My eight-year-old recently asked why so many Disney movies feature deceased or wicked mothers. After a moment to reflect, I answered, “Because if the main characters had positive role models and caregivers, they would get into a lot less trouble and then there wouldn’t be a story.” In Disney’s first full-length animated feature film, Snow…
Below is the opening setting from, The Glass Rainbow, (Burke, 2010). Note how Mr. Burke incorporates sight, sound, smell and taste, thereby immersing readers in the narrator’s location. The room I had rented in an old part of Natchez seemed more reflective of New Orleans than a river town in Mississippi…the courtyard outside touched with…
For this month, I’m reviewing one of the recent craft books that I’ve had on my virtual shelf: You: The Story: A Writer’s Guide to Craft Through Memory by Ruta Sepetys. This might seem like an odd choice for a blog post geared to fiction writers, but stick with me. Ruta Sepetys is the daughter…
Does a deal with a traditional publisher sound appealing to you? Again, as the previous four columns have argued, I believe it’s possible to break in. I know what you’re going to say, that 1 to 2 percent of all manuscripts submitted to an agent crack through the sludge / slush pile and land a…
Novelettes range in length from 7,500 to 17,000 words. Some readers and publishers insist that novelettes represent a niche market only and that they often have trivial themes, but that isn’t necessarily true. Nor is it accurate that a novelette is just a novella squeezed down or a short story expanded beyond regular boundaries. I’ve…