This is another unexpected slice of writing advice bestowed upon me by a creative writing professor. His instruction was for us to get into the proper mindset for a specific tone or style by taking someone else’s work and writing it out several times by hand. It sounds odd, and I was quite skeptical of…
A lot of times, particularly when it comes to the climactic events of our stories, we are eventually offered two choices in what happens next. At its most basic formula, this looks like either the villain is going to win, or the hero is going to win—and usually it’s the hero. You typically want to…
Brief caveat to this post: I do not consider myself a horror writer. In fact, I have only ever written maybe two or three stories that had any horror elements within them whatsoever. But as an audience member, I frequently experience horror. And artful storytelling has gifted me with enough experience to know that true…
I had a creative writing instructor once tell the class that, sometimes, when he was going through a case of writer’s block, he would start with the title of a piece and go from there. And one of the best places for titles, he said, was Craigslist. He told us to go through the “For…
While this is not a piece of writing advice I frequently employ, it has nevertheless come to my aid on more than one occasion: do the opposite. If you find yourself stuck at a certain part in your story, and nothing else seems to be working, do the opposite of whatever it is you’ve been…