I’ve been reading a lot about marketing recently. One of the techniques that strikes me as a double-edged sword is the advice to create an elevator pitch for your story that goes like this: It’s like Alien meets 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea It’s Sleepless in Seattle but with dogs (Can you tell why I [...]
[Reading Room] Death By Scrabble by Charlie Fish
I loved this story. It’s filed under ‘humor’ and it definitely made me laugh out loud a few times, in a black-humor kind of way. The story begins, “It’s a hot day and I hate my wife.” There: that’s funny already. It’s the juxtaposition, the unexpectedness. I love it. The story goes on in the [...]
An Interesting Publishing Experiment
Our friend Simon Kewin1 has just announced that the first six chapters of his new novel ENGN are being released free at Wattpad.com. Over the next six weeks Simon and his publisher will be releasing a chapter a week and soliciting feedback from readers via Wattpad’s comments stystem. It’s great use of the new publishing [...]
[Writing Prompt] Perseverance
This is the first weekly prompt since the end of StoryADay 2013. Congrats to all those who took part. If you finished even one story you’ll know something about this week’s prompt: The Prompt Write a story with “Perseverance” as the theme Tips You can write a fast-paced romp in which your protagonist perseveres [...]
[Reading Room] The Judge’s Will by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Read this story in The New Yorker Set in Bombay, this is a skillful story that features four distinct characters: an elderly judge, his wife, his son and his long-time “kept woman”. The author is economical and shares a lot of detail — characters, culture, physical setting — in relatively few words (even though this [...]
Take The 7DayStory Challenge Today
The 7DayStory is a new short story writing challenge, from the creators of StoryADay May and the DIY MFA: Write and revise a story over the next seven days Use the hashtag #7DayStory to connect with other working writers. Why Write A Story in 7 Days? We believe that it is by writing that we [...]
You Win!
Well, it’s here: the end of StoryADay May 2013. Thank you for taking part, for paying attention, for commenting and for sharing, you great big Winner, you. You Win If you wrote a story this May, If you wrote a story every day, If you wrote, but you missed a few days, If you [...]
[Writing Prompt] When One Door Closes…
This is it. We’ve come to the end of StoryADay May 2013. Thank you so much for being a part of it. I would love to hear how you’ve got on, what you have learned. If you post on your own blog about your experience, please leave a link to it here. If you’d be [...]
Take The 7DayStory Challenge
Just because StoryADay May 2013 is ending soon, don’t think I’m letting you off the hook. You’ve developed some great writing habits this past month and you shouldn’t let those go. To encourage you to continue with your short story writing, I’ve teamed up with Gabriela Pereira of DIYMFA.com and, next week, we’re bringing you: [...]
[Writing Prompt] The Non-Memoir
Don’t miss this news about a new week-long challenge to keep you writing in June — and this one comes with a built-in revision component! The Prompt Take an event/experience from your own life and fictionalize it Last year, at a writer’s conference I was struck by the reaction of a panel of agents every [...]
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