Innehållsförteckning för July/August 2023 från Writer's Digest

CHUCK WENDIG Chuck Wendig is the New York Times bestselling author of Wanderers, The Book of Accidents, Wayward, and over two dozen other books for adults and young adults. Wendig’s latest writing book, Gentle Writing Advice, is “a book of writing advice that accounts for all of the messy, perverse, practical, and inexplicable parts of being a human who writes.” His next novel, Black River Orchard, is due out this September. JASON MOTT New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jason Mott is the author of three novels: The Returned, The Wonder of All Things, and The Crossing. Jason’s fourth novel, Hell of a Book, was released in the summer of 2021, and received the 2021 National Book Award. He has a BFA in Fiction and an MFA in…

JULIA BARTZ is the New York Times-bestselling author of The Writing Retreat, a practicing therapist, and a creative coach. Her fiction has appeared in South Dakota Review, InDigest Magazine, and more. Julia lives in Brooklyn, NY. Connect with her on social media @JuliaBartz. New York Times-bestselling author LIVIA BLACKBURNE wrote her first novel while researching the neuroscience of reading at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since then, she’s switched to full-time writing, which also involves getting into people’s heads but without the help of a 3 Tesla MRI scanner. Her books include Midnight Thief (an Indies Introduce New Voices selection), Feather and Flame, and Clementine and Danny Save the World (And Each Other), as well as the picture book I Dream of Popo, which received three starred reviews and was…

HOW TO CREATE (AND PLAY WITH) STRUCTURE IN POETRY Poetry is fun and challenging for many reasons. Poems offer metaphors and images. At the same time, they’re working on sound. Most offer a strong primary meaning with space for readers to fill in their own meanings and interpretations. And, on top of all this, is the variety of structures that poems can use. Structures can be rigidly defined if we’re speaking about poetic forms—something I often like to highlight in this column—but structure can be applied in free verse by the simple act of breaking a big block of text into stanzas. Or playing with white space. In fact, I’m going to use one of my own poems that evolved from its original publication in my self-published chapbook ENTER to…

The Anatomy of a Best Seller: 3 Steps to Deconstruct Winning Books and Teach Yourself Craft; 8 Steps to Side Characters: How to Craft Supporting Roles With Intention, Purpose, and Power; A Game of Hearts and Heists (Nonfiction writing craft; sapphic fantasy romance; Atlas Black Publishing) WHY SELF-PUBLISH? I wanted to keep control and maximize the use of my intellectual property. That doesn’t mean I won’t work with traditional publishers. In fact, my nonfiction books were translated into Korean through a publisher. But when you’re an indie, you can choose which rights you sell and which ones you keep. I like the fact I can make these choices based on the publishing route I think would benefit the book best. HAD YOU CONSIDERED TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING? I have a sapphic young…

Cody Caetano was born in Toronto. His mother’s family is from the Manitoba Interlake, and his father’s family emigrated to Canada from the Azores in the 1960s. Caetano remains in Toronto today as a writer and literary agent at CookeMcDermid Literary Management. Caetano’s debut memoir, Half-Bads in White Regalia (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House Canada), was an instant national bestseller, longlisted for Canada Reads 2023, and named one of the best books of the year by The Globe and Mail and CBC Books. Excerpts from the book received the 2020 Indigenous Voices Award for Best Unpublished Prose. Caetano earned an honors bachelor of arts degree in professional writing and communication (with distinction) from the University of Toronto in 2017, and a master of arts degree in English in the field…

Use Big Bang-Cliff Hangs to Create Page-Turners Identifying which of the two broad storytelling structures best suits your story, linear or nonlinear, is a key to storytelling success, but it’s not the only structural decision authors need to make. In addition to choosing the best overall structure for your story, you also need to consider structure at the chapter level. Every chapter offers a new opportunity to hook your readers’ interest. The most effective way to do this is to start with a Big Bang, something that immediately inspires reader curiosity. The incidents that follow the Big Bang should satisfy that curiosity and seamlessly lead to a Cliff Hang, an ending that inspires more curiosity. This Big Bang-Cliff Hang structure keeps your readers turning pages. To work, Big Bangs and…

We’ve all heard it said before: There are two sides to every story. Sometimes writers take this adage quite literally when they decide the novel they’re dreaming up would best be told through two different perspectives. Writing from the vantage point of two narrators, or dual points of view (POVs), can add a richness and complexity to your story that a single point of view may not. Imagine if we only had Nick’s side of the story in Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. Or only Amy’s. Without dual POVs in Alison Cochrun’s The Charm Offensive, we might have only experienced half the humor, half the heat. Of course, writing from two perspectives can also feel like twice the amount of work. In order to successfully pull off this kind of narrative,…

Today’s comic books and stand-alone graphic novels feature much more than just Spandex-clad superheroes pummeling each other. In recent years, there have been numerous titles that have explored their intricate stories more literarily. If you’re new to comics, here are a few titles and series to get you started. 1. Preacher (Vertigo/DC Comics). A preacher with supernatural powers sets out to find God after He abandons Heaven. Written by Garth Ennis, illustrated by Steve Dillon.2. Scalped (Vertigo). Dashiell Bad Horse returns to the Oglala Lakota reservation of his childhood as an undercover FBI agent assigned to take down a corrupt but powerful tribal leader. Written by Jason Aaron, illustrated by R.M. Guéra.3. Y: The Last Man (Vertigo). A plague kills every male mammal on Earth—save for Yorick Brown and his…

Creating structure makes me think one of two things: First, I think of writing structure, whether we’re talking poetry, prose, email messages, or whatever else can be written. Second, I think of actual physical structures—like houses and other buildings. In magazine publishing, these are often referred to as “shelter magazines” (or home-and-garden publications). Many of these shelter magazines thrive on high-impact photography and beautiful homes and buildings. The editors usually wish to have exclusive rights to cover these structures and connect the editorial and photography to a certain lifestyle—whether that’s cutting-edge architecture or a more earthy, country aesthetic. Since shelter magazines are often focused on the home and people live in homes, this is a category that’s been strong for a long time and shows no signs of weakening in…

CALIFORNIA ANNUAL GREATER LOS ANGELES WRITERS CONFERENCE, produced by West Coast Writers Conferences. A hybrid event with virtual workshops July 21–23, and in-person all agent access one-on-one pitch meets July 28–30 at the Embassy Suites LAX South. Writers of all genres and disciplines benefit from this popular educational and inspirational event on the craft and business of writing. Our 35th conference will feature programs for the 3-A’s™ (Aspiring, Active, and Accomplished) writers of fiction, nonfiction, and screenplays. Topics are presented by 40+ literary agents, editors, veteran educators, bestselling authors, and industry professionals in progressive streams of seminars, workshops, and panels. Live critique workshops include Great Beginnings for Novels & Screenplays, Query Letters, and more. Take advantage of one-on-one pitch sessions with literary agents and publishers looking for new talent with polished…

Foreshadowing Less’s latest novel has been living with his publisher for over a month, as any modern couple lives together before a marriage, but surely his publisher will pop the question any day now. There will be champagne; there will be money. —Less, Andrew Sean Greer (humorous/satire fiction) The law might not recognize it, but fifteen’s a girl and sixteen a woman, and you get no map from one land to the next. They air-drop you in, booting a bag of Kissing Potion lip gloss and off-the-shoulder blouses after you. As you’re plummeting, trying to release your parachute and grab for that bag at the same time, they holler out you’re pretty, like they’re giving you some sort of gift, some vital key, but really, it’s meant to distract you…

Most of us have lived with the belief that we lean left brain or right brain in all capacities—from our hobbies to career to the movies we love. You may have been told that this balance of one side versus the other is a natural occurrence. From the genres we write to the authors we love to read, we try to give credit to DNA for our preferences, believing how we were created dictates our leanings when actually that is far from the case. In reality, the brain juggles tasks and multitasks, and there isn’t a clearly defined spot for many tasks we do. For instance, it takes both right and left hemispheres of the brain’s cerebellum to write. Abilities, as well as troubles in performing activities, have more to…

The three-act structure dates back to Aristotle’s Poetics and is the typical structure for much of fiction, particularly in Western culture. While Aristotle’s framework focuses on writing tragic plays and has specific recommendations tied to that form, a contemporary three-act structure is a bit looser and boils down to a simple formula: 3 + 2 = 1. Three acts plus two pivot points (where one act transitions to the next) equals one classic story structure. Furthermore, most contemporary stories include two additional and important plot points. These are the midpoint in Act 2 and the climax in Act 3. Let’s take a closer look at how the three-act structure works. The story begins with Act 1 where you establish the status quo. Imagine this act as being like the “before”…

Shideh Etaat Rana Joon and the One and Only Now (Young adult, July, Atheneum) “When her best friend dies suddenly, Rana enters the rap battle he dreamed of even though she’s terrified of public speaking; to get herself to the stage before her senior year ends, Rana will have to find the courage to speak her truth, all while navigating her grief, her sexuality, and her well-intentioned but dysfunctional immigrant Iranian family.” WRITES FROM: Los Angeles. PRERANA JOON: I had a few short stories and novel excerpts published in various anthologies of Iranian American writers. … Rana Joon was my way of coming back home, to a time and place that felt incredibly familiar and safe. TIME FRAME: Rana Joon all started with a short story I wrote in 2014 after…

The following words and phrases are used to convey specific meanings in this article. • BIG BANG: Jane K. Cleland’s term for an approach to starting a chapter that inspires immediate curiosity. • CLIFF HANG: A shortened version of a “cliffhanger,” which refers to a chapter ending that inspires urgent curiosity. The term, by the way, came from Thomas Hardy’s novel, A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873), which ended with a character literally hanging from a cliff. • THE MIDDLE: The section of your story that satisfies reader curiosity by moving the plot or storyline forward and setting up the next Cliff Hang. • STORY AND PLOT: Story refers to your overarching, thematically based tale. Plot refers to the consecutive series of incidents that, taken together, tell your story. Your story…

Picking the winner of the Writer’s Digest Poetry Awards is always a delight, and this year was no exception. There were more than 800 entries in 2022 covering a range of forms, subjects, issues, and themes—and a full spectrum of emotions. In the end, I selected Purvi Shah’s “Helix of the gift, lineage song” for the first place prize of $1,000, publication in WD, and a 20-minute consultation with yours truly. What spoke to me in the poem was the sense of connection and distance that many of us have felt since 2020—but also pairing that with the connection and distance of family migration, whether it’s migration from one country and culture to another or even from one city to another. Then, add to that the sense of connection and…

GENRES: Fantasy, science fiction, and horror in the adult, young adult (YA), and middle-grade age categories, as well as YA contemporary CLIENTS INCLUDE: Katharine J. Adams, Cassandra Newbould, Aman J. Bedi, Meredith Mooring Ernie Chiara started with Fuse in 2017—as a writer and client. He recalls wanting to learn as much as he could about what was happening behind the scenes with publishers, editors, their likes and dislikes, what books they were acquiring, etc. And the more he absorbed, the more his interest in the agenting side of the business grew. Today, Chiara tries to be the type of agent every writer hopes to find. “And that’s different for everyone,” he says. “But it starts with open communication so we’re working together toward the same goal. I want my clients…

Hang around any gathering of prose writers, and soon you’ll hear the question: “Are you a pantser? Or a plotter?” Pantsers write, per the old bromide, “by the seat of their pants.” Meaning, they plop down in a seat with a glimmer of an idea, staring at a blank computer screen or sheet of paper, and start writing—letting whatever comes out of their imaginations unfold, making up each character and scene as they go along. Plotters, on the other hand, create outlines, synopses, and character descriptions before they start writing the actual project. Visions arise, from grade-school days of yore, of rigid Roman-numerated outlines. But there’s a myth that drives these definitions: pantsing as a creative free-for-all; plotting as a rigid procedure. The myth continues: Pantsers cannot imagine the constrictiveness…

When I sold my debut Midnight Thief in 2012, I thought I’d be writing young adult fantasy forever. After all, I’d grown up reading Tamora Pierce, Lloyd Alexander, and C.S. Lewis. I reveled in magic powers and high-stakes action. As a reader and writer, what more could I ask for? But as I sat down to outline YA fantasy number five, I felt restless. I found it easy to fall into autopilot. Also, while I loved the books I’d written, they were limited to a small portion of my personality. In other aspects of my life, I was the quirky gal. I wrote funny family newsletters and joked around with friends on Facebook. My novels, however, were largely serious—more Lord of the Rings than Zoolander. “I worry I’m writing the…

As I write this, it’s just a matter of weeks before I’ll be heading back to my favorite city, Florence. A quick look at any photo of the skyline illustrates the beauty of the Tuscan capital, crowned by the breathtaking terra cotta duomo of Santa Maria del Fiore. It was built to impress and still does, nearly 600 years later. Filippo Brunelleschi’s design—which solved a century-long architectural problem and features both an internal and external dome formed of herringbone-patterned bricks and eight marble ribs—was built to last, surviving world wars and massive floods. The interconnectedness of the structure famously supports itself and subsequently has withstood the test of time. So, when I think about structure, this issue’s theme, it’s the image of the Duomo that comes to mind. The articles…

The Writing Retreat is my debut novel, but it’s not my first book. There were two earlier novels I wrote, failed to get published, and subsequently “drawered.” When I got the idea to channel my frustrations into a story—about a disgruntled writer invited to a horror author’s retreat—I knew the only way I could write it was if I could figure out how to enjoy the process and avoid any expectations for the book’s outcome. Part of that enjoyment would be in creating the exact book I would want to read: feminist, dark, and extremely suspenseful. To me, there’s no better feeling than being so drawn into a story that you’re desperate to find out what happens. Even though I’d written my first two books without planning, I knew that…

Years ago, when I first began studying plot structures, I came across the Freytag Plot Pyramid, a triangular structure that contained five elements: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement. Suddenly aware of this structure, I began to notice it in various books and films I enjoyed. I even noticed its usage in many of the comedies I watched. The first time I saw the movie Friday, I marveled at how seamlessly I was able to learn the backgrounds of the characters, as well as their motivations, within the first few minutes of the film, each of the elements of Freytag’s Plot Pyramid falling neatly into place. I would later come to understand that these elements are often expected by the audience, so when they are absent, a viewer…

1. “Helix of the gift, lineage song” by Purvi Shah2. “Letter to Myself to be Secreted Away Until” by Suellen Wedmore3. “Palimpsest in Purple & Sun” by Ilari Pass4. “I Married in the Year of Assassinations” by Judith Chibante5. “Our Scars & Souvenirs” by Taylor Feuss6. “I Said I Wouldn’t Talk About God (A Haunted Sestina)” by .chisaraokwu.7. “september session” by Nicole Adabunu8. “an eggshell” by Lorraine Niboro9. “Morning-Feb 24, 2022 A Bop* for Ukraine” by Robin Holland10. “If I grieve at all” by Maryn Boess…

THE CHALLENGE: Write a short story of 650 words or fewer based on the photo prompt below. You can be funny, poignant, witty, etc.; it is, after all, your story. CONTEST #125 125 TO ENTER: Send your story via email to yourstorycontest@aimmedia.com with the subject line “Your Story 125.” Entries must be pasted directly into the body of the email; attachments will not be opened. Include your name and mailing address. Entries without a name or mailing address will be disqualified. NOTE: WD editors select the top five finalists and post them on our website (WritersDigest.com/Your-Story-Competition). Join us in August, when readers will vote for their favorite to help pick the winner! Follow @WritersDigest on Twitter for Your Story updates. The winner will be published in a future issue of…

To distinguish myself from robots, I’ve decided to label my work “all human, all the time.” It will be my hallmark, a stamp of authenticity. Sophisticated AI applications like ChatGPT could negatively impact a large portion of the world’s workforce (although some claim it also creates jobs). We’re already seeing a deluge of online content either fully or partially created by AI, and it will only increase as more people take advantage of this powerful yet user-friendly technology. This makes “real” writing as valuable as gold in 2023. Our unique abilities should be celebrated, and readers deserve to know whether text is AI-generated or not. We’re living in extraordinary times, and disclosure and transparency are vital. We must protect our livelihood, our work, and—more importantly—advertise our worth. So how can…

While these two books may seem light-years apart at a quick glance, they have more in common than it seems. They each follow generations of related women as they learn more about their families and themselves. Each story has a secret (or secrets) that reverberate down through the years with lasting impacts. They’re paired together here as a study in how the same or similar themes can be explored in entirely different ways based on conventions of the intended genre. Frontlist The Vibrant Years by Sonali Dev (Mindy’s Book Studio, Women’s Fiction/Romance, December 2022) SYNOPSIS: The Vibrant Years follows three generations of women in the Desai family: 65-year-old Bindu Desai, the matriarch, moves into a glamorous and active retirement community after a surprise inheritance of $1 million from a former lover…