Write a Better Novel Practical wisdom for novelists and other storytellers

No Electronic Submissions, Please. We’re Luddites The Pushcart Prize XXXVI: Best of the Small Presses (2012 Edition) is out, and once again promises all kinds of special treats for readers, particularly fiction readers. Fine work they would possibly never encounter were they to rely solely on The Ne

This video caught my eye, because it put into perspective a reality fiction writers experience all the time: failure. If you’re going to write fiction, get ready; your work will ba rejected again and again. More often than not, to those you know and love, you will look like a failure. An essential p

The past few posts have been about how “Driving Shades” grew from 100 words to 9,000, in a few easy steps. Except, of course, they’re more than a few, and none of them were easy. The fact is, very little in fiction is achieved without a struggle, since, once you’ve told it, the struggle is [...]

I like to write characters who are introspective, observant, and articulate. These qualities presuppose a fluency of style well adapted for making fiction. But the language of “Driving Shades” is tightly limited to simple, everyday words and phrases. It’s a character narration, so the level of expre

We know her only as Sis. In “Driving Shades” she is the narrator’s dead sister: a “shade.” Sis, who doesn’t exist in the original version, becomes the central focus of a plot that also didn’t exist. I needed her and the other characters I’ve created, just as I needed a central conflict or “problem”

I don’t normally post my work here. But because “Driving Shades” began as a 100 word microfiction––and because it’s Halloween––I decided to make an exception, and post it anyway. It’s a good example of how to begin with the merest fragment and build a full length short story. It also illustrates a c

For those of us who speculate endlessly about why we can't find the time to write or can't get that novel finished (and frankly, I have to include myself), the message of Steve Jobs' amazingly productive life is starkly simple: just shut up and get busy.

Rarely is a novel written in the heat of one long sustained passion. More typically, there are starts and stops along the way, sometimes lasting years. A real novelist, like a pit bull, never lets go.