Gratitude Devotional

Attention Sunrise Christian Writers. This opportunity is just for you! Are you grateful for an experience, accomplishment or relationship? Has God moved in your heart and filled you with gratitude? Think how your story could inspire someone else to appreciate golden opportunities and blessings. Write a devotional story about gratitude and base it on a Scripture from the Psalms or Proverbs. Submit it to Sunrise Christian Writers for their third annual anthology titled “Gratitude.”

Writer Guidelines

1. Pick a creative title, something to grab the reader/editor's attention and keep them reading.
2. Write a powerful hook in the first sentence or paragraph.
3. Develop your story with application to a Psalm or Proverb.
4. Write a conclusion that will inspire readers to think about your devotional a long time after they read it.
5. Write your story in 500 words or less.
6. Use the Sunrise Christian Writers submission template.
7. Start your devotional in the middle of the first page.
8. Double-space your manuscript.
9. Use one-inch margins top, bottom, left and right.
10. Stories for our Gratitude Devotional must go through our critique process.
11. Submit as many devotional stories as you like. They can be humorous or serious. You can use fictional anecdotes or personal experience stories.
12. Submit your devotional stories by April 1, 2016 for printing by June 1, 2016.

We look forward to reading your stories and sharing them with our friends and families. May God bless you as you create your idea and develop your story for His glory.

Seven Tips for Writing Your Personal Experience Story

Do you blog or journal your experiences? Do you have a story to tell? Here are seven tips to follow as you develop your story for publication.

1. Consider what magazine you would like to submit your story to. Get a copy or two and study its style, departments and columns so you can suggest how your article will fit into their periodical. Find their writer guidelines. Do they want queries first? Do they want submissions by U. S. Mail or e-mail?
2. Think of an attention grabbing title.
3. Start with a powerful hook--action, problem, or conflict.
4. Use fiction techniques--show (don't tell), multiple scenes, plot, climax, dialogue, description.
5. What is the point of your story? Make it your takeaway. Christian editors are looking for takeaways.
6. Write your query or cover letter. This has to be every bit as good as your manuscript or better. Make the editor want your article.
7. If the publisher sends you an assignment from your wonderful query letter, submit your story exactly as assigned and within the prescribed deadline. Sometimes assignments are on a speculation basis. Make your story excellent so it will be accepted and so you can get more assignments with this publisher and build a working relationship.

Here are some great books on writing:
Writers on Writing-Top Christian Authors Share Their Secrets
Writing for the Soul by Jerry B. Jenkins
On Writing Well by William Zinsser