I learned of the term “weasel words” from writer Matt Bell, who thinks he learned it from Gabe Durham. In any event, it’s becoming part of the writing lexicon and what it means, in the creative writing sense, is different than the dictionary.com definition—“words or statements that are intentionally ambiguous or misleading.” Although the words…
You may not even know that the humble thesaurus comes under attack, but it does. The topic arose this week when a writer tweeted a question asking other writers how they feel about using a thesaurus. Almost everyone who responded said they were down with them and why. But someone reminded me who it was…
I’m a slow reader. I sometimes pluck a book from the shelf based not on whether its subject matter appeals to me, but whether or not it’s skinny or fat. So when I recently read Julia Otsaka’s 144-page When the Emperor Was Divine, I got the pleasure of not only finishing a book in a weekend,…
You’ve dumped the clay on the table. You’ve sculpted it into a story, an essay, a memoir. You’ve reconsidered it and reworked it. You’re happy with it! Now it’s time to revise. We’ve all got to get through the next step, and I’ve collected some advice from writers who know a thing or two about…
In the first fiction workshop I ever took, our instructor said to us, “Do you know what the difference between a really good fiction writer and you is? They write better sentences.” I knew even then that there was more of a difference between those writers and us, but his words have always stuck with…