probably be a little different from 2020. I hope you enjoy the story! 🙂 Merry Christmas!

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

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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!

How to Use NaNoWriMo to Reach Your Writing Goals

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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. 

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