Jerry Bellune

Jerry Bellune is a writing coach and author of “The Art of Compelling Writing, Volume 1.” For a personally autographed copy, send your check to him at PO Box 1500, Lexington SC 29071-1500.

Have fun and make it humorous

Compelling writers make frequent use of allusions, metaphors and similes to paint pictures.

Turn your experiences into stories

Here is the beginning of what I told my readers about my eye surgery experience ...

Ukrainian publisher combats Putin’s propaganda machine

Our fellow publisher in Ukraine, Serhiy Kulyasov, writes us regularly on what is happening there. He was disappointed when the wife of a friend in Belarus wrote and called him a Nazi. Life-long journalists ...

How to interview complete strangers

My wife kids me about interviewing strangers. “I love it,” I tell her, “and those you call strangers do, too.”

Share your life stories

If you write columns, essays, observations from your own life or just a letter to Mom, you might use a model from best-selling author Robert Fulghum.

Open with a story

Compelling writers, speakers, preachers and others know to use this secret. I once showed my Seton Hall University students this parody nuclear attack story.

The power of shattering moments

Suspense writer James Scott Bell says all stories, fact or fiction, are about shattering moments. “The characters will never be the same,” he says. The retelling of the story of Mary, the ...

Why not tell it to Mom?

Many of us have problems writing conversationally. As fact gatherers, we often write stenographic reports.

What is compelling writing?

Novelist Josephine Humphreys describes what she thinks news reporters do: Like bees, we fly out to gather news like pollen. She describes what she does in grim, novelistic style: “I’m like ...