Category: Articles and Essays
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Have Character, But No Story?
Stories come to us in many ways. Some of us receive them in images, others in certain ideal we desire to see played out. Some of us get the plot. And the some of us get taken by a character that won’t let us go. They fill our thoughts and days. We listen to them…
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Dialogue: More than Conversing
Dialogue has to show not only something about the speaker that is its own revelation, but also maybe something about the speaker that he doesn’t know but the other character does know. –Eudora Welty Good dialogue accomplishes 4 things in fiction: reveals and develops character delivers backstory drives Plot directs pace But there are more…
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Why Reading is Important
I’ve received several comments on my blogs concerning Dan Brown. They were all positive, the readers saying they had added Angels and Demons to their reading list. I wrote to one person in response to their comment that: I find that reading a work that displays the element of craft I am trying to incorporate…
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Editing: How Important is It?
Very. And yet this is a place where writers from all genres agree to disagree, as was the case today on AAMBC Radio where the topic was, “How Important is Editing?” I encourage all writers and novices of the craft to listen to or download the broadcast. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/AAMBC/2009/05/02/Panel-Discussion-How-important-is-Editing It would seem that quality editing is…
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The Need to Keep Things the Same: Monica Ali and “In The Kitchen”
…Ali has taken the action out of the home and into the high-octane kitchen of the executive chef Gabriel Lightfoot, whose restaurant at the Imperial Hotel gives her a wider, more public space in which to continue her exploration of the modern immigrant experience. In changing her setting, she almost manages to change her tone,…
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The Need to Keep Things the Same: Monica Ali and “In The Kitchen”
…Ali has taken the action out of the home and into the high-octane kitchen of the executive chef Gabriel Lightfoot, whose restaurant at the Imperial Hotel gives her a wider, more public space in which to continue her exploration of the modern immigrant experience. In changing her setting, she almost manages to change her tone,…