By Jon Simmonds Contributing Features Editor, of http://jumpingfromcliffs.com It seems barely a day goes past without someone somewhere posting about the “rules” of writing. Now, I’m not entirely sure that I agree with this; I feel there are far too many so-called rules imposed upon one of the most creative pursuits imaginable. Creativity doesn’t follow rules…
Category: on prose writing
Writing: Peel Back Your Protagonist's Mask
You think you know your main character so well. You know where she came from, where he went to school, the name of her chosen dagger, and why he never goes to bed before three in the morning. But if you think you know everything there is to know about your character, think again. To…
Writing: How to Beat the Blank Page
By Shanan Haislip, Features Contributing Editor Some days, there’s nothing more paralyzing than the expanse of white paper or white Word document in front of you. The pressure! The expectations! The sheer nothingyetness of it! The unbroken marble monotony of the blank page has made me cower and back away from it many, many times. We…
The Four D’s: Part 4 – More on Depth of Character
A Special Feature Series: See Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 At the welcome reception for my MFA program I was asked the following question: when my novel is published and on bookstore shelves, next to which author would I like to see it placed? I had never thought about this and found myself unable to…
The Four D’s: Part 3 – Depth of Character
A Special Feature Series: See Part 1 and Part 2. Writing craft books and writing teachers will tell you that readers read for character. Indeed, the cornerstone of literary fiction is the complex character study. At a minimum, even the most surface-dwelling, plot-driven genre novel needs engaging characters to carry the story. These characters are…
The Four D’s: Part 2 – What is Depth?
A Special Feature Series: See Part 1 here. Resonant stories have depth. Forgettable stories don’t. Literary fiction, for example, takes us deep into the lives of characters and creates complex stories that touch upon the human condition. A good literary novel may resonate with the reader long after the book is finished. Genre fiction, many…
Creative Writing and the Four D's
Dennis Lehane and the Four D’s If you are close to my age, or even a decade or so younger, you may remember a professional athlete whose career spanned the late eighties and early nineties. His name was Bo Jackson. He won college football’s Heisman Trophy in 1985, made his major league debut with the Kansas City…
Your Characters: What's in Their Pockets?
A writing teacher (and multi-published novelist) once told me that to really understand a character you’re writing, you should make a list of the items he carries carry in his pockets. While I hate to disagree with such an august mentor, I’m afraid that I simply have to. You see, if you take a peek…
How to Apply the Pomodoro Technique to Your Writing
Productivity and efficiency are two things we all want more of in our lives, especially when it comes to writing. Fitting writing in whenever you can is great. But what about those longer stretches of time when you can actually sit down to practice your craft for thirty minutes, an hour, or more? Long, uninterrupted…
Part II: That, Which and Who
In my last post, “The Department of Redundancy Department,” I discussed how I use the Find feature of Microsoft Word to hunt down and eliminate redundant redundancies from my manuscripts as I go through the final edit. I also mentioned how I’ll use Find to ferret out those pesky to be verbs and get rid of as many of those as…
Part I: The Department of Redundancy Department
I’d like to call your attention to an editing tool for the editing of redundant words and redundant word phrases that turn up in rough drafts and not-so-rough drafts (what?). Why is this important? First, good writing is concise. Thomas Jefferson said, “The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.” When someone writes past experience, fatally killed, foreign…
Marvel Comics and Film Noir - What They Taught Me About Writing
I knew early what I didn’t want to read. Though I longed for adventure my mother bought me all the usual little girl comics/magazines containing stories about ballerinas in pink tutus, owning a pony, or cute puppies and donkeys. Even at such a tender age I didn’t care for them. I’d rather be out climbing…