Columns

Authors and Publishers — Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?

February 4th, 2014

Image copyright Toho Company Ltd Well, 2014 started off with a bang in terms of publishing — on both sides of the fence. The shocker about an author who turned down a six figure advance to self-publish her work was only the beginning, and seems to have kick-started the heated debate about self-publishing all over again. Add to that changes (or not) in the traditional publishing sector and the picture doesn’t seem to be getting any less fuzzy.

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Ask the Grammarian with Taylor Houston - Now Taking Your Questions

February 3rd, 2014

One of the most exciting and helpful features we offer in the LitReactor Magazine is our series of columns geared at answering reader questions. As you know, Erin Reel-—publishing and editorial consultant, writing coach, columnist and blog host—led this feature with her masterly 'Ask The Lit Coach' series of columns.

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Beautiful Void: The Importance of Implied Narrative

January 31st, 2014

Image Copyright the BBC “You have to listen to the notes they’re not playing.” At some point in your life, whether in reality or on television, you’ve no doubt heard the statement above used to explain a piece of music, usually jazz, that the speaker thinks the assembled audience is not appreciating properly. Obviously you can’t hear noise that isn’t being made, so what could this nonsense possibly mean? In the case of jazz, I couldn’t tell you.

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UPDATED WITH WINNER - LitReactor's Flash Fiction Smackdown: January Edition

January 31st, 2014

Flash fiction: A style of fictional literature marked by extreme brevity. Welcome to LitReactor's Flash Fiction Smackdown, a monthly bout of writing prowess. How It Works We give you inspiration in the form of a picture, poem, video, or similar. You write a flash fiction piece using the inspiration we gave you. Put your entry in the comments section. One winner will be picked and awarded a prize. This month, you get only 14 words, but there are no limits on structure or number of sentences.

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Blogging and the Law: Five Issues You Need To Know

January 31st, 2014

Last year, Cath Murphy wrote a column on how to be an awesome blogger. Keeping a blog is a great idea for writers. It helps your routine of keeping up a daily word count, it helps you be social with readers and other writers, and it can be a useful platform for your fan- (or potential fan-) base.

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Culling The Classics: Moby-Dick

January 30th, 2014

Image by Tony Millionaire This was a terrible idea. The Book Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, by Herman Melville (Richard Bentley [Britain]/Harper & Brothers [US], 1851).

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Too Close to Home: The Dangers of Choosing an Editor

January 30th, 2014

"Honey, where'd you put my book?" "Which one? The Stephen King?" "No! Gah! The one you're editing!" "Oh. It's downstairs. I just finished a few more pages. Don't mind the red ink — there's a lot of it."

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Screenwriting: Speed Dating The First Five Pages

January 29th, 2014

Spec screenplays these days should have the reader at ‘Hello’.  Even a few years ago, a screenwriter could afford a leisurely introduction, setting up the basics of their story’s Who/What/Why/Where/When over the first ten to fifteen pages.

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Storyville: How to Write a Book Review

January 28th, 2014

In today’s column, I will talk about how to write a book review. I know that many of you are avid readers, and whether you simply want to put something up on your blog, send your criticism to a small journal, or get paid professional rates to publish lengthy narratives about fiction that moves you, there are some essential components to focus on. Here are some suggestions on how to write a compelling review, how to excite your readers and get them to seek out the books you love, as well as some techniques that have worked for me in the past.

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How Journalism Can Help Polish Your Fiction

January 27th, 2014

What do Ernest Hemingway, Tom Wolfe, Chuck Palahniuk, Raymond Chandler, O. Henry and Stephen Crane all have in common? Before they were the adored giants of fiction we know today, they were all journalists. Yet for some strange reason, many kindhearted, lit-loving fictionist wannabes, the daydreamers who hope to one day publish novels or poetry chapbooks on par with Steinbeck and Salinger, tend to overlook journalism as a viable means to those ends.

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