When you believe you alone possess the truth, locked securely away from the great unwashed, everyone who isn’t a supplicant is a thief trying to con the key from you.
Category Archives: Rules
“You Make a Mean Salad”
The Importance of Complicating Characters The summer after he and I graduated high school, my friend (for the sake of anonymity, let’s call him Ed, even though his real name is Joe), had perhaps his first truly adult date with his girlfriend (get your mind out of the gutter; I don’t mean it that way).Continue reading ““You Make a Mean Salad””
Words, Words, Words
I’m a sucker for words of all shapes, sizes, and especially, sounds. But its chief function is communication… if you have an arcane word that is the absolute mot juste, have at.
But [a word like] stochastic? Its only pragmatic functions to show off. It’s sure as hell not trying to communicate, is it?
Killing Your Darlings. In Your Writing, I Mean. Not In Some Jim-Jonesian Way.
Hemingway said you should write your story, and then take all of the “best” lines out. Would we like F. Scott Fitzgerald, or Toni Morrison, or James Baldwin half as much if they took our their best lines?
Who Wants Hear Me Pontificate About Monologues?*
OF COURSE YOU DO, FRANKLY, WHO COULD RESIST SUCH A GREAT TEASER? The good news: this will be a short post. The bad news: I’ll be acting as if I know something. And I think it’s only fair to reming everyone of the late, great William Goldman wrote, “Nobody knows anything.” So, that said, letContinue reading “Who Wants Hear Me Pontificate About Monologues?*”
Author Interview: Amy Long
one of the really freeing things about nonfiction for me is that I can say “I don’t know. I don’t remember.” I love that. I value honesty a lot, which is I think what allows me to bypass that “I don’t want people to know this” filter, so the ability to admit that I’m not sure if X happened in Y way or Z way is really more about honesty than my stoner memory.
My 10 Iron-Clad Rules For Writing
There is no magical formula.