Innehållsförteckning för February 2018 från Writer's Digest

1 Outside the Margins The latest from bestselling The Nightingale author Kristin Hannah (WD Interview, Page 44) transports readers to remote 1970s Alaska. In these outtakes, Hannah discusses the real-life influences that inspired The Great Alone, and preaches the power of a tight-knit writing circle. 2 For the Love of Writing With the hashtag #WhyWeWrite, we asked you to share the motivations behind your wondrous words. From hundreds of heartfelt responses, we sprinkled some throughout this issue (Pages 25, 33, 35)—but saved even more to share online! 3 Love Letters After learning how to spark romance in a story without ever writing the “L” word (“More Than Words,” Page 34), see how the masters make it seem natural in these five examples from classic favorites and modern bestsellers. To find…

JANE K. CLELAND (“Whisper Sweet Somethings,” Page 26) writes the award-winning, bestselling Josie Prescott Antiques Mystery series, published by Minotaur Books and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Jane’s bestseller about the craft of writing, Mastering Suspense, Structure & Plot, from WD Books, won the Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction. Her forthcoming title Mastering Plot Twists, also from WD Books, releases in 2018. Find her online at janecleland.com. DAVID CORBETT (“I Just Didn’t Fall in Love,” Page 30) is the award-winning author of the writing guide The Art of Character (“A writer’s bible,” says Elizabeth Brundage) and six novels, including The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday (September 2018). His short fiction has been selected twice for “Best American Mystery Stories,” and his nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, Narrative,…

When I got married, my husband said he wanted to go to divinity school and become a minister. Billy had studied the Christian mystics in college, and was dazzled by the romance of a life filled with religious revelations and ecstatic visions. I was dazzled by the romance of becoming a minister’s wife. I’d give teas and write children’s books while our own children roamed through the sunlit orchards of our country parsonage (of course we’d live in a parsonage, and of course it would have sunlit orchards—all my ideas about that sort of life came from fiction). As it turned out, Billy did not go to divinity school or become a minister. Instead, he became a radical. Rather than give sermons, he wanted to build bombs to protest the…

Born and raised in central New Jersey, Kimberly Brower moved to the West Coast to study at California State University–Northridge and, later, Loyola Law School. Brower credits a university professor with encouraging her eventual career as a literary agent. “She really inspired me to find a path that I enjoyed, rather than settling for a [position] just because it would lead to a good job,” Brower says. Brower worked for two years at Rebecca Friedman Literary before starting her own agency in 2016. After living in California for 13 years, she found her way to New York City. “I know a lot of people aren’t lucky [enough to have a profession they love],” she says, “but I genuinely love my job.” Visit Brower online at browerliterary.com or on Twitter @KimberlyBrower.…

Picture a man standing on a grassy knoll near an old Revolutionary War fort. He’s looking up at the battlement imagining what it must’ve been like to crouch at a crenel, scanning the water for British ships, when he sees a woman tottering on the parapet, about to jump. He screams and runs toward the fort, then, realizing that he can’t save her single-handedly, he calls 911. While he waits for the police, he leaps up and down, screaming, “Look! Look! Look!” Groups of tourists stare at him or hurry away, thinking he’s a nut. Now, picture this: A man standing on a grassy knoll near an old Revolutionary War fort is looking up at the battlement imagining what it must have been like to crouch at a crenel, scanning…

Do I love my characters? Do I love my book? More importantly, do I love creating? The creative process is the path from essential elements of story craft to finished piece of art. And passion for that work is the fuel that propels you there. After three decades of writing and being a writing instructor, I believe that craft can be taught. You can pack every bookshelf in your home with guides on understanding plot structure, take courses on forming complex characters, attend seminars on effectively wielding poetic devices—and with each morsel of advice, your skill set will grow. Art is when craft is taken to the next level. We must discuss art and establish a conscious framework from which to move toward it. It boils down to a key…

Being an agent is about finding the path that leads to everyone standing up from the table feeling that their needs were met—and that is achieved through persistence and, quite frankly, panache. Dear FYSA, My 16-year-old daughter aspires to become a professional literary agent. How does one get into the field? Yours, Future Focused Dear Focused, This question has an answer as varied and nuanced as each of our industry’s agents. Some folks get on track as an English major undergrad, some by going to law school. Others start in an entirely different track and then hop trains to a program like the Columbia Publishing Course. There are summer internships, mailroom positions, friends of friends who hear about an open entry-level assistant position. There are also those who think to…

Emotions are the tools you utilize to provide the colors and shapes for every scene and to add depth and meaning to your character’s inner life. When you allow readers to understand, feel and participate in your characters’ feelings through the clear use of emotion in point of view, you create deep reader investment in your story. Demonstrating emotions is also the best way to communicate the impact of plot events without relying on tension-killing narrative summary. In the realm of literature, simply having a character say or think what he’s feeling, or using the narrative voice to tell the reader directly, is not nearly as effective as dramatizing the emotion. Consider these two examples, which convey the same emotional message—fear—but feel markedly different. Which is more engaging? The man’s…

FOR YOUR WEB-FRIENDLY WRITING: Belt Magazine WHAT STANDS OUT & WHY: Heralded by The New York Times, Columbia Journalism Review, Publishers Weekly and others for its dedication to longform pieces that explore ground-level issues in cities across the post-industrial Midwest—from Buffalo to Chicago and more—Belt prides itself on providing stories that matter over click-bait-y round-ups. Their audience is small but growing, and they pay well for digital content. Plus, as a publication funded fully by readers, Belt supports local communities by working only with Midwestern printers. —BG ABOUT: “Belt Magazine is a nonprofit journalism website based in Cleveland, Ohio. Our mission is to both better inform those living inside the region and to provide greater insight to those living in the rest of the country.” FOUNDED: 2013. TRAFFIC:…

ORDINARY HEROES We think of heroes as being forged in the throes of a crisis. But what makes them tick when disaster isn’t imminent? Lt. Col. John Mangan shares how to scratch beyond the valiant veneer. bit.ly/ordinaryheroesWD OPEN ARMS Even in fiction, preventing your personal life from influencing your writing is pretty much impossible. So what’s a writer to do? Author Danielle M. Wong offers a novel notion: Embrace it. bit.ly/embracingimpactWD SCREEN TEST So you sold your book to Hollywood, and subsequently adapted a screenplay. Congrats! The next hurdle: Understanding your role in the movie’s production process. Die Hard 2 and Bad Boys writer Doug Richardson provides an inside look. bit.ly/screentestWD…

POETIC FORM: CURTAL SONNET Funny thing is, I often think I know all the rules (and rule variations) for a certain poetic form, only to learn another poet flipped them in a new direction. Such is the case with the sonnet. There are, of course, several different rhyme schemes for the sonnet—and I’ve even seen nonrhyming versions—but one rule has held them all together: A sonnet always has 14 lines. Right? Enter the curtal sonnet, invented by Gerard Manley Hopkins in the 19th century. The poem consists of 10 lines written in iambic pentameter and a final, 11th line consisting of a single spondee (or foot consisting of two long or stressed syllables) with the following end rhymes for each line: abcabcdbcdc. Here’s an example by a Poetic…

Tomi Adeyemi 1 Children of Blood and Bone (young adult fantasy, March, Henry Holt) “A 17-year-old girl fights to bring magic back to her people in this epic West African allegory for the modern black experience.” WRITES FROM: San Diego. PRE- CHILDREN: In 2011, I decided I wanted to publish a book [and] started the long process of learning how to write, revise and publish. [That] took roughly four years, and after receiving helpful and encouraging rejections on my first serious publishing attempt, I started working on [a new project that became] Children of Blood and Bone. TIME FRAME: I began outlining in May. In June I knocked out the first draft; in July [I finished] a heavily revised second draft and submitted that to Pitch Wars. Then I revised…

There is a quote from Saul Bellow that I return to time and time again, not only for my own benefit but for that of my students: “Writers are readers inspired to emulation.” What I most enjoy about that is the way it manages to pack into a mere six words three instances of the love we have of literature. The first instance of that love is the one between readers and writers—the recognition that writers are nothing more than the latter-day incarnation of the devoted readers we were at a younger age. The hunger for the next book we could get our hands on by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie, Anne Rice or Stephen King, Isaac Asimov or Ursula K. Le Guin or Ray Bradbury, did indeed…

“Is not the most erotic portion of a body where the garment gapes?” French literary critic Roland Barthes poses this question in his 1973 The Pleasure of the Text, and I find myself pondering it frequently—not only to understand the nature of desire, but as a fiction writer who aims to create stories full of suspense and intrigue. Desire manifests itself around hints and signs, those feints and teases that keep us captivated by the mere suggestion of future fulfillment. Indeed, it’s like living in the tension of a riveting story, where suspense is created by an author’s loving flirtations—a game of seduction meant to draw the reader in through a coil of thrills and dodges. In a sense it’s an erotic relationship—the author calculating just how much and when…

1 At breakfast, when John asked me, “One lump or two?” I didn’t know I was picking a camel to ride into the sunset. —Jennifer Taylor 2 Their camels make a careful line, black stitches across the sand, and she wonders how long she has before it pulls apart. —Rosemary Melchior 3 When I let my husband choose our vacation destination this year, I had no idea he was still upset with me for scratching his car. —Charles Trullinger 4 My mother tells me that once, long ago, this place was the sight of a great city called New York. —Katrina Pollitt 5 Dan’s tear dissolved quickly as it became one with the photograph of his wife’s final safari expedition, the last time she had been seen alive. —Paul Blackford…

Get out one of your favorite novels, one that sits on your “keeper” shelf. It can be an all-time favorite or one recently read. It should be a book you can thumb through and find your favorite pages and passages. Now take some time to think about the story. Consider rereading the book and recapturing the feelings it created within you, focusing specifically on the source of those feelings in the story. Come up with an overall impression of the tone of this tale. How did the writing and the characters make you feel? You may remember an impression of intrigue or sexual tension. Perhaps a warm sense of family permeated the pages. The mystery of secrets or the thrill of suspense may have left an impact. If, when you…

1 San Miguel Writers’ Conference and Literary Festival Skip out on the winter chill while honing your craft at this sun-drenched international soirée. WHEN: February 14–18, 2018. WHERE: Hotel Real de Minas, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. PRICE: $575–$795, depending on package. The “Whole Enchilada” option includes two three-hour intensives with the faculty member of your choice. Single-event tickets also available. Agent pitches and individual consultations are an additional fee. See website for details. WHAT MAKES THE CONFERENCE UNIQUE: “SMWC is the largest co-cultural, bilingual gathering in the Americas [that attracts] writers, teachers and other professionals from Mexico, the United States and Canada,” Conference Co-Director Maia Williams says. It’s also among the few literary conferences held at a UNESCO World Heritage site, a designation San Miguel de Allende received in…

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Love Stories When did you first know that you wanted to be a writer? Maybe it was while reading Charlotte’s Web to your daughter before bed, seeing her hang on every word. Or as a kid at summer camp, when a creepy tale you told in the dark made your cabin mates wet their bunks. Perhaps it was in college, when you took a professor’s critique of your flash fiction as a personal challenge, or decades later, on the brink of retirement, when a well-meaning colleague asked what you planned to do with all your free time. Chances are it was a touch of this and a stroke of that—a mosaic of moments provoking a fondness for story craft. That’s how my own memories manifest: I’m 6, stapling scribbled pages…

Novels have long been a powerful vehicle for addressing race relations in America, from Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God to Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. Recent years have given rise to a new generation of talented storytellers documenting the African-American experience, specifically in the realm of young adult fiction, with bestsellers like Angie Thomas’ The Hate U Give and Jason Reynolds’ (with co-writer Brendan Kiely) All American Boys becoming bookshelf staples. And now, author Nic Stone joins their ranks. Stone’s poignant and timely Dear Martin debuted at No. 4 on TheNew York Times bestseller list, also trending at No. 1 on Amazon in the YA literature category. Loosely based on events surrounding the shooting deaths of unarmed black teens, Dear Martin is…

Love interests aren’t restricted to the realm of romance. Most books—regardless of genre—have an attraction somewhere in the pages, be it a subplot or a subtle nod. What readers find attractive can vary widely, from the sensitive type to someone you’d want beside you in a dark alley. Fiction gives us the chance to explore all kinds of romantic leads, but writers often fall into the trap of writing the too-perfect love interest. What’s the harm in that, you may say? Well, plenty. Our job as fiction writers is to make people care about things that never actually happened to people that don’t really exist. It’s a tough metric. Characters need to feel like real people in order for the reader to be invested in them enough to continue turning…

Here’s an exercise: In the Harry Potter books, when did you realize that Ron and Hermione were in love? (If you haven’t read the Potter series, feel free to substitute Emma and Mr. Knightley from Jane Austen’s Emma. If you haven’t read Emma either, you need to start asking yourself some very difficult questions about how you’re going about things.) Most people answer by citing the third or fourth book in the series, when the characters were older and more emotionally complex—but in truth, the signs are there from almost the very beginning, though they’re subtle. Upon first read of Sorcerer’s Stone, Hermione and Ron playing chess together in the common room might not seem like much. But go back and read it a second time with foreknowledge of their…

“You have to believe in this career, you have to believe in yourself, and you have to move with great determination forward. It ‘s always going to be difficult. “ For a great many years before she was a household name, Kristin Hannah’s fiction-writing career was an enviable kind of steady. In search of a more family-friendly pursuit than her law practice, as a young mother she made her first sale (1991’s A Handful of Heaven, now out of print) and kept on selling—roughly a book a year, give or take a few, becoming a staple on the women’s fiction shelves and, eventually, on the bestseller lists. It was a slow, modest burn, the kind of “breakout” success that is built over time and fed with ever-better writing, increasingly complex…

TO ENTER: Send your story via the online submission form at writersdigest.com/your-story-competition or via email to yourstorycontest@fwmedia.com (entries must be pasted directly into the body of the email; attachments will not be opened). NOTE: WD editors will select the top 12 entries and post them on our website (writersdigest.com/your-story-competition). Join us online in early March, when readers will vote for their favorites to help rank the top 10 winners! The winners will be published in a future issue of Writer’s Digest . DON’T FORGET: Your name and mailing address. One entry per person. DEADLINE: February 19, 2018.…

Great storytellers make emotions as compelling as anything else on the page. They make the emotional life of characters the focus rather than a sideshow. They make familiar emotions fresh and small feelings large. They immerse us in the emotional worlds of characters without indulging in darkness or sickening us in the sun. They stir the high human emotions that make stories memorable. How can you, too, accomplish this? Start by understanding emotional scale. ALL THE FEELS What was the most emotional day of your life? The majority of people are likely to answer with a day that involved birth, death, betrayal, trauma, marriage, divorce, miscarriage, failure, second chance, recovery, a dream achieved, a confession of love, a helping hand. But those are events. Let’s look at the emotions these…

CONFERENCE GUIDE FEBRUARY 2018 • Keep in mind that there may be more than one workshop in each listing. • These workshops are listed alphabetically by state, country or continent. • Unless otherwise indicated, rates include tuition (T) only. Sometimes the rates also include airfare (AF), some or all meals (M), accommodations (AC), ground transportation (GT), materials (MT) or fees (F). • When you find workshops that interest you, be sure to call, email or check the website of the instructor or organization for additional information. • All listings are paid advertisements. CALIFORNIA GENRE-LA™ CREATIVE WRITING CONFERENCE, February 23–25, 2018, Los Angeles, CA. The Conference for Literary and Screenwriters of Genre. Take your writing to the next level by learning the secrets of success from published masters, literary agents, editors,…

CUSTOM CLASSICS What would famous passages from literature look like with a little line editing? First, fill in the blanks below with the most creative words you can think of. Then transfer each part of speech to its corresponding numbered blank in the passage on the right. 1. noun ________________________ 2. noun ________________________ 3. adjective ____________________ 4. verb (ending in –ing) __________ 5. adjective ____________________ 6. noun (place) _________________ 7. plural noun (clothing item) _____________________________ 8. plural noun __________________ 9. noun (shape) _________________ 10. proper noun (famous historical event) _______________________ STORY STARTERS It’s the year 2967, and you are the delegate from the United Nations to the Intergalactic Committee for Planetary Relations. Your mission is to persuade the delegates from the other developed planets on the Committee to adopt a…