In preparation for the 2020 RMFW anthology, I’ve covered three critical elements of the short story: plot, character, and setting. These are the building blocks of short fiction; conquer them, and you’re guaranteed a good story. But a great story? A tear-in-the-eye, punch-in-the-gut, knock-it-out-of-the-park story? That requires a killer ending. In my opinion, the ending…
Category: Blog
My Takeaways from the 2019 RMFW Annual Event
Writers really want to talk to people. We had a ton of people sign up for one-on-ones, including pitches, first pages, query letters, and synopses, as well as just talking shop. Those writers realized getting another set of eyes—especially experienced, professional ones—on their work can only benefit them. (Oh, and by the way, those professionals…
She Cried a River: Best Blogs for Writing Emotion
If you’re like me, when writing on deadline you just toss words into the scene during the rough draft. This helps the pace and power of the scene. Without pondering each sentence to find the precise word, it’s easier to capture the excitement of the scene and accurately present the conflict. After the dust has…
Remembered Words
In The Joy of Music, Leonard Bernstein wrote about Beethoven: “Imagine a whole lifetime of this struggle, movement after movement, symphony after symphony, sonata after quartet after concerto. Always probing and rejecting in his dedication to perfection, to the principle of inevitability. This somehow is the key to the mystery of a great artist: that…
Writing Effective First Lines
It is #IndieApril in the Twitterverse, and RMFW has a robust list of independently published authors. While I plan on spending all month promoting this talented group of writers, I wanted to talk specifically about how they approach the art of first lines. There are countless ways to start a story, but the best is…