Fiction

Fall Out of Love with Your Main Character

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Today’s post is written by regular contributor Susan Bearman.  “In writing, you must kill all your darlings.”  — William Faulkner There’s debate about whether Faulkner really said “kill your darlings.” And if he did, was he talking about editing out beautiful, but superfluous words; or was he talking about how we treat our characters? We’re

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In the Beginning: How to Draw in Your Reader

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Today’s post is written by regular contributor Susan Bearman. A story either leaps off the page or it doesn’t. Beatriz Badikian-Gartler once told our writing group that “Titles are a kind of promise you make to the reader.” Certainly, titles are important, but I think her point applies even more to the beginning of your

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Working Past Wordiness For Fresher Writing

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Today’s post is written by regular contributor Sarah Baughman. I’ll give you twenty seconds to skim these paragraphs and tell me which one exhibits stronger, more engaging writing: Paragraph A The hottest month in Ayemenem would certainly have to be May. Each and every day is long and exceedingly humid. The river starts to dry

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What’s In A Name? Writing the Right Title

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Today’s post is written by regular contributor Sarah Baughman. Is anybody else out there a terrible titler? Naming pieces of writing is one of the hardest parts of the process for me. To give you an idea of just how hard, I offer this confession: in college I wrote a swath of poems as various

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How To Balance Dialogue and Description

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Today’s post is written by regular contributor Sarah Baughman. I often read about the importance of spicing writing up with dialogue or description: a little show-don’t-tell language, a heated argument relayed with fast-paced exclamation points, a vivid image, an exchange whose subtext reveals more than the words themselves. “Absolutely!” I always say. “I need to include

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How to Read Your Way to Better Writing

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Writers write. But writers also read … at least we should. My own to-be-read pile is officially as tall as my house, so I’m as guilty as the next writer of neglecting the reading part of my life, but this is a mistake. I once heard that authors write only half of a novel; readers

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