Being a great writer isn’t easy. Nobody, except our ten-year-old selves, ever said it was. Improving our writing is something a lot of us work on all the time, and it’s something that I think comes in two parts. Two parts that I’ve written about before, and will write about again. Two parts called study and practice, thought and application, reading and writing. The two sides of a two-sided coin (as opposed to … Continue reading Late-Week Motivation
Comparison: In writing – an analogy, simile, or metaphor. “The trees were tall and dark, covered with twisting branches that reached for the dirt floor below. A hundred shadows danced and shifted in the underbrush that marked both edges the path. The air was warm and smelled heavy, like a spring night just before a storm. Overhead, black leaves formed a canopy that blocked out all of … Continue reading What’s Missing From The Forest?
It’s almost the middle of September, and for a lot of us that doesn’t mean very much. The weather is cooling off, there are a ton of holidays coming up, football is back, and for the most part our jobs and lives go on as usual. Soon the leaves will change colors, and halfway home from work you’ll look out the window and imagine yourself sitting … Continue reading Sundays in the Fall
Do you want to know what happens next? Do you love looking up from a book and realizing you’re one hundred pages in and haven’t blinked? Holy shit, is it tomorrow already? Here is the fifth and final post of a five part series on simple (but maybe not so obvious) tips to make our stories better. Today’s topic is Fast Flowing Writing. I don’t … Continue reading How to Write Well
Do you know what your one defining moment was? Do you even have just one? How old were you when you figured out what you wanted to do with your life? Do you even know what you want to do with your life? Do you remember what you did in kindergarten? I know that I don’t. Probably picked my nose and knocked a ton of shit … Continue reading The Truth About Backstory
What are you trying to tell the readers of your stories? What are you trying to ask them? There are plenty of answers to these two questions, but up until a couple of years ago I never had a good one, no matter what I was writing. It always ended up being something along the lines of, ‘I’m trying to tell them a good, entertaining story.’ That … Continue reading Messages and Questions
