This exercise calls for writing from a photograph. This is the photo I used (click on the photo to go directly to the photo series that includes this pic): For a description of the exercise, see below. But first, what I wrote…. It was sunny but cool that Sunday afternoon when we drove out toContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: 1,000 words”
Category Archives: fiction
A Writer’s Notebook: Outrunning the Critic
This comes from Brian Kiteley‘s The 3 A.M. Epiphany, some exercises from which appear on his University of Denver web page. For the exercise (which I copied and pasted below), click here. Sharon works as a bookkeeper for a senior center on the backside of town. Sharon knows her husband is distracted, knows he lovedContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Outrunning the Critic”
A Writer’s Notebook: Revision
I’m chest deep in a revision of my novel right now, but I’m also reading Alice Munro, who makes me want to work on short fiction. So I figured this week, I’d put my hands together and do a revision exercise on one of my long-problematic short stories. Because this is slightly complicated, I’m goingContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Revision”
A Writer’s Notebook: First line
For the exercise, see below. Henrietta stood nervously on the railway platform watching the passengers disembark. She could smell the grime down between tracks, the grease built up in the undercarriage, the stale odor of the passengers as their sweat and breath mingled with their alcohol, their cheese sandwiches, their dry newsprint, all of itContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: First line”
I wish I was cool enough to quote LL Cool J
I’ve said in previous posts that I’m a bit of a number cruncher. But there’s one number that I always avoided crunching: the ratio of my submissions to my rejections. I know without looking that the number is high. It’s bound to be–competition is fierce, and rejection is practically as much a part of theContinue reading “I wish I was cool enough to quote LL Cool J”
“They said my writing was funny, just not ‘Archie Comics’ funny”: How to read a rejection letter
One of my early mentors once told me he’d rather get a handwritten rejection than a form-letter acceptance. It’s a great line. It speaks so well to the kind of personal attention we crave as writers. If we’re in any way professional about our work, we know that editors and agents are so overwhelmed withContinue reading ““They said my writing was funny, just not ‘Archie Comics’ funny”: How to read a rejection letter”
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place*
Just about every book on writing you’re likely to ever pick up will begin with this advice: Find a place to write. It’s strange advice, in some ways, because the most important thing about writing should always be the writing — the words themselves — which means it shouldn’t matter where you write or even howContinue reading “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place*”
Research tip #6: Marbling
For more on researching for fiction, go to the main research page. So now you have all your research done and you’re ready to get back to the writing. But you’re writing fiction here, not a research paper—so how do you use this research you’ve done? Sometimes the answer is easy: you were looking forContinue reading “Research tip #6: Marbling”
Research tip #5: Shop the catalogue
For more on researching for fiction, go to the main research page. I’ve written about this before, but just to recap: Tom Franklin hates doing research. Yet his first two novels were historical fiction, which stuck Franklin doing the very thing he hates. Still, Franklin prefers to focus on the writing, to let the fictionContinue reading “Research tip #5: Shop the catalogue”
Research tip #4: Shoot the bullet
For more on researching for fiction, go to the main research page. A few years ago, I was at the big national conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, and a friend of mine, Tom Franklin, was on a panel discussing research in fiction. Franklin joined the panel by virtue of his historicalContinue reading “Research tip #4: Shoot the bullet”
Samuel Snoek-Brown 