What would you expect from the sixth novel of a writer and teacher of creative writing? A fiction novel that challenges most contemporary writing with character-based dramatic plots, love stories with love as deep emotional intrigue and selfless caring, and survival of Americans on an Air force base in France in the 1960s during the nuclear threat of a war with Russia? What would you expect from this author of six award-winning novels; thirty-seven short stories, thirty-one acclaimed published essays on the writing process, twenty-nine interviews with established authors, teachers, editors–even a Pulitzer Prize winner, on how to create fiction … Read More…

To change your writing style, it’s best to have a plan. Try this. Identify the elements of writing then change one element at a time for what you believe will be an improvement. Then study basic elements for changing style, and then practice. Here are examples: VOCABULARY Word choice: Look for replacement words that accurately supply imagery, ideation, and emotion for the content and meaning of a story. There are so many word alternatives! The Oxford English Dictionary lists twenty-seven alternatives to the noun “pleasure,” forty-two choices for the adjective “perfect,” seventy-four choices for the verb “move,” such as go, … Read More…

Virginia Woolf wrote this intriguing quote about writing fiction that deserves deliberate analysis. The quote: “Style is a very simple matter; it is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can’t use the wrong words.” Style for fiction writers is personally unique and is a distinctive way of using language, vocabulary, syntax, imagery, ideation, clarity, readability, format, emphasis … all commonly considered important components. Rhythm is a strong, regular repeated pattern of movement or sound … a pattern. Is that what Woolf is referring to? Patterns? Let’s look at Woolf’s writing, see if you feel a rhythmic flow. Did they … Read More…

Appreciation of beauty is individual and it is never universally true to everyone. The fundamental question is: what makes anything seen, heard, felt, tasted–beautiful? Leo Tolstoy, the writer, spent the last fifteen years of his life pondering the aspects of art and beauty. (What is Art?) He believed beauty to the senses came from imagination and creativity. Perfection in the act of creating beauty (in the creation rather than the judgement) was important for beauty, but not critical. He was convinced originality was essential, and he decried imitation and that, with beauty, there was a transfer from creator to recipient … Read More…

An Empathetic Fictional Character is Multidimensional. The importance of empathy in our lives is enormous but underestimated and often ignored. Empathy is a concept and an experience, and it seems that you may have it or not, and probably if you have it, it fluctuates throughout life. Although empathy is esoteric and impossible to define, it can be a profoundly useful concept in fictional character development … as well as in our lives. Psychologists try to corral an individual human understanding of others because of its social importance. And writers of fiction stories benefit from psychologists’ research to understand transference … Read More…

As a figure of speech, irony adds meanings to situations, develops readers’ interest, makes literature more intriguing, and commands use of imagination to comprehend meanings. Moreover, it brings life to both drama and literature. Look to these well-known examples from Greek antiquity. Antony at Caesar’s funeral: I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. For Brutus is an honorable man; The first irony of Antony’s speech is that he is unequivocally there to praise Caesar. Antony is, in fact, lying. This is a calculated tactic to disarm a crowd firmly on the side of Brutus when Antony takes the … Read More…

We live by stories, descriptions of people and events, real or fictional, that inform or entertain. Stories are ubiquitous as air, essential as a heartbeat, and as varied in the telling as there are humans to tell. The story as a fiction art-form in prose has evolved over the past few centuries, but recently has declined as literature, a regrettable fact emitting from failure of contemporary authors to strive for “art” in their “creative” writing. What is lost? Imagined fiction and literature as written works considered to have lasting artistic value. The loss of written story as an art form … Read More…