Innehållsförteckning för May 2023 från The Writer

A QUOTE WITHIN A QUOTE FROM Anne Lamott’s go-to classic, Bird by Bird: “E.L. Doctorow said once said that ‘Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard.” Years ago, I literally stumbled through this advice along the western edge of Vancouver Island in British Columbia. I was on assignment, profiling a bush pilot who — among an assortment…

Abby Murray is the editor of Collateral magazine, a publication that aims to highlight the voices of those affected by conflict. She was the poet laureate of Tacoma, Washington, and teaches a course called “Argumentation in Military and Academic Writing.” She’s a lecturer at the University of Washington’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, and her students come to her on fellowship from the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Murray, who’s married to a service member, started Collateral in 2015 as part of a class she was teaching at the University of Washington Tacoma. “I was very interested in the literature that surrounds the combat story, the combat narrative. There are a lot of publications and presses that focus on the battle story. They’re very strong. But there…

What are the ingredients of good fiction? Among them are surely compelling characters, a spirited prose style, and riveting scenes. Scenes bring your reader in close. Good scenes enable your reader to experience firsthand your characters and their world. Dull, dry-as-dust scenes will surely dim down your fiction and kill reader interest. But how do you avoid flat scenes? What fictional elements should you rely on? Should you go for short scenes or long ones? Should your scenes end with a bang? We asked six well-published writers, both short story writers and novelists, for their take on these questions. Handling the elements Before we get into the makeup of a good scene, let’s first think about the various goals you as a fiction writer might have for a scene. Must…

THE WAY WE CONSUME MEDIA IS changing, and because the publishing industry is evolving with it, audiobooks are new territory for some authors. According to a survey from the Audio Publishers Association (APA), audiobook revenue hit $1.6 billion in 2021, the 10th straight year of double-digit growth for the medium. While the number of audiobooks published continues to rise, so has the amount of time listeners spend with audiobooks. The pandemic has certainly played a role in how we consume media — and how much we consume. Other elements driving this growth include a rise in subscriptions to services offering audiobooks and concerns surrounding screen time and its effect on mental health (studies note detriments to physical and developmental health, too). As a self-published or indie author, you may not…

Matthew Komatsu and I could not be in more different places. While I shiver in the 60-something-​degrees of my Southern California office, Komatsu has just come in from cross-country skiing in the Alaska cold, and during our Zoom call I can see the pillowy whiteness of the landscape out of the window behind him. Likewise, his work experience is diametrically different from mine: I might joke about being “in the trenches” of publishing, but Komatsu, as a member of the National Guard and a veteran of what’s called the “Forever War,” has really been there. Komatsu has written about his military experience for publications like the New York Times and GQ, but he’s also written about his identity as a Japanese American for Longreads and, most recently, for Flyfusion, a…

About a year ago, I found myself longing to learn how to write plays. My MFA is in fiction, and I have published a short story collection and a memoir and have a novel forthcoming. So why this sudden call to learn how to write plays? Part of it is my natural curiosity about all things to do with the written word, but I think my interest in theater was a direct outcome of the seclusion brought on by the pandemic. I wasn’t exactly lonely during isolation. My husband and I were both working from home, and I had a neighbor who brought over her own porch cocktails in the evenings, but I missed being around other artists, a feeling that intensified as time wore on. I read a lot…

Some rules are made to be broken, but in the world of writing contests, that’s not the case. Here are common elements to double check before you submit your work. You don’t want to be disqualified for a clerical error. 1 Blind submissions are called such for a reason. If the contest you enter is one of them, make sure your name and other vital details don’t appear anywhere in the submission file. This includes: cover page, title line, and header/footer. Online submission managers have their own ways of identifying you — trust that they will work. 2 Be sure your submission is within the specified word count. Judges may be willing to let 10 or 20 extra words slide, but if you’re more than that, definitely make cuts. 3…

Charlie Gilkey is a veteran of the United States Army and the founder of Productive Flourishing, Inc., a website, community, and app that helps “creators, business owners, and leaders figure out how to finish their most important projects.” The company also produces planners and provides one-on-one coaching. Gilkey is the author of two books in the business genre, Start Finishing and The Small Business Life Cycle. His third, Team Habits, will be published in August 2023. We sat down to talk about everything from his process to marketing to platform. The Writer: What made you decide to start this company? Charlie Gilkey: Circa 2006, 2007, I was simultaneously pursuing my Ph.D. in philosophy, and I was an Army Joint Force military logistics coordinator. I had recently come back from Operation…

“Envy is the writer’s disease.” When I first started attending science fiction/fantasy/horror conventions in my late 20s, I’d occasionally hear old pros give the above warning whenever they spoke about the challenges of the writing life. I thought I understood what they meant back then, but now, 30 years later, I know exactly what they meant because I’ve contracted the writer’s disease more than once. Hell, I probably have a chronic case of it, and I’m willing to bet most writers do. Before the advent of social media, I rarely experienced writing envy. It usually happened when one of my writer friends made a sale to a market I’d been trying to crack for years without success, etc. But when social media appeared, it seemed like every damn writer on…

Whether a writer is a seasoned pro, totally new to writing, or somewhere in between, finding the time to write is always an issue. Some writers give up entirely on their dream and desire to write because even the idea of trying to find the time feels impossible and crushes them. When I first started writing, I worked two jobs, went to school on top of having a lively social life, and had no car, which meant commuting took two to three hours a day. Essentially, I had the exact opposite of time; I had negative time. I was often overbooked, exhausted, and demoralized when it came to writing because all the writers I knew had the privilege of time, encouragement, and space. It took me years to finally come…

The following contests are a sampling of what the industry has to offer. You’ll find even more listings at writermag.com, including more of our own contests. Contests Information in this section is provided to The Writer by the individual markets and events; for more information, contact those entities directly. F = Fiction N = Nonfiction P = Poetry C = Children’s Y = Young adult O = Other F THE WRITER SHORT STORY CONTEST Regularly hosted by The Writer magazine. Max 2,000 words. Submit via online portal only. Deadline: June 27. Entry fee: $25 for first entry, $15 for every additional entry on the same transaction. Prizes: First place receives $1,000 and publication in The Writer magazine. Second place receives $500 and publication on The Writer website. Third place receives…

You should not disclose anything about yourself unless you want to…That decision lies squarely with how you feel. Dear Gigi, What advice do you have for a writer who has trouble sticking with one idea? I keep bouncing around and switching up my idea for a novel. —PING-PONG Dear Ping-Pong, This is 100% normal. Do not fret. What it is telling you is that you’re not interested enough in the idea you originally came up with to follow through. Sometimes writers go through entire first drafts before they decide their original idea isn’t something they want to stick with, and that’s OK. Keep calm. Bounce on. —Gigi Dear Gigi, I’ve just read your January feature on authors with chronic conditions. Thank you for that. I am a writer living with…