Tag: Craft Essays
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JULY 05, 2025 Last year, something happened to my writing process. Inspiration went cold. Sentences didn’t flow. And the right words became elusive beasts in an ever-thinning herd. Some people would term this “writer’s block”, two words that brought to mind an unyielding presence, an insurmountable obstacle with solid edges and sharp corners. I didn’t…
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in spite of bending and breaking quite a few rules of literary fiction writing, “The Stackpole Legend” manages to be a hugely satisfying read “The Stackpole Legend” (Wendell Berry, The Threepenny Review) is not your conventional short story. Reading it can be revealing, especially to new and emerging writers. I say this because it busts so many myths early…
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Special Blogpost for National Poetry Month As you may remember, for my last blogpost I had shared my special Poetry Month trampset column What Do Fiction Writers Do All through Poetry Month? I hope you enjoyed the list, and especially, if you are a fiction writer, I hope you’ve been inspired by item #10 Check…
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Subscribe for monthly craft essays Let me begin this month’s blogpost with a poem. I suppose I am still recovering from Poetry Month’s poet interviews. In case you missed April’s highly inspirational blogpost with interesting anecdotes, useful advice and more, find it here. FORK / Charles Simic (b. 1938)This strange thing must have creptRight out…
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Fragmentation in structure, in narrative, and in character-building can be divided into three parts: 1) Fragmentation in structure: Meaning a narrative text is subtly nudging you to pay attention through the way it is told. We’re not taking of hybrids, experimental or hermit-crab forms here, but traditional forms, and yet, by moving around the pieces,…
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Because story-telling is both art & science, a writer may strive to use the right blend of history, culture, language, and colors of a place to enrich the narrative, and thus mold a piece in the best of what’s available and unique to the writer’s sensibilities. This fertile ground is made use of by many…


