Guiding Your Reader’s Eye: The Choreography of Perception, Part Three By WTP Writer Richard Wertime Woven Tale Press writer Richard Wertime reflects on the craft of fiction in an ongoing series of craft notes Read Part One and Part Two ~ An especially enticing expository challenge occurs for us as writers when we open a story…
Category: on prose writing
Guiding Your Reader’s Eye: The Choreography of Perception, Part Two
Doing More with Less By WTP Writer Richard Wertime Woven Tale Press writer Richard Wertime reflects on the craft of fiction in an ongoing series of craft notes Read Part One here ~ When we’re writing synoptically—“sketchily,” that is—and wish to move on to parts of a story we intend to treat more fully, we…
Showcasing Marc Vincenz
A Poem, and a Prose Poem Novel By DeWitt Henry, Prose Editor Here is a timely, post-Ukraine/post-apocalyptic poem from Marc Vincenz’s 21st collection, There Might be a Moon or a Dog (Gazebo Books/Life Before Man, 2022): Above the Rubble ……………….Let me introduce you. Let me implore you ……………….To look upon your weakness— ……………….Does anyone laugh at…
Guiding Your Reader’s Eye
The Choreography of Perception Part One By WTP Writer Richard Wertime Woven Tale Press writer Richard Wertime reflects on the craft of fiction in an ongoing series of craft notes “…the eye altering alters all.” (William Blake, “The Mental Traveller,” line 62) It’s a bit of a wonder that we can follow it at all—the…
Irony Builds Community
Dialogue in Action By WTP Writer Richard Wertime Woven Tale Press writer Richard Wertime reflects on the craft of fiction in an ongoing series of craft notes “I trust I make myself obscure.” (Sir Thomas More, in A Man for All Seasons) … What was it that induced me, as I approached the three women,…
On Writing
A Translation By Abdón Ubidia Translated from Spanish by Nathan D. Horowitz Excerpted from a longer essay, “50 sombras de un escritor.” The writer should obey only his own poetic animal. Find yours. Search even the stupidest places in your heart. If something in your writing sounds wrong to you, it will sound even worse…
Writing Effective Dialogue
Some Additional Suggestions By WTP Writer Richard Wertime Woven Tale Press writer Richard Wertime reflects on the craft of fiction in an ongoing series of craft notes What is it in fiction that yields the most compelling dialogue? The creation of characters who achieve for us, as readers, an unparalleled distinctiveness, a certain something in…
Writing Dialogue: Errors to Steer Clear of
(and Some Principles to Bear in Mind) By WTP Writer Richard Wertime Woven Tale Press writer Richard Wertime reflects on the craft of fiction in an ongoing series of craft notes Let’s begin by remembering— Effective dialogue in fiction is a created artifact; it is not a mere transcription of “things actually said.” Our “go-to”…
What Are They Talking About?
“Listening in” and Playing Catch-up: Writing (and Reading) Dialogue By WTP Writer Richard Wertime Woven Tale Press writer Richard Wertime reflects on the craft of fiction in an ongoing series of craft notes “I mean, like—y’know?…” It’s not fresh news to any writer of experience that readers of fiction are forever playing “catch-up.” Suspense—again, grounded,…
Whom to Doubt? What to Trust?
The Peculiar, Unwritten “Etiquette” of Speaking By WTP Writer Richard Wertime Woven Tale Press writer Richard Wertime reflects on the craft of fiction in an ongoing series of craft notes “To be, or not to be—that is the question.” (Hamlet, Act III, scene i, line 66) Erving Goffman offers us a marvelous distinction in the…
Smoothing the Way
Modulating Between Direct and Indirect Discourse By WTP Writer Richard Wertime Woven Tale Press writer Richard Wertime reflects on the craft of fiction in an ongoing series of craft notes In the previous craft note, “Writing Dialogue: The Hidden Art in Plain View,” we explored the tonal qualities separating direct from indirect discourse, and as…
Writing Dialogue
The Hidden Art in Plain View By WTP Writer Richard Wertime Woven Tale Press writer Richard Wertime reflects on the craft of fiction in an ongoing series of craft notes “’… Well, what’s to be said?’ the Worm murmured to the Tortoise.” (Source unattributed) Few readers, indeed, will have even the faintest awareness of the…