Writer Unboxed

Here’s a question for you: Who’s the superior writer, Jane Austen or Ernest Hemingway? If you answered Jane Austen then you probably write more emotionally, embracing exposition and characters’ interior lives. If you answered Ernest Hemingway then you may believe that emotions on the page are cheap, gooey and artless. For you, showing rather than [...]

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In these posts I usually try to provide straightforward, common-sense advice, the kind of guidelines and principles that could be applied by writers at any stage of their careers. This month, let’s do something a little different. Instead of a how-to, I’d like to present a how-in-the-world? — a type of knotty problem that can’t [...]

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At some point in your career, you may write something that offends. That’s the nature of the job. But don’t feel that you must choose the safe course for fear of running aground. The beauty of fiction is that we can explore dark themes to our heart’s content — without anyone ever getting hurt for [...]

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Late at night is when the pain is the worst. The aching void. The silence. The knowledge that what once was is now gone. Forever. It’s not like we didn’t know it was going to happen. This was a love affair that we knew would end. We both knew this going in, but I don’t [...]

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Update: Congratulations to Mari Passananti, winner of Christina’s book! Therese here. Today’s guest is the original Writer Mama, Christina Katz, author of three books for writers, including The Writer’s Workout: 366 Tips, Tasks & Techniques, out in print as of this past Tuesday. The Writer’s Workout joins Get Known Before the Book Deal and Writer Mama [...]

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I dislike small spaces. New York elevators, low-ceilinged basements, and tiny rooms full of people make it hard for me to breathe. I don’t know exactly when it began. I was never locked in a red room like Jane Eyre, or closed in a closet. When I was nine years old, my cousin hid in [...]

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Know thyself. That advice was one of three dictums inscribed in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, deservedly so. It’s a prime directive. And what subject is more absorbing than ourselves? Discovering who we are is a primary preoccupation of early adulthood. Life review, the exploration of what our lives have meant, is a critical [...]

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Therese here. Today’s guest is here to offer a crash course in reaching out to others for help with your writing. Writing coach Rochelle Y. Melander is the author of ten books, including her latest, Write-A-Thon: Write Your Book in 26 Days (And Live to Tell About It)–something many of you may be able to [...]

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Therese here. Today’s guest is Krissy Brady, who’s here to introduce us to a book that, to me, sounds like the secret every writer needs to know–Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance by Jonathan Fields. Recently, Krissy talked up the book on the WU Facebook forum, and it made me want to [...]

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Therese here. I’m so happy to present today’s guest to you, Marilyn Brant, who’s here to tell us about her experience in making setting pertinent to character growth. Marilyn’s third novel, A Summer in Europe, was just released this past Tuesday. If you love books that plunge you into place, know that Marilyn is a [...]

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I signed up for NaNoWriMo for the first time this year. It was more of an experiment than anything, though I had two good reasons for wanting to ditch my usual work practices for the month and concentrate on getting as many words down on the page as possible. Firstly, I was presenting a pair [...]

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I wish they taught this skill to students in high school or college. Creative writing students especially need to spend a semester on it, but never do. You’d think publishers would deliver a 101 guide on it for their authors, though I’m not sure the publishers themselves always know anything about it. The skill is [...]

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