I want to say a few more words about the senses in literature. So much can be accomplished through visceral detail. Consider the first paragraph of Anton Chekhov’s “The Beauties”: I remember, when I was a high-school boy in the…
On Method by David Massey
I read a statement by an author recently that if one does not follow a regular regimen of daily composition, one is not a serious writer. This was a fairly vain statement, it seemed to me, because it relegates the…
On Style by David Massey
Katherine Anne Porter said as true a thing as there is to say about style: “You do not create a style. You work, and develop yourself; your style is an emanation from your own being.” When I began writing seriously,…
Leaning on the Senses by David Massey
The senses are all we have. Without them we would be only a blob of protoplasm without even a sense of touch, and therefore with no ability to survive. Fiction is much the same. The fiction writer who best deploys…
Turning My Screenplay into the Novel “Creature Storms” by Ron Clinton Smith
Movies are based on novels usually, but why shouldn’t it be the other way around? As an actor/writer I’d poured over other people’s scripts for years. I’d written stories and unfinished novels, and knew it was time to write this screenplay I’d been…
Choose a Strategy or Make It Up by David Massey
I want to say a few words about point of view and narrative strategy in fiction, starting with Henry James, from whom I learned so much when I first began trying to teach myself a little about the art of…
Seats at the Table by A’rikka Dion
I remember the day that I decided I wanted to be a writer. I was ten and, although I had long been labeled as “the girl with the books,” it had never occurred to me that I could create my…
The First Draft is for You (Dummy) by Nikki Macahon
I have no shame with sharing the first draft of anything I write, and that’s a problem, because sharing too early destroyed the first draft of my most recent novel. Context: A couple of months ago I finished out my…
Suspension of Disbelief by David Massey
Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote of “the willing suspension of disbelief” as being necessary to the enjoyment of a dramatic or literary work. The auditor or reader, he said, has to suspend disbelief if he is to enter the world of…
Sound and Sense by David Massey
I am an autodidact, which means I probably know next to nothing about my chosen craft. I do, however, have a few things to share. I came late to an earnest reckoning with the art of fiction but have made…
Silencing Your Internal Editor by Wendi Dass
The internal editor is an issue for every writer. Either it doesn’t speak enough or it never shuts up. For most, it’s the latter, and this has been the case for me. I call my internal editor Helga, the name…
A Conversation with R.K. Gold
An interview by Alicia Cole. R.K. Gold is the author of Just Under the Sky, Brinwood, and Lost in the Clouds. He received his BA in English from University of Maryland and his MS in Economics from the University at…