Writing a powerful ending is hard under any circumstances. Doubly so if you are trying to do something that goes against audience expectations. I don’t mean a “surprise” or “twist” ending, which is often a reader favorite. I mean an ending that is truly non-traditional. Maybe it refuses to use […]
Why are some readers and writers drawn to the fantastic? Is any work of fiction, even “realistic” fiction, truly realistic – and if not, then where and why do we draw boundaries between speculative and non-speculative stories? I’ve been thinking about these questions lately, and I found some unexpected answers […]
What if this New Year, we all made it our resolution to do nothing? I don’t mean ‘stay-in-my-pajamas-all-day-and-binge-Netflix’ nothing. I mean a concept called wu wei found in Taoism. Taoism is a philosophy that often addresses things in life we can’t control—not a bad thing to study when … oh, […]
In fiction, we seek to provoke, to compel, to—more than anything else—make the reader feel. But how? Focusing too much on external action can make a scene land flat, a cardboard cutout of what’s in our mind’s eye. But focus too much on thoughts, feelings and backstory, and the story […]
Listening to all those writing advice podcasts last month during my road trip to North Carolina made me realize I should submit more of my fiction to short story podcasts, not just traditional print and online magazines. So, I spent this morning scouring the internet for new places to send […]
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