writing advice
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Publish a Book in Twelve Easy Steps
Comedian Sara Benincasa is no stranger to being a working writer—in fact, she just wrote a book about it. Now, at Medium, she shares her secrets on getting published. Accessible and funny, Benincasa offers tips like “NO MONEY UPFRONT BECAUSE ANY…
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Write Every Day
It’s poet John James’s turn for a conversation with the Kenyon Review. Author of the chapbook Chthonic, James dissects the process of writing a single poem, “History (n.),” the prescient unconscious, history as diagnosis, writing while parenting, and his connection…
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Telling, Not Showing
As I processed a dominant Euro-American writing pedagogy from the perspective of an aspiring fiction writer and an immigrant critic of color, I couldn’t stop wondering: are we, in 21st-century America, overvaluing a sight-based approach to storytelling? And could this…
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The Storming Bohemian Punks the Muse #6: What’s Love Got to Do with It?
My sister wrote and published a memoir about our childhood. It’s a good book, and I’m proud of her. It has won awards, and put her in demand on a national speaking circuit. Am I jealous of my little sister?…
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Describing Characters Better
Having trouble getting your character just right? Not sure how to illustrate their inner lives, their conflicted feelings, and complicated psychologies? Read John Thornton Williams’s extremely helpful essay on writing a character’s interior life over at Electric Literature.
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Handling Rejection from the Other Side
I never heard editors talk about how disturbed and insecure writers might become as a result of relentless rejection, living every day with what James Salter called “the feeling of injustice.” It was more fun for editors to characterize their…
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Structure as Lightning Rod
Writing for The Millions, M.C. Mah turns over all the cards in the deck on structure in storytelling. He gathers words of wisdom—and many metaphors—from luminaries like John McPhee, Borges, Vonnegut, and George Saunders, and then links the contemporary “horoscopic…
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Rethink Your First Chapter
For Catapult, Anuradha Roy talks about the process of receiving editorial feedback and how we’re inclined to react poorly to that feedback. Roy takes us from the phone call from her brand-new publisher, suggesting she re-think her first chapter, to…
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Scenes Illustrated
As a writer, I always want to know where the light is in the room and how it’s striking the characters. Even if that description doesn’t make it to the end – maybe because the viewpoint character isn’t that observant – the echo of…
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The Storming Bohemian Punks the Muse #3: Clocking The Muse
It’s time to write a column, paint a picture, compose a song, draft an outline: whatever. Creative expression doesn’t happen by itself, we have to work at it. You know where this is going, don’t you?
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Remembering Killed-Off Characters
In an epic confessional letter at Lit Hub, author Stuart Nadler mourns all the characters he’s abandoned, maimed, and murdered for the sake of the grueling writing process. These lost creations and their universes live on in his memories and drafts…
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Combating Lit Journal Bias
In the latest installment of “The Blunt Instrument” over at Electric Literature, Elisa Gabbert tackles the delicate question of bias in literary journals. Her answer? Take thoughtful reflections and make careful adjustments.