Creative Writing Corner

Happy Halloween!

  Image from Innusa.

Happy Halloween, readers! I hope you have a safe and enjoyable time tonight, whether trick-or-treating, handing out candy to cute be-costumed kids, going to parties, or making a bit of innocent mischief (please, don't smash anyone's pumpkins!). In honor of halloween, take a stroll through my archives and read the post I wrote last year on how to write horror. It's got all the details on writing a truly spine-tingling story.

This year I'll be handing out candy with a friend who is not from the States, so this is his first halloween experience. He had a blast carving a pumpkin and picking out a costume. It's really fun to see someone else enjoying the holiday anew; it makes me remember all the kiddish delights of halloween. So have fun, go crazy, gorge yourself on candy and have a great holiday!

Twittering

As you may know, I've recently jumped on board the Twitter bandwagon. At first I wasn't sure I liked the idea, but I've been warming to twitter as a means for finding out interesting tidbits of information from people, including links and bits of news, and keeping track of the people I'm interested in. So take a look at my twitter page and consider following me. I post at least daily with updates about my posts on Creative Writing Corner, but also exclusive information about the writing life and interesting writing-related links. Check it out today!

Is a Story on Paper, or in Your Mind?

I recently had a major computer crash -- luckily, and thanks to great Apple software, all of my data was perfectly restored. But it got me thinking about what a story really is, and where it exists more. After all, a story always begins in your head, but it doesn't feel realized to me until I've typed it up or put it on paper, until I've seen the black words marching across the page, reassuringly concrete. The story that exists in my head is amorphous; it can change at will, and frequently does, shifting and evolving as new thoughts I have shape it. So what's more real -- the story constantly shifting in my mind, or the story I have made static on the page?

HarperCollins Founds "Democratic" Slush Pile

An article I found (thanks to Wordsy) is highlighting HarperCollins and how it is Redesigning its Slush Pile by putting it all online. This will make the pile more democratic, they argue, with all entries read equally. It's an interesting premise, and good news for us little guys fighting to get published!

New Challenge: Simul-writing

With the creative thesis fully underway, I've had to begin a new challenge in my writing life, one I've never really had to do before. Because of time constraints, I'm forced to simultaneously write different short stories.

If it sounds daunting, that's because it is. Right now I'm in the rewriting and editing stage of one story, the tentative-conceptualizing stage of a second, and the writing-the-first-draft stage of a third! It's insane, and it's extremely challenging, but there's just no other way to get the work done on time -- I've got to find the ability in me to do this.

After the jump: obstacles, challenges, and how to cope.

Write What You Know?

  Image from Flickr.

"Write what you know" is one of the oldest lessons in the book. It's also a maxim that many writers have raged fiercely against and defied. Writers fall all over the spectrum about this question, but I want to come out right now and say that I think the command to only write what you know is a bad one. If that were true, the world's novels would be vastly more limited in scope and imagination than they are. It's the fact that writers have stretched beyond the boundaries of their own limited experiences, to depict people lightyears from their own worlds, that makes fiction so exciting, so vital, so important. Writing what you know alone is willfully imprisoning yourself in a box.

After the jump: how to break free of writing what you know.

My Kingdom for an Ending: Ending Your Stories in Style

The story I'm currently working on has been a positive demon. The first time I tackled it, I was going along fine until I reached the ending -- and I realized I didn't have the slightest idea how to end the thing. I ended up slapping together a very weak ending that felt very tacked on. My advisor recognized this immediately. The story required rewrites, but he highlighted the ending, saying it would simply have to go and be completely re-done. Without too much difficulty, I worked through the rewrites, but when I reached the ending, once again I came to a complete stop. I was completely flummoxed -- and as I struggled, it occurred to me that this is a very common problem for writers. Often you've got a story rolling along very nicely, but you just don't have the slightest clue how to wrap it up. Short stories, unlike many novels, don't have the luxury of continuing until the character ages and dies. So I'd like to give some guidelines for how to think through the difficult task of ending your story in style.

After the jump: ending that story.

Link: Read Books Online for Free

I've just discovered Bookglutton.com, a site that is just for the pleasurable experience of reading books. You can read books online, absolutely for free, and they have a huge selection, including classics. Take a look if you need a little entertainment and want to be refreshed with a bit of Austen or Dostoevsky.

Can Writing Change the World?

  Image from Applesauce.

It's only a couple of weeks now until a presidential election that will, more than elections for perhaps decades, completely change history. At least, that's the way most of America seems to feel right now; there has never been more at stake in an election in my lifetime. This is not a political blog and I won't go too much into my personal leanings, but I will say that words and rhetoric have become one of the major themes of this campaign, in both good and bad ways.

It was Obama's extraordinary gift with words that generated unprecedented excitement among Americans (and Europeans). Though he doesn't write all of his speeches, of course, he has written many important and powerful ones himself. It was his nuanced, sensitive, and hopeful speech on race in America, acknowledging old prejudices that die slowly as well as our ability to transcend the animosity of the past, that made me supportive of him. It shows how words, in my opinion, really did change things, and Obama's speeches have changed many other opinions about him as well. That was a history-making speech, and it reminded me of how glorious, how uplifting, how apt, good writing really can be.

After the jump: the war on words.

Toni Morrison Reads

I had the privilege of attending an exclusive event at my school this week; Toni Morrison was reading a selection from her new book, "A Mercy," and I immediately scrambled to get tickets. Toni Morrison is one of the more legendary professors at my school and rightly so; her work is hugely important to modern literature, and besides that, it's always beautiful. I like her cultivation of many different voices within one novel. Her characters all have their own unique voices and perspectives on event, usually in history, and yet they are all distinctly Morrison-ian as well.

After the jump: more thoughts on the reading.