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How to Lift Your Story Beyond Its Outline
Tom Hart is the bestselling author of the memoir Rosalie Lightning and founder of the Sequential Arts Workshop. How to Say Everything is his book about the craft of storytelling. Sometimes you discover...
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How to Write a Great First Sentence
Belly Up, the debut story collection from Rita Bullwinkel, was a staff pick at The Paris Review and a highly anticipated book at several prominent websites. There are few sentences so vexing as the...
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Looking for Practical Exercises for Your Fiction Writing Class?
If you’re an instructor in a fiction writing class, you probably have moments where you’re trying to explain how good dialogue works—or plot or character building or descriptions of setting—but don’t...
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How to Build a Story with Logistics
Rahul Kanakia’s story, “Seeking boarder for rm w/ attached bathroom, must be willing to live with ghosts ($500 / Berkeley)” was published in Clarkesworld, which recently won a Hugo Award for best...
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How to Create Meaningful Spaces in Stories
Holy Ghost Girl by Donna Johnson portrays the author’s experience growing up as part of the inner circle of a revivalist preacher. The fall semester has now begun in earnest, which means that, in...
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What’s Next for Read to Write Stories
For the past six years, I’ve used this blog to explore the nuts and bolts of writing craft. The posts were an extension of what I was doing with students in the classroom, but it was also a form of...
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The Essential Parts of Any Book Pitch
Trail of Lightning is the debut novel from Rebecca Roanhorse. A book pitch, whether it’s in person or printed in a query letter or book jacket, must do two basic things: tell readers what the book is...
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How to Pitch a Memoir Without a Big, Fat Narrative Hook
Sarah Smarsh’s memoir, Heartland, about growing up poor in Kansas was recently longlisted for the National Book Award. The challenge of pitching a memoir is often the same as writing one: unlike...
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How to Develop Multiple Pitches for the Same Book
The New York Times Book Review said this about Varian Johnson’s ninth book, The Parker Inheritance: “Powerful…. Johnson writes about the long shadows of the past with such ambition that any reader...
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Six Strategies for Writing One Great Sentence
Belly Up, the debut story collection from Rita Bullwinkel, was called “creepy, deadpan” and “emotionally powerful” by the New York Times. It’s week two of National Novel Writing Month, and maybe you’re...
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