Books

“Origin” by JA Konrath: A Devil of a Technothriller

I’ve enjoyed JA Konrath’s writing for a while. I read his blog whenever it updates, and I even downloaded his non-fiction ebook of collected essays on writing, The Newbie’s Guide to Publishing, for my Kindle and read a few entries a day. One particular entry grabbed my attention more than others. In it, Konrath talked [...]

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3 Short Reviews for 3 Short Stories

I love short stories. They’re hard to write, but when done well, their effect can be far more powerful than a longer form. It takes a lot of careful wording and plotting to be able to make a short story, and since the second half of my summer’s goal has been to write a few [...]

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Writing My Novel: 7 Ways Reading Makes Better Writing

The first day of a composition class, I ask my students a simple question: “Who in here likes to read?” I consider the inquiry a success if I have two people raise their hands. Most of the time all I get are a few sneers, blank stares, and no hands in the air. I ask [...]

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Writing My Novel: Kill Kill Kill

One of the major philosophies of fiction writing is called “kill your darlings.” In it, anything is fair game when it comes to editing. No matter how much the writer loves a sentence or word or scene or even character, if it does not advance the plot in a tangible way, it must be cut. [...]

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What Makes Great Literature?

Recently, the idea of why one reads has been a discussion in our household. And it turns out that my wife and I read for entirely different reasons. We look for something completely different in literature, and because of that, I don’t think either of us really gets the whole experience. She reads for the [...]

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Writing My Novel: Keep On Writing

When I finished my novel’s first draft, I knew two things could happen: I could take a break and revel in the success of finally writing a book while I enjoy the summertime a little. I could jump immediately back into writing, using what I learned while writing my novel to produce some quality stories [...]

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On Reading Twilight and Harry Potter

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter moved me to rush home and re-read the whole series from the beginning. I also figured that since Eclipse was releasing to theaters soon after my return, I would trudge through the final three installments of Twilight and have a wonderful time writing a series of blog posts analyzing [...]

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Writing My Novel: When Outlines Fail

When I first started seriously working on my novel, I said that “I definitely want to outline.” I knew that going into writing something as complex as a novel without a plan would lead to failure. So I sat down and thought about what I wanted to happen in my novel. I broke it down [...]

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