What is more disappointing than reading a good book—maybe even a first-rate page-turner—and then having the ending fall flat? I recently had that unpleasant experience with a work of a quite renowned author. The result was that I was left with an unsatisfied taste in my mouth as my final memory of the book, which otherwise I would have recommended. Think of an Olympic gymnast: she may perform like an aerial pixie, but if she stumbles on the landing, her … Read More »

If you’re old enough, you’ll remember from your elementary school days (which used to be called grammar school, remember?) that the participle is a verb form used as an adjective. The past passive participle has almost lost its sense of verbiness and become a plain old adjective. (Are you wearing a shocked look at that statement?) Yet the active past participle too often gets buried under the vague imprecisions of our speech. In speech, it’s not so bad. But vague … Read More »

Writing is an essentially solitary task. We sit a table or a desk or with a laptop in our—well, lap—and we think hard. We’re silent. We relive past emotions. We imagine things in technicolor. We have imaginary friends. Nobody can do it for us. And yet I would like to suggest that one of the best New Year’s resolutions any writer can make is to become involved with a writers’ group. These loose associations of like-minded people offer two extremely … Read More »

A novel (with the possible exception of some experimental form) chronicles the unrolling of fictional events over time. But unlike the real world, where we have to live each instant as it comes, like it or not, the time within our story is not relentless clockwork. It’s rather more like an accordion: it expands and contracts as we, the author, need it to, the better to propel the plot and keep the reader engaged. Imagine if we had to read … Read More »

One of my blogging colleagues recently listed, among various aids to self-editing, the suggestion to read aloud one’s manuscript. I would like to follow up that idea with a few reflections, because it seems to me that reading aloud is the key to (almost) everything writerly. What is the Written Word? What is writing, after all, but preserving in a permanent, coded form someone’s speech? The ancient Egyptians viewed it as such a mystery that they called writing “the speech … Read More »

Not having come to fiction writing through an MFA program, I was never told up front, “This is what makes a novel good.” Exactly what constituted good writing was something my longtime reader’s head had to figure out for itself: if that’s what I like in a book, then that’s the way I want my books to sound. Now — having studied writing, attended conferences, gotten feedback from editors and beta-readers, etc., etc.—having done, in short all the things we … Read More »