After 25 years you’d expect a writer to know what he’s doing. How fiction works—got it. Story mechanics—check. Structure—wrote a book about it. And yet I cannot swear that I know what I’m doing. A story’s purpose, for instance—I suspect that a story’s meaning lies beyond mechanics. There’s something more sophisticated going on, I can [...]
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You’re a fictional character. Your writer—let’s call her a “she”—is doing all she can to hurt you. Trust me, I know it hurts, because I’m a writer just like she is. We make sure it hurts. Your writer is only doing what all good writers do, which is to write you into a dead-end, all [...]
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Would you read a book called The Writer in Love? If no, don’t tell me; I’m too busy working on it, shaping it, trying to fall in love with it. Unlike my previous effort, Story Structure to Die for, this one isn’t instructional, not so straightforward. It’s more like a vortex. I hope. Writer [...]
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Here I am on the Mexican Riviera trying hard to do the wrong thing. As you can see (photo), it’s not easy. For starters, I chose not to take a room in the historic Belmar Hotel. Rumours of boa constrictors in the hallways notwithstanding, they want $50 a night for short term stays, so I [...]
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“Are you sure you’re doing the wrong thing?” Leonard Cohen recalls that long-ago advice from his mentor, the poet, Irving Layton. More recently, on a website dedicated to breaking the unwritten rules we live by, I found this: “Have fun being wrong.” Rick Lewis posts daily practices designed to cut through our B.S. (belief systems). [...]
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What is Art? Somebody’s always asking that question. It ranks up there with “Who am I?” and “What is literature?” in the Top 10 Questions People Delight in Not Knowing the Answers to. So, I was glad last week to see Seth Godin call in E.M. Forster to examine the “Art” question. “To make us [...]
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Are you a writer with a manuscript burning a hole in your patience? I’m going to direct you to a website that’s making waves by bringing competing writers together as allies. Go ahead—skip my inspiring preamble if you’re in a rush and click on over there—go ahead. Inspiring preamble: When I was a high school [...]
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“We feel an unforeseen relief at the end of the tragedy.” ~ Nikos Kazantzakis There’s a compelling scene in Silver Linings Playbook where the bi-polar protagonist (Patrick) feels anything but “relief” while reading the final pages of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. Patrick hurls the book through a (closed) window. At four o’clock in [...]
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Story Structure To Die For is essential reading for anyone who has ever wondered why readers read and why writers
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A phone call out of the blue sends ROXY on a mercy mission to a Greek island. Her estranged grandfather is dying. When her mother refuses
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The Flight of the Patriot
Yadi Sharifirad, Iranian Top Gun, national hero, and poster boy for the military forces of the Islamic Regime, thought his record spoke for itself. But he underestimated Ayatollah Khomeini’s antipathy for American-trained fighter pilots—all but a few were executed. Sharifi’s luck ran out when one fine day ...more
