Clik here to view.
Create an Emotional Backdrop for Your Characters
Hannah Petard’s novel, Listen to Me, was a New York Times “Editors’ Choice” and a Washington Post “Best Summer Thriller.” Most of us have had this experience: we’re upset about something and chew it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Swim in the Narrative Stream
Tim Horvath’s story, “Fuchsia Maroon Timberwolf,” was published in Green Mountains Review. If you spend any time in writing classes, you’ll eventually encounter the term “fictive dream.” It was coined...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Describe a Character’s Sense of the World
Garth Greenwell’s novel What Belongs to You tells the story of a young American man teaching in Bulgaria and his complicated relationship with Mitko, whom he meets in a public restroom. When I was an...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Turn Desire into Motivation and Plot
Rahul Kanakia’s novel Enter Title Here has a main character that Barnes and Noble’s Teen Blog called “a genuinely unique protagonist: unintentionally funny, often mean, and uncompromising in the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Make Readers Care about a Story’s Movie-Poster Elements
Christopher DeWan’s story “Voodoo” is included in his new collection, Hoopty Time Machines. I often teach a class about first pages and how to hook readers. There are some obvious strategies for this:...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Make a Character Represent a Place or Group
Leona Theis’ story “How Sylvie Failed to Become a Better Person through Yoga” appears in the latest issue of American Short Fiction, alongside stories by Matt Bell, Smith Henderson, and Porochista...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How a Character’s Past Can Inform the Present Action
Laurie Stone’s new book, My Life as an Animal, is about a woman constantly seduced by strangers, language, and the streets in the downtown scene of New York City in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Here is one...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Figure Out What Really Drives a Character to Act
Hasanthika Sirisena’s collection, The Other One, won the 2015 Juniper Prize for Fiction. When you begin a novel, it’s easy to find a detail that pulls you into a character or plot line, and then...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Put Setting to Work
“Xochimilco” by Esme-Michelle Watkins appeared in the Boston Review. We’re taught from an early age that stories have five parts and setting comes first, which means it’s important. After all, one of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Use Theme to Create Structure
In her essay, “Strong Is The New Sexy,” Kelly Davio argues that shifting the image of ideal female beauty from thin to curvy still leaves some women feeling unreal and unfeminine. Art Credit: Mark...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Write Expansively Instead of In a Straight Line
Angela Palm’s memoir Riverine “is a different kind of memoir, one that through a kind of sleight of hand transports readers from the narrative into the world of ideas and back again, with readers...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Create Tension Between Desire and Thought
Octavio Solis’ story, “The Want,” appears in the most recent issue of Huizache: The Magazine of Latino Literature. Every writer knows that it’s important to find a character’s motivating desire, and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Create Suspense in Any Story
John Pipkin’s second novel, The Blind Astronomer’s Daughter, “captures our own awe and sense of puniness as we look at the skies,” according to a New York Times review. One of those hoary claims about...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Not Over-Explain a Character’s Behavior
Sam Allingham’s collection The Great American Songbook has been called “hilarious and deeply unnerving” by Dan Chaon. When you sit through enough writing workshops, you begin to recognize certain...
View ArticleClik here to view.
10 Exercises for Creating Characters
Happy new year! To celebrate the arrival of 2017, let’s look back at ten exercises on creating, describing, and developing characters from 2016. 1. Introduce Characters through Misdirection Kaitlyn...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Create a Rhetorical Touchstone
In his essay, “The Rebirth of Black Rage,” Mychal Denzel Smith uses Kanye West’s statement, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people,” as a touchstone for discussing black political rhetoric. When...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Ground Your Villains
Steph Post’s crime novel, Lightwood, tells the story of a released convict who, upon his release, must face his powerful family, a vicious Pentecostal con artist, and a biker gang. My 7-year-old is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Give the Ending Away Without the Reader Knowing
Shannon Perri’s story “The Resurrection Act” was published in Joyland. The best endings feel both surprising and inevitable at the same time, but in early drafts of stories, we tend to focus on one or...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to End a Story
Óscar Martínez’s essays about traveling with Central American migrants were published in the Salvadoran online newspaper El Faro and collected in The Beast: Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos on the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Write Moments of High Emotion
The linked stories in Barefoot Dogs follow the members of a wealthy Mexican family after their patriarch, José Victoriano Arteaga, is kidnapped. Read essays by writers responding to the book at Books...
View Article