Research: for some people, the word itself is enough to send chills up the spine. It brings back memories of term papers and case studies . . . of long hours pouring over mostly boring academic treatises and note cards . . . of bibliographies and footnotes and the dreaded decision about when to use… Read more »
To broaden my reading horizons, I’ve recently started helping with the review of nonfiction submissions for a literary magazine. I’ll be honest, I was a bit nervous to dive into that slush pile at first. Sure, I read nonfiction every now and then—from memoirs to the occasional New Yorker piece—but I’ve never attempted to write… Read more »
Dear Editor, Do you have any suggestions on how to write a story as if the MC is looking back at earlier events? For my story to work, I feel my narrator needs the accumulated knowledge and wisdom to be able to describe many of the things she encounters and make sense of them. I… Read more »
The man-versus-X distinctions we were taught in school are pretty useless. In my experience, at least, knowing that an individual might struggle against nature or man or self or society does little to help me craft gripping scenes. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying conflict isn’t important. It’s absolutely essential. But giving broad labels… Read more »
I have done my beloved short forms an injustice. And I’ve led you, my readers, to believe that poems, short stories, and novellas are simply stops on the way to the writing world’s holy grail: novels. This column, Writing Small, is an exploration into this near-mystical thing called writing. My aim is to plumb others’… Read more »
When I was out at drinks with a friend a few weeks ago to talk about the first three chapters of my novel I’d sent him, one of the things that kept coming up was the language. Visceral and heavy, paranoid even. These were the words he used to describe it, almost like he was… Read more »
Many authors have day jobs that are completely unrelated to their writing. For example, Caitriona Lally, who wrote her novel while working as a janitor at her alma mater, Trinity College, which recently gave her a prestigious award for her novel Eggshells. The article about Lally mentions that she graduated with a degree in English… Read more »
“Critique days” were met with both anxiety and excitement in my undergraduate creative writing courses. The whole class would sit in a circle and, one-by-one, we would each have our writing critiqued by both our peers and our instructors. Talk about nerve wracking. Sometimes the feedback would be helpful and encouraging. Other times, I would… Read more »
What’s the difference between writing for kids and writing for adults? You may assume it’s something like using simpler words for kids, or ‘dumbing down’ the story, but that’s not the case. Kids can handle challenging words and concepts. Kids do have different needs and expectations, though. There’s a great DIY MFA post here with… Read more »
The first time I heard, “there’s nothing about the main character that makes me care about her,” it felt like someone punched me in the throat. Yes, a bit of a dramatic response, but right then and there that’s how I felt. I sat for days afterward wondering what was wrong with me. Had four… Read more »
