Storyville: Unreliable Narrators
What is an unreliable narrator and how can it affect your writing?
Big Bugs and Dead Astronauts: The Joys of a Non-Human Narrator
Fresh ideas can be learned from books told from a different perspective.
Storyville: What is Head-Hopping and Why Should You Avoid It?
Tips for avoiding head-hopping 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?
Storyville: Young Protagonists—MG vs. YA vs. Adult
Some advice for writing young protagonists for Middle Grade, YA, and adult fiction.
Storyville: Leaving Room for the Reader in Your Fiction
Thoughts and advice on how to leave room for your readers when writing fiction.
Storyville: Death in Fiction
In:
American Psycho, Character, Death, Jack Ketchum, John Steinbeck, Narrator, Plot, Storyville, Theme
Death in fiction — who, what, when, where and why.
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.
Storyville: Fiction As Film—Writing Scenes That Are Visual
How can your fiction be as visual and engrossing as a film? Here are some suggestions.
Storyville: 15 Unconventional Story Methods
Here are 15 unconventional methods of telling a story. Why not stretch yourself?
This is Not a Checklist: How to Write a Story
In:
flashback, Info dumps, List, Narrator, Plot, POV, subtext, tense, unreliable narrator, world-building
Some things to have taken into consideration while writing your story. Not rules, just after-the-fact guidelines.
Write What You Don’t Know
Of all the rules that apply to fiction writing, perhaps none is more misleading than the common, banal adage that you should “write what you know.”
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.
“I tell the truth, even when I lie.”: A Discussion of Unreliable Narrators
Can your narrator be trusted?? Reliable narrators are the norm, but unreliable narrators are great to read and fun to write.
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
Submerging the “I”
First-person narration, for all its immediacy and power, becomes a liability if your reader can't identify with your narrator. Discover Chuck's secret method for making a first-person narrator less obtrusive. Bonus: This essay includes the story 'Guts.'