How lucky I am that I came across Little, by Edward Carey, while digging around on the internet for book recommendations. My Google search phrases must have included the words “brilliant”, “absurd”, and “hilarious”, because this book is all these things. Little is the dark and dazzling story of the young orphan girl who becomes…
On my Instagram page, I regularly share great opening lines from books, memoirs, and short stories. Great opening lines are their own kind of art form, and I love collecting them for their variety and imaginativeness. There are so many approaches to beginning a story, and the fact that your choices are wide open is…
Reader, I added that “absolute” in the title in hopes of gaining your attention. I worry that a blog post about simply choosing better verbs could be one you’d skip over. You already know this stuff, right? It’s basic, it’s assumed, it’s Writing 101. But before you write off this article as rudimentary, I want…
I could tell you not to overthink your story opening in the first draft. But I’m not sure that’s even good advice. Thinking, thinking, and thinking some more is often what needs to happen with story-making. Finding that entry point and realizing those first 500 words can be critical to setting your feet on the…
One way you can up your writing game is to challenge yourself to look for and eliminate the vast majority of “practical action” sentences in your prose. I’m referring to those functional movements your characters make to accomplish basic tasks. Things like coming downstairs in the morning or walking across the kitchen. The underlined sentence…