September 2016

I used to write my novels defensively. I was terrified of there being any page where the reader might possibly be confused at any moment, so I would try to cram in as many explanations in as short of a space as possible: my terminology, the history of my world, cultural idiosyncrasies, and geography, for […]

A famous quote of advice by author Stephen King is “Kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little heart, kill your darlings.” In other words, cut passages of writing, even the ones you love, if cutting them benefits the story as a whole. Cutting superfluous text can help writers achieve a leaner, more

When I first began writing fiction, my characters tended to be too passive. Horrible things happened to them, but they never knew exactly what to do. When they did react, they reacted too little. A student in my college creative writing class had the same problem. His story began with a father losing his toddler

A common complaint about novels is “too many descriptions.” As a reader I have made the same complaint in cases where I was eager to see what happened next in a story, only to end up entangled in a painfully detailed description of some bucolic farm setting. Question: Please, tell me, does the baby whose