Storyville: Literary Devices—10 Common Writing Techniques and How to Use Them
Ten literary devices to help with your fiction.
Storyville: Unreliable Narrators
What is an unreliable narrator and how can it affect your writing?
Withholding: The Secret To Comedy Writing
By Peter Derk
In:
Comedy, Literary Devices
Withholding gets a bad rap from lazy mysteries and lousy thrillers. But it's a great comedy writing tool.
Advice from a 19th Century Governess and How Writing About Writing Has Changed
Writers have always loved to give advice, even when it’s not solicited.
Storyville: How to Write a Massive, Multi-Pronged Hook
If you think the only hook to your story or novel is the first line, then boy do I have some news for you.
The Sound of Absence: Utilizing White Space in Poetry
This essay explores how white space can be used in poetry as a literary device that thrives on the power of absence.
Storyville: Body, Mind, and Soul—Adding Depth to Your Stories
Using the concept of body, mind, and soul, you can create a deeper experience with your stories.
Storyville: Foreshadowing in Fiction—How to Set the Stage
Tips on how to use foreshadowing to write layered stories with powerful emotion.
Storyville: Universal Truths Can Help Your Readers Relate
Examples of how to use universal truths in your fiction.
Storyville: Advanced Storytelling Techniques
Tips for how to execute some advanced storytelling techniques.
Storyville: Using a Chorus in Your Fiction
Tips and tricks for using a chorus in your fiction.
Clarity vs. Experimentation: A Letter To Myself
By Peter Derk
Does your work have a worthwhile story underneath the experiment? In other words, are you going to pay off the work a reader does to understand what’s going on?
One Word Leads To The Next: Unconventional Conjunctive Devices
In:
Choruses, conjunctions, Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, Literary Devices, rhymes, Vocabulary, Voice
An essay that explores unconventional conjunctive devices and how they can link a story together, making it more like a song or piece of music.
The Haunting: How To Conquer The Shame Of Being A Writer
An essay about why the vocation of writing can sometimes feel shameful, and how to own that shame and then eventually conquer it.
Consider This: Undecidability
In:
Literary Devices, Narrator, Rosemary's Baby, The Great Gatsby, The Haunting of Hill House, unreliable narrator, Word Play
Chuck Palahniuk talks about the unresolved, and how undecidability is always more scary than simply being told the answer.
Consider This: Coping
In this first of a series of new craft essays, Chuck Palahniuk displays a method for helping your characters cope against dramatic situations. He also delves into the language of singing, mantras and the importance of a good scream.
Storyville: Dissecting "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates
In:
Character, Joyce Carol Oates, Literary Devices, Plot, POV, Research, Setting, Short Stories, Storyville, Structure
One of the most talked about, published and taught stories, I dissect "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates.
Storyville: 15 Unconventional Story Methods
Here are 15 unconventional methods of telling a story. Why not stretch yourself?
Top 10 Storytelling Cliches Writers Need To Stop Using
By Rob Hart
There are certain storytelling clichés writers go back to again and again. And they shouldn't. Because they are terrible, and they need to be destroyed.
Storyville: Narrative Hooks
In:
Character, Craft, Dialogue, Literary Devices, Narrative Hooks, Plot, POV, Setting, Storyville, Structure
Writing a great narrative hook isn't easy, but it's one way to grab your audience and never let them go.
Drag it Out: How to Use Extended Metaphors for Maximum Effect
A discussion of successful extended metaphors and how to create your own.
The Myth of Writer’s Block
An understanding of how the human mind operates proves that a temporary lack of creative ideas is not the result of “writer's block,” but the result of something else entirely.
“Scuse me while I kiss this guy.”: Malaprops, Puns, Spoonerisms, Eggcorns, and other hilarity-inducing word mix-ups
Words are flexible and a writer can have a lot of fun using these devices.
That’s So Meta: Writing A Story About Writing A Story
In:
Cervantes, Craft, Dave Eggers, Don Quixote, Literary Devices, metafiction, Narrator, nonfiction, Plot, POV, Structure
When narrators escape--a discussion of metafiction.
Out of Order: A Discussion of Nonlinear Narrative Structure
In:
Craft, Jennifer Egan, Literary Devices, Little Red Riding Hood, Memento, NaNoWriMo, Narrator, Non-linear, Structure
A Discussion of Non-linear Narrative Structure