There’s a lot of emphasis put on story beginnings as well as its muddy middle, but what about the end? I think the topic deserves more consideration. Every book has a beginning, a middle and an end. The beginning must be engaging enough to hook the reader, and the middle has to hold your audience’s…
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Adventures in Genre Writing: Lesson Eight–Suspense
By Jeanne C. Stein How do you keep a reader engaged? Creating and Maintaining Suspense Our goal as a writer is to entertain, and make the reader care about your story. How do you do this? By creating and maintaining an emotional bond with the reader, by manipulating their emotions, by creating and maintaining suspense….
The Real Deal Isn’t
A couple of weeks ago an ex-MFA (Master of Fine Arts) teacher published a – I’m calling it a bitter rant – about how he can tell the “truth,” now that he’s no longer teaching. I think that’s a fair representation, given that the article is titled “Things I Can Say About MFA Writing Programs…
When Life Gets in the Way
By J.A. (Julie) Kazimer Ever heard the saying, When Life Gives You Lemons? I’m sure sick of the bite of lemonade right now. Since January, and my stupid New Years’ resolution to write daily, the most I’ve written is 500 words and that was in the cafeteria of a hospital. My dad has been having…
From a Dinosaur Publishing in a Digital World … by Chris Goff
Okay, I admit it, I got into this game long enough ago that my first words were scribbled on white tablets, with mistakes scratched out and arrows drawn to indicate where whole passages needed to be moved. Later, I typed stories on a manual typewriter, keeping copious amounts of Wite-Out on hand. Later, because an…