A BOOKFUL OF AUTHORS by John M. Floyd For the past eight years or so, at a college near my home, I’ve taught night courses on the subject of writing and selling short fiction. And one of the things I always try to point out, in the sessions on submitting and publishing, is an often-overlooked […]

PREMISE AND POSSIBILITY by Steve Steinbock This discussion of What Comes After the Title couldn’t have come at a better time. Having written just under ten thousand words of a novel (during last November’s National Novel Writers Month), I’d let the book gestate for a month. And then another month. And then another month. Having […]

START WHERE IT ALL BEGINS TO FALL APART by Deborah Elliott-Upton Starting the story in the right place isn’t always easy. Usually an idea of a crime hits my conscious like a slap in the face – forcefully, but probably with good reasoning behind the sting. A germ of the idea has probably been simmering […]

ON GETTING LUCKY by Rob Lopresti When I was young and someone (usually me) had a bit of undeserved good fortune my father would always mutter “Lucky the boy scout.” Dad is no longer around to make this observation but I recently found myself filling in for him. And then it occurred to me that […]

Melodie’s entry today was written without the “benefit” of my essay yesterday. She deals with one aspect of the question much more thoroughly than I did, and comes much closer to answering Gary’s question in a constructive way. —JLW THERE IS NO SQUARE ONE by Melodie Johnson Howe Last Wednesday in a reply to Rob’s […]

COMMENCEMENT EXERCISE by James Lincoln Warren In response to Rob’s query, “What comes after the title?”, Our Correspondent Gary very sensibly requests, “I’d like to see some comments on where to start the story.” Where does one start the narrative? Luckily, people have been telling stories for thousands of years and have built up a […]

WRITER’s BLECH by Leigh Lundin I don’t have enough mileage to experience writers’ block, but I get writer’s blech. Writer’s blech happens on days when the words I put on paper come out heavy and dreary despite my best efforts. I look at what I’ve written. I picture my old English teachers giving it an […]