Scheherazade avoided her fate because she knew how to wield the weapon of suspense–the only literary tool that has any effect upon tyrants and savages. Great novelist though she was — exquisite in her descriptions, tolerant in her judgments, ingenious in her incidents, advanced in her morality, vivid in her delineations of character, expert in…
Moody Me: Chasing a Feeling For all my efforts to understand what makes a piece of writing good or ways to break it down into lessons that I or my students or maybe even you might try to apply, sometimes I really think there’s nothing to know but that truth follows truth. The only time…
Some of Hemingway’s best writing advice is featured over at BrainPickings. Here’s one tidbit that comes with a prompt built in: Listen now. When people talk listen completely. Don’t be thinking what you’re going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe. You should be able to go into a room and when…
It sometimes takes up to a decade to figure out how to write a first novel. I’ve been writing short fiction for at least that long, and I can barely bring myself to admit that during this time I’ve attempted to write not one but several novels that I’ve picked up and abandoned multiple times. Many writers who…
Risk “And then the day came, when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to Blossom.” Anaïs Nin