The Editor as Lighthouse
I have a slightly strange obsession.
Prattlefog & Gravelrap
A monthly article series about the elements of short fiction: ideas for rocket-boosting your writing craft, reading recommendations, and other writing-related ramblings.
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Pick me! Pick me!!!
This is what we want our stories to say to an editor / publisher / agent / competition judge, acting like a child in the front row of the classroom who’s desperately got their hand up to volunteer to clean the whiteboard.
Our special words for things
Last month I posted a “bonus” article all about my favourite words and it triggered a comment from Sarah Freligh about the words we have as writers to describe our writing processes, not the “official” words for things, but the “bespoke” words we come up with ourselves, the ways we think about idea formation or narrative shape or guiding our reader through our story-telling worlds.
These are a Few of my Favourite Words
I love words. As writers, words are the tools of our trade. But my love of words goes even deeper than that. I love the way they sound. I love their rhythms. I love the way they connect together
Points of View
I sometimes do an exercise where I write several versions of a story, each time making use of a different point of view.
Pond Dipping
For my novel and linked short fiction collection (the ridiculous project I’ve been wrangling with for three years already and which is threatening to take up all my creative energies for a least another thirty-three more!!), I’ve been contemplating ekphrasis and hybridity from various different angles.
The Tell-and-vision Show
I was talking with one of my mentees this morning and they brought up the aphorism “show don’t tell” and I got myself in a bit of a lather about it.
Shiny New Things
In my little corner of existence, spring has sprung, the clocks have leapfrogged forward, and the colour is gurgling back into the fabric of the world after the greys and browns of the winter months.
Did I Write a Bad Story?
A few years ago, I read an article from a magazine editor in which they stated that most submissions received by their magazine weren’t ‘good.’ It was one sentence in an otherwise well-balanced article but it stuck with me.
The Editorial Funnel
I remember how easy it all seemed.