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50 Provocative Questions About Romantic Subplots

February 12th, 2019

Header image via Pixabay This article was born when I sat down to watch a movie with a bad romantic subplot. It got me asking questions about romantic subplots. Their utility, their effectiveness. Their very right to exist. I came up with a list of questions. Let's think about this. Apply this to your work. Annoy your friends next time you see a movie together. Ready to take the romance out of romance? Let’s go.

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The Top 10 Fake Books in Movies

February 11th, 2019

Sometime around last year, I realized I’ve been steadily losing my ability to read due to a decade of rampant, attention-span-destroying internet usage. This became even clearer to me when, for the first time in my life, I found it impossible to come up with a year-end top ten list of books. In 2018, I think I read just one book cover to cover, I'll Be Gone in the Dark. It wasn’t even that long. So there you go. My top ten was that one book, ten times.

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Platonic Love Between Men In Fiction

February 8th, 2019

Image via Pixabay One time I brought a story to a workshop and came across a problem. The platonic male friendship in the story read, to almost every single person, as a romance. Maybe a lopsided, obscured romance, but a romance nonetheless. The overwhelming response meant the misinterpretation was my fault. I'll own that.

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Library Love: Love Letters to the Library

February 7th, 2019

Sometimes I think about my profession and get the warm fuzzies. Rather than list all the things that I think are wonderful about libraries and the folks who work in them, I've crafted a few love letters to better illustrate the wide-ranging impact libraries have on our lives. Dear Librarians,

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10 Must-Know Tips For Outlining Your Novel

February 6th, 2019

If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, the road to a finished novel is dotted with false starts. So many aspiring writers think they’ve landed upon a brilliant idea for a novel. That’s great! But when they sit to actually put the story down in words, they soon discover they have no idea where to start with it.

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Places To Read and Listen To Books For Free

February 5th, 2019

Header image via Ellie Burgin The holiday season is well and truly over and bank balances around the world are diminished, but our appetites for books and stories are as abundant as ever. Lucky for you, I’ve compiled a list of places you can read and listen to books for free. Legally!

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Reflections on the Difficulties and Influence of Joyce

February 1st, 2019

February 2nd is the 137th anniversary of James Joyce’s birth. That’s not a particularly significant number except that it makes me think about how around the 20th anniversary of my own birth I was obsessed with Joyce, and all that has changed over the years about my relationship with the Irishman’s work.

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Exploring the Film and Television References in Silent Hill

January 31st, 2019

This is the third column in our ‘Silent Hill on LitReactor’ series. If you missed the first two instalments then click through to read about The Real Town Behind Silent Hill and The Literary References in Silent Hill. Today is all about film and television references, of which there are many.

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Narrative Detour: Rediscover Your Novel

January 29th, 2019

Sometimes, we hate our book. It’s all right to admit it, this is a safe space. We bring them into this world with much enthusiasm, invest tons of our time and energy into helping them reach their full potential, and they appreciate none of it. Of course, deep down we love them, but when you’ve rewritten a paragraph for the millionth time and still don’t know what’s wrong with it, you might print out your manuscript just for the symbolic satisfaction of lighting it on fire. I certainly won’t judge you.

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How to Submit Writing Like A Relentless Force of Nature

January 28th, 2019

Legendary sci-fi author Connie Willis told me a story about her early submitting days. Willis’ method was simple: Always have something out for submission. That way, when place A rejected your work, no biggie, you still had something out at Place B, Place C, and in her case, Places D-Z. You waited to hear back, and in the meantime you took the rejected work, repackaged it, and sent it somewhere else. This meant Willis made a lot of post office trips and bought a lot of stamps.

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