Columns

LitReactor's Flash Fiction Smackdown: January Edition - Updated with Winner

January 31st, 2013

Flash fiction: A style of fictional literature marked by extreme brevity. Welcome to LitReactor's Flash Fiction Smackdown, a monthly bout of writing prowess, in which you're challenged to thrill us in 250 words or less. How It Works We give you a picture. You write a flash fiction piece, using the picture we gave you as inspiration. Put your entry in the comments section. One winner will be picked, and awarded a prize.

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‘Good Sex, Great Prayers’: A Journey in Publication (Part 3: Art & Stuff)

January 31st, 2013

Click HERE for previous installments.

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Info Dumps Aren't Evil

January 30th, 2013

Soon after a new writer dares to reveal their intentions to write a novel, they start to get advice. "Don't do it! You can't make any money as a writer," says the serious minded business person. (As if a writer had the qualities necessary to make money elseways.) To newly minted writers, self-appointed literary stylists will often quote such axioms as, "You must strictly avoid –ly words," and "The passive voice is never used by a professional writer."

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Kill Those Modifiers!

January 30th, 2013

One hallmark of bad writing can be found in descriptive passages that rely heavily on modifiers. Adverbs and adjectives are necessary in language — I’ve already used both, in the first two sentences of this column — but used too often, they contribute to uninspired sentences and an overall sense of descriptive flatness. They don’t convey the specificity or immediacy that’s needed in storytelling. As such, you should kill them whenever you can.

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Phraseology: Groups of Words with a Lot of Jobs

January 29th, 2013

If you read my articles fairly often, you've probably heard me go on and on about sentences and clauses, but noticed I’ve dodged the topic of phrases…until now.

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LURID: Slaughterhouse Blues - The Abattoir in Horror

January 29th, 2013

LURID: vivid in shocking detail; sensational, horrible in savagery or violence, or, a guide to the merits of the kind of Bad Books you never want your co-workers to know you're reading.

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Book vs. Film: Kiss Me Judas vs. Fractured

January 25th, 2013

It all started with a comment from jacks_username. The topic of discussion was film adaptations: I'd love to see the Phineas Poe books adapted into movies as well. Fun fact: a film maker actually adapted Kiss Me Judas into a film without permission from the author or publisher. Rumor is that the film is still floating around.

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Judge A Book By Its Cover

January 25th, 2013

I'm not a huge fan of the aphorism "don't judge a book by its cover." Well, actually, I think in the case of Young Adult fiction you should follow that adage, because all YA covers are dirt and some of the books are quite good. But in general, I say go ahead and judge 'em. In this day and age as publishers spend more and more money on art design, the best books have the best covers, and the worst books have covers like this. 

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5 Childhood Books Still on my Shelf

January 24th, 2013

When my family moved to Norway from Scotland, we took the opportunity to dejunk our lives. We hired a skip. We filled it. We hired another one and filled that too. We visited the charity shops with bags full of clothes and wedding presents we had never used. We went to the local rubbish dump with the things which wouldn’t fit in the second skip. We went to the charity shop with bags of toys, more clothes, our artificial Christmas tree (we were on first name terms by then). Anything we could sell – cars, furniture - we sold. Anything we could give away, we gave away.

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9 Modern Tools Every Writer Should Use

January 24th, 2013

I have a friend who types only on typewriters. His study is full of them; he and his girlfriend, he told me, feel bad for these dying symbols of the writing craft. Any time they see one in a shop window they have to "adopt it." There's a romance to this notion, but my own approach takes the opposite route: As soon as a modern tool proves it can make me more effective, I sink my teeth into it. Here are nine tools I've found to be especially useful to both my creative writing and my freelance career.

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