Columns

Books on Writing: What Authors, Agents and Editors Read

October 1st, 2013

About a decade ago, the shelves at your local Borders (RIP) housed a reasonable selection of books about writing for those hungry to learn and improve their craft. Today, despite the doomsday reports that print books will soon be obsolete, those shelves—let's move to Barnes and Noble—practically groan under the weight of all those who have their own take on crafting prose and an inspired creative life in general.

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Culling The Classics: Anna Karenina

September 30th, 2013

I hate Russian authors. Every time I've ever tried to read a book by a Russian author, I've failed miserably. Crime and Punishment? I hadn't committed any crime, but it sure felt like Dostoevsky was punishing me. Dr. Zhivago? Boris Pasternak should've changed his name to Boring Pasternak. Lolita? Vladimir Nabokov was writing in English about a French guy driving around the United States, and it was still too Russian for me.

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Updated With Winners: LitReactor's Flash Fiction Smackdown: September Edition (...and another chance to win Chuck Palahniuk's new book!)

September 30th, 2013

Flash Fiction: A style of fictional literature marked by extreme brevity UPDATE: Since it's only a few days in and we already have 76 (and counting) entries--we've scrounged up two more copies of Chuck  Palahniuk's new book for a total of THREE books to give away to the best three entries! So keep 'em coming! 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.

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10 Portland Powerhouses Bringing the (Good) Hurt to Publishing

September 27th, 2013

Boasting the largest independent bookstore in the country, dozens of weekly readings (spearheaded by series like Bad Blood and If Not For Kidnap), the Independent Publishing Resource Center (which provides access to letterpresses and everything else that an independent publisher could ask for), a graduate program in publishing, cheap housing and cheaper booze, not to mention numerous publishers, literary journals, and several annual conferences, Portland, Oregon has become a Mecca for writers of all sorts. People here are rabid about their books.

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Bad Breakers: 10 Characters That Turned to the Dark Side

September 27th, 2013

Breaking Bad might not be a genre show, but that doesn’t diminish its greatness or my enthusiasm for it. If you haven’t been watching the series, I highly recommend it. One of its main themes is the descent of an ostensibly good man into villainy.  In honor of the imminent end of the series, here is a list of characters from genre fiction who followed a similar descent—who started as decent individuals but soon turned to the, well, Dark Side. 

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How Precocious is Too Precocious? Writing Smart but Believable Kids

September 26th, 2013

pre·co·cious adjective \pri-ˈkō-shəs\ of a child : having or showing the qualities or abilities of an adult at an unusually early age. -Merriam Webster Dictionary

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Three Books About... Cities

September 26th, 2013

“What strange phenomena we find in a great city, all we need do is stroll about with our eyes open. Life swarms with innocent monsters.” Writers don’t have to live in cities. Steinbeck found life swarming in the waterfronts of Monterey; Faulkner in the dusty streets of Oxford, Mississippi; Shirley Jackson in the small town conspiracies of North Bennington, Vermont. But like Baudelaire said, there’s nothing to beat an hour on the pavement of a great city to supply a writer with material.

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Storyville: Fiction As Film—Writing Scenes That Are Visual

September 25th, 2013

When I write fiction, especially longer prose such as novels, I tend to use language that would be right at home on a movie set. I think about scenes, I imagine the way the camera tracks the action, I picture the “actors” in their environment, and I hear the narrator, as if in a voice-over, telling me what’s on his mind. Here are some ways to apply the knowledge we’ve all received from watching movies, the ways that directors and cinematographers capture the action, and elevate the drama. You might be surprised how similar literature and film really are.

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Your Favorite Book Sucks: '1984'

September 25th, 2013

'Your Favorite Book Sucks' is an ongoing column, written by different people, that takes a classic or popular book and argues why it isn't really all that great. Confrontational, to be sure, but it's all in good fun, so please play nice.

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'Doctor Sleep' and the Evolution of Fear

September 24th, 2013

I just finished re-reading Stephen King’s The Shining followed immediately by its brand-new sequel, Doctor Sleep. Like many King fans, I’ve waited for years—no, decades—to find out what happened to young Danny Torrance after he escaped the Overlook Hotel. If you’ve been waiting too, today is your day. All is revealed in Doctor Sleep.

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