I happened across this photo of a stone wall project I completed a few years ago, and it made me think about how I might compare it to the construction of a story. Tools, materials, planning, and brain power translates to creating a wall (or a story) that will stand the test of time. I thought it might be fun to break apart this project into story-building elements. Plan for the End Result Before you head out to the landscape … Read More »

Almost every writer I’ve ever spoken to has a particular type of scene that is their nemesis—the scene they skip over with a quick “insert (blank) scene here”. And usually that is either the fight scene or the sex scene. Now if you’ve heard me speak at a conference, you know my issue is NOT the sex scenes. Those are my favorites to write. However, fight scenes give me fits. I don’t skip them. I would hate leaving my most … Read More »

With the holidays so recently behind us, January seems like a good time to reflect on wrapping packages—that is, on tying up all the loose ends in our plots, down to the smallest questions in a reader’s mind. I wrote recently about reader expectations, and here’s a biggie. Although a certain ambiguity may be thought-provoking, basically anyone who picks up your book has the right to find her questions answered. This embraces all the areas where any mystery has existed: … Read More »

Because of the variety of literary devices, we will examine them in groups. In this third article on literary devices, we review a dozen dynamic ones that writers often misuse or overlook. Chiasmus It is symmetry in grammatical structure in which two clauses are used with a reversal of structure against one another. Dramatic and memorable, such a sentence is designed to persuade the reader about a key concept such as defining a value or questioning cause and effect. Ask … Read More »

They say it’s the little things that matter. I couldn’t agree more! Recently, I was in an open mic Zoom session in which one of the readers read a poem that excluded every “the” possible, and several other small words like “an” and “a.” These are known as articles. Sometimes this pruning is done in the mistaken belief that to do so will make a piece feel more poem-like. (Though I don’t fully understand this reasoning.) Sometimes, it’s to cut … Read More »

If I may paraphrase Hemingway: To Had and Had Not. Or, if you prefer Shakespeare: To Have Had or Not to Have Had. Indeed, that is the question. The answer is not. “Had” clogs up the prose, acts as a crutch, and puts the action farther into the past than it needs to be. Past (Im)perfect Most novels and short stories are written in the past tense. Fine. Whatever happened happened. The writer is already doing their best to make … Read More »