Back in June, a friend did me one heck of a solid. It happened the way such profound things do: by accident. This was at our Sisters in Crime chapter meeting, and the speaker said the first thing about storytelling that surprised me in a while: That great stories needed romance. That speaker was Clay…… Continue reading Bringing the Romance Back
Tag: Writing
Didion’s Ghost and 7 Other Tests Before Submitting a Story
Every manuscript tells two stories. One, how strong the writing is. Two, how professional the writer is. Not sure about the pro part? The story isn’t ready. If your piece isn’t even in manuscript format, or there’s your personal format but not what the market specifies, the story is very definitely not ready.…… Continue reading Didion’s Ghost and 7 Other Tests Before Submitting a Story
Me and Tybee
e Me and Tybee I don’t know if it’s the best place to fish on Tybee, but the best place to be seen fishing on Tybee is the Pier. The Tybee Pier and Tybrisa Pavilion II, formally. No one here is formal. They’re fishing or talking about it. Sheepshead, drum, sharpnose shark. From a…… Continue reading Me and Tybee
Title Fight
You can do a lot with fiction. You can remove all narrative or all punctuation. You can go stream of consciousness and remove spelling norms and paragraph breaks. Cormac McCarthy removes the dialogue quotes. Do it right, and you can remove most everything in fiction and still have terrific writing. Except for one unavoidable thing:…… Continue reading Title Fight