There are quite a number of relatively successful novels that I find to be nothing more than thinly-veiled autobiographies. Surely there are others out there who share my sentiment when they come across some book that smells like nothing more than the re-imagination of the author's life. Anis Shivani says, "Bad writing draws attention to…
A Writer Or Father: A Fork In My Road
When I entered the classroom to begin another semester of workshopping my fiction, I felt a gentle warmth in my body. I smiled, which I rarely do. I said hi to a classmate from the prior semester, which I don't ever do. What I was feeling was love. I felt like I was at home.…
A Writer’s Mastery: Understanding The World
The more I write my novel, the more I am confronted with particular difficulties. I can see now why many novelists publish their better works when they're older. Age gives you life experience, and with it comes a greater mastery over the stories you write. For instance, if you wish to write a story depicting…
One Early Afternoon: A Short Story
Under the fluorescent lights that lit everything with a perfectly neutral white, in between unkempt shelves of children’s toys, Mark held in his hand a stiff box containing a series of transforming robots. He had been wandering inside the Target department store for nearly an hour. Originally, he had intended to quickly drop by to…
How To Incorporate Details In Your Writing
One thing that I notice that many beginners in writing do is that they tend to make lists of details. For example, you may have seen sentences that sound like this: "Our winters forced us to keep a simple diet of carrots, cabbage, and rabbit served in a watery stew." The problem with these kinds…
