If you frequently visit DIY MFA, then you’re likely serious about your writing. You probably also have a day job, a family, and other day-to-day responsibilities that compete with your creative pursuits. Yet both sides of a writer’s life – the creative and the real – can’t be ignored. Each deserves time, respect, and attention,… Read more »
I was sure my first novel was a romantic suspense. At least I thought I had structured it that way. The story has danger, mystery, and an escalating romance between two people, who, under any other circumstances, would unlikely get togeter. Eager to see how readers would receive the initial draft, I entered my story… Read more »
Dear word nerd, If you answered “Yes” to the question in the title, then you got it wrong. The fabulous Kristen Lamb—author, blogger, and friend—often gives this pop quiz at conferences. She’ll tell the audience: “Raise your hand if you’re an aspiring writer.” Some people wave wildly like the writing version of Hermione Granger. A… Read more »
Some writers strike lightning on their first books—landing an agent, a book deal, even the Times list on the very first manuscript they’ve ever written. This article is not for those writers (though I tip my hat to them). This is for the rest of us—the writers with a novel, or two, or ten, in… Read more »
Maybe it’s my inner academic, or my inner word nerd, but I have a “thing” for defining terms. If we can’t agree upon what we’re talking about, how can we have a productive conversation? And that’s one of my primary aims with this column: to promote discussion and general thoughtiness with regard to speculative fiction…. Read more »
If you are a multi-passionate artist, you may have several ways in which you create. Maybe you write, but have several projects happening at once. Or you have multiple projects in different genres. Perhaps your passions live not just in a pen, but a pencil or paintbrush, and your creations want to be born in a… Read more »
When I was in high school, my AP English teacher had our class read essays from names like Annie Dillard, David Foster Wallace, and Virginia Woolf. Back then, I didn’t know who any of these people were. I fell in love with “Death of a Moth” when I had to write a one-page analysis of… Read more »
It’s common knowledge that the beginning of a novel is crucial to gaining the reader’s interest and this is especially true in manuscript submissions. If the acquiring editor is hooked, they’ll want to read more and it could lead to a contract. Alternately, if the story fails to grab them, they’ll likely reject the book…. Read more »
Writing prompts can be a powerful tool to jumpstart our writing, but they can also feel like a waste of time…if we don’t approach them with purpose. Here are five ways you can make writing prompts work for you, whether you are blocked, are in the middle of a work-in-progress or simply want to write… Read more »
We’ve covered two plot points so far in Developing Themes In Your Stories: the inciting incident, which thrusts the protagonist into a story’s external conflict; and the Act I choice, where the protagonist takes the first step to achieving his goal. Now he’s in the thick of that goal pursuit, but not everything has been… Read more »
