The Art of the Synopsis
Planning that even a pantser can use. So you’re writing a book. Or planning to write a book. Or you have an idea for a book to write one day, that for now sits in the back of your mind,…
Writing Good Villians
It might seem like an oxymoron, but even villains need to be good characters. So you’re writing a story. It might be a novel or it might be a short story. It could be fantasy or thriller. Maybe a mystery…
Winding
A memory in vivid color. Every morning we’d drive the same route to school. A right turn, past the Baker’s Springs sign and on to Duplex Road. The road was so narrow two cars could barely pass by without brushing…
How to Get Your Writing in Every Day
Writing can sometimes seem daunting, but if you keep at it every day you will succeed Talk to any established writer and they’ll likely all tell you versions of the same thing —to write successfully, you have to write. I’ve…
Why I Don’t Like NaNoWriMo
Don’t come after me, it just doesn’t work for everyone. If you’re like me, you probably start hearing buzz from your writing community about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) every year starting in September and October. I have countless friends…
Create Characters Your Readers Will Fall in Love With
It only takes one thing to make your characters more relatable: motivation. We all can undoubtedly think of characters from our favorite works of fiction that stick with us. Some stories are propelled forward by amazingly realistic characters that kind…
So You Want to Be a Poet
You can do it! But maybe do these things first… So you want to be a poet. You have decided that you’re going to become the next great Instagram poet and land a lucrative book deal. You want to bring…
Over, Under, Through, Around: Narrative in Creative Nonfiction
“Narrative is one of the best intoxicants or tranquilizers.” ― A.S. Byatt Sitting on a hard plastic chair in a windowless classroom below the Osborne Center on my college campus, I watched as my creative writing professor went around the…
An Editor’s Tips on Submitting to Literary Journals
So you want to submit to a literary journal. You have a short story, or some poems, or a flashy nonfiction piece that you’re convinced is a sure-fire piece that editors all over the interwebs will be fighting with each…
Are You a Pantser or a Planner?
When I was new to writing, I often didn’t know what I was doing. I spent the valuable (and few) minutes I had every day to devote to writing just floating around in a sea of words. There was often…
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