TITLE SEARCH by John M. Floyd I’ve enjoyed reading the opinions in the roundtable discussion of titles this week, and I hope you have as well. I congratulate Paul Guyot for suggesting the idea. I agree that titles play a big role in the impact, as well as the marketing, of fiction — and especially […]

DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME by John M. Floyd Rules — and warning signs — are a part of our lives. SLOW TO 45 MPH. NO PERSONAL CHECKS. THE RED ZONE IS FOR LOADING AND UNLOADING OF PASSENGERS ONLY. I especially like the note I saw on TV awhile back, before a documentary about daredevil […]

CHECKLIST by John M. Floyd It’s probably safe to say that you, as a reader of this blog, enjoy reading short stories. But let’s say you also want to write short stories. (Maybe you’re a beginning writer, or even an established author of poetry or nonfiction or longer fiction and want to try something different.) […]

WHERE’D YOU GET A NAME LIKE THAT? by John M. Floyd During all our recent discussions of characters and character-driven stories, I got to thinking about something. And the more I thought about it, I realized the following is true: Some of the most memorable pieces of fiction contain the most memorable character names. This […]

SHORTER THAN SHORT by John M. Floyd Since you’re reading this blog, you are probably (as I am) a fan of short crime fiction. But what if, now and then, you want something even more bite-sized than a short story? Nibble-sized, maybe. Well, there’s always the short-short story, of course, and even that vague little […]

A PACK OF LIES by John M. Floyd I once heard an aspiring author say, “Since I’m writing fiction, I don’t have to worry as much about logic in my stories.” Her point was, it’s all make-believe anyway, so her plots don’t always have to make sense. Right? Wrong. Fiction has to be even more […]

WHOA — I DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING by John M. Floyd I’m writing this because of an e-mail I received from a friend and fellow booklover about a month ago. She asked me if I could recall any stories that had particularly good “surprise” endings, and if so, would I pass them along to her? […]