Creating Memorable & Believable Characters

“Fiction is the truth inside the lie.” ~ Stephen King This week I did an interesting and useful assignment for my fiction writing course. You take a character from your story idea, and use the following formula: if a character was a car, she/he would be_______. Then substitute “car” with “food,” “drink,” “movie,” etc. After [...]

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Laundry Day, Meeshka’s POV

Humans are curious creatures. It beats me how they walk on two legs without falling on their noses. And because they have no luxurious fur coats like us dogs, they have to wear extra skins to keep them warm. Every night, Mama and Papa shed their extra skins and put them in a big brown [...]

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Fiction Writing: A Quest for the Perfect Toy

I’ve been so busy with “stuff,” I almost forgot to post about the beginning of a new course that I am enrolled in. It’s Fiction Writing through Gotham Writing Workshop, led by the same instructor as my previous Creative Writing 101, Chip Livingston. It’s week two, in which we learn about CHARACTER. This week’s assignment [...]

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Creative Writing 101: Lessons Learned

My GWW creative writing 101 is on the home stretch and will soon approach the finish line. I’ve submitted my last assignment for peer feedback — not without heart palpitations and butterflies launching attacks on my stomach. A couple of good comments from my classmates assuaged my anxiety, but I wasn’t as lucky as some [...]

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How legends are born

She floated in darkness, tranquil, like an autumn leaf on a puddle, when, from an ocean of nothingness, a tiny speck of light the size of an ant’s eye blinked shyly and lodged at the base of her soul. As she focused on the light, it began to swirl and shimmer, vibrating and expanding, until [...]

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“Talent can be taught.” An interview with Chip Livingston, poet, writer, teacher.

Chip Livingston  is the author of the poetry collection Museum of False Starts. His fiction and non-fiction are also widely published, in journals including Ploughshares, Cincinnati Review, Potomac Review, Court Green, Subtropics, and Crazyhorse. He holds a BS in Journalism and a BA in English from the University of Florida, an MA in Fiction Writing from [...]

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Casper (a short story)

I wrote this short story for my creative writing class. The rule was to use an opening line suggested by the instructor. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. ——————————————————————————————— Chris began to question the wisdom of this trip. First, nothing went to plan. Second, his plane crashed. It all [...]

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How to Kill a Story

Have you ever killed a story? A story that you are trying to tell. I bet you are thinking, why on earth would I want to kill my story? Really, WHY? Yet, many people do that every day. They write their stories (articles, news releases, novels, reports, essays, blog posts etc.) and kill them on [...]

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Be Weird or Miss the Boat?

In his recent newsletter, Jeff Goins, writer and blogger, whose blog I follow, had a statement that made me pause. “Nobody wants normal anymore. We all want weird,” he said. The Internet is a noisy place; if you whisper, no one will listen; if you follow the norm, you’ll miss the boat. Assuming I was [...]

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Inspiration Unlimited, or the Magic of Writing Morning Pages

“… the first step toward being a writer is to hitch your unconscious mind to your writing arm.” Dorothea Brande First, please allow me to explain what morning pages are. In a nutshell, it’s a form of premeditated self-torture — of a sophisticated kind, mind you — for refined individuals like you and me. That [...]

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