Whether the Weather
I usually try to do what Elmore Leonard says. If plied with wine or office supplies, I might even admit to having a fantasy about him being my life coach, going to the gym with me, telling me how to…
Category: Writing Advice
When Less Really Is More: What Comics Can Teach Novelists
Consider the Comic where what’s not on the page is as important as what is. So says comic artist and writer Scott McCloud in his deceptively simple book, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art.
Life and Death and the Novel
Writing a novel, especially a first novel, can be a long, hard process. A few years ago, I began working on a novel that focuses on a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law and examines the complexities of in-law relationships as well…
The Blood Turns to Ink: How Real Crimes Influenced My Fiction
This post originally appeared on Jungle Red Writers. I’m from a small town. East Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Population: almost 11,000 when I last lived there. That was 1993, the year I graduated high school. A half-year earlier Kent “Rusty” Taber Jr….
Discovering the Big Easy: Writing What You Might Never Know
“Write what you know”—and its many opposing suppositions—is perhaps the most commonly touted fiction-writing maxim; it has been defined, re-defined, debated, refuted, defended, and all the while handed down to fledgling writers as the ultimate golden rule. A few years…
Friday Feast: Not Writing Every Day, Paying the Rent, Books in Prison, Writing Fiction Based on True Events, and Tips for Writers and Their Families and Friends
The days are still bright and hot throughout much of the country, but September and current events around the world have us in a darker, more contemplative mood. Sometimes, the biggest gift of stories is the opportunity to escape reality for a…