Congratulations to Mary Bess Dunn! When Mary Bess Dunn first submitted her work to our Review Board in 2009, we were immediately blown away by her unique and arresting prose. We couldn’t help but read her work aloud to each other in the office, captivated as we were by her relatable characters, tangible settings, and engaging plotlines. In the… Continue Reading
Rejoice, writers! National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is almost upon us. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this, NaNoWriMo is a one-month writing event in which people write—and accurately log—fifty-thousand words for the sake of writing a novel. For such a grueling-but-rewarding journey, participants need to train their minds and bodies to survive… Continue Reading
One of the most important skills you can have as a writer is the ability to detach yourself from your work and diagnose its weaknesses objectively—as if you were a doctor examining a patient. We all get married to a word, a turn of a phrase, a paragraph that is stylistically glorious. But what may… Continue Reading
No matter how interesting or innovative your writing might be, a story without three-dimensional characters can quickly fall flat. There are many techniques you can use to add that extra spark to your characters and give them unique qualities that will set them apart from the rest. Try these five methods for creating three-dimensional characters: 1. Allow… Continue Reading
What is it about characters from literature who are awful, miserable, hideous people? What makes them so awesome? The answer is: Brilliant writing. (That and the fact that they’re fictional, as opposed to being the people who live next door!) Writers who ask readers to pal around with hideous characters—especially when said characters are MAIN… Continue Reading
