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Know Thyself

July 9, 2010

Recently, a person in my writing group lent me Dorothea Brande’s classic guidebook, Becoming a Writer. First published in 1934, this book is packed with solid advice for anyone wishing to become a novelist. One insightful gem is the idea that, if you want to write great stories dealing with life’s “big ideas”, you must [...]

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Reading Like a Writer

June 25, 2010

Image via Wikipedia Can creative writing be taught? It’s a loaded question, and one which Francine Prose, the author of the 2006 book Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them, tackles in the opening passages. Given the popularity of creative writing programs across [...]

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In the Beginning…

June 11, 2010

Few facets of writing are as important as an opening line. While every story needs well-drawn characters and an engaging plot, nothing will deter a reader faster than a lousy first sentence—particularly in short fiction. Thus, your job as a storyteller is to hook the audience at the beginning of your tale and give them [...]

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Off to a Great Start

June 9, 2010

Image via Wikipedia Every now and then I’ll run across an opening sentence that blows me away.  It’s as though the author caught a lightning bolt and nailed it to the first page. The best opening sentence that I’ve seen in recent years was from Molly Giles’ short story Pie Dance. “I don’t know what [...]

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Open Up.

June 2, 2010

The irony here is I have no good opening for this post.  I’ve been thinking about this one for a couple of days and realized a few things.  One is that outside of screenplays, where the first ten pages are of vital importance, the writers I hang out with and I haven’t talked much about the [...]

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