Innholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2025 i Writer's Digest

“Do you like kids?” Kevin asked her eagerly. “No,” she said. “I like dogs.” Specifically, she liked the big stupid ones, the ones that barked at the wind and got underfoot and bowled you over every time you walked in the door. Norah had three of this particular type of dog—a greyhound–Great Dane cross named Converse, a regular greyhound named Couch, and a mutt who almost certainly had some bull-mastiff in him named Thong. They were all named for the first item they destroyed after coming to live with Norah. Kevin beamed, revealing comically large front teeth. He resembled a marketplace caricature. “I have a Jack Russell called Harvey!” For the love of God. —Darling Girls, Sally Hepworth (domestic suspense) Mia’s teenage son, Gordey, came home from work looking super…

The craft of writing has its own set of commandments. Like, say: Thou shalt show, not tell. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s prose. Thou shalt put thy butt in thy chair and write. And, well, this one, which always struck me as particularly odd among the more obvious proscriptions: Thou shalt never include song lyrics in thy fiction, nonfiction, or poetry in any fashion, lest thou find thouself destined immediately and permanently for the void of literary oblivion and general financial ruin. Years ago, I was an editor at Writer’s Digest. When you’re an editor at WD, you tend to learn in real time from publishing’s foremost pros, shortly before copy editing that knowledge and passing it on to readers. And right from the outset of the gig, one…

In nonfiction as well as fiction, readers want a great story that grabs their attention and propels them from sentence to sentence and page to page. But how do we as nonfiction writers find the topics for articles and essays that will provide a compelling experience for our readers? Just as important, how do we do it in the two scenarios in which we write nonfiction—what I call “writing to spark” and “writing to spec”? WRITING TO SPARK By “writing to spark,” I mean those times when our interest in a topic is sparked by something in our lives: a book we’ve read, a conversation we’ve had, an event we’ve experienced. The first three articles I wrote for WD were “written to spark,” and I identified the topics of those…

Tara Tai Single Player (Sapphic rom-com, January, Alcove Press) “When romance-loving Cat Li and no-nonsense Andi Zhang are forced to work together to add love interests to the video game they’re developing, tensions run high, proving the biggest fights—and best love stories—happen out-of-game.” WRITES FROM: Boston. PRE-PLAYER: What led up to this book: playing an absurd number of video games during the pandemic. I became really interested in the medium in 2021 and how singularly immersive it is and wanted to write a novel about a protagonist who lets that immersion seep into her real life when she tries to apply video game logic to her relationships. TIME FRAME: I wrote Single Player back in 2022 over the course of three months or so. ENTER THE AGENT: My agent is the…

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For me, it started when I picked up Grant Faulkner’s collection of 100-word stories, Fissures. Until that moment, I had no idea that a story could even be told in so few words. I would later learn that Grant had gotten his start after reading Paul Strohm’s wonderful memoir of 100-word nonfiction stories, Sportin’ Jack. After that, I could not quench my thirst for 100-word stories (or drabbles, as they are commonly called). After reading a plethora of 100-word stories and then writing quite a few, I began to ponder if a novel (defined loosely) could be written using 100-word chapters. After scouring the internet for a while, I discovered no one had published a book like this. (In fact, most people were still digesting the concept of a 100-word…

Writers who focus on spiritual themes face the difficult challenge of describing the ethereal and abstract. If not properly grounded, spiritual writing can be confusing or even intimidating to the reader. Thankfully, as embodied beings, we access the spiritual through our bodies and the world around us. Just as we do in real life, when we write, we can use physical experiences as a doorway to the beyond. What follows are ways of utilizing the body and the material world to make spiritual writing more concrete and accessible. USE RITUALS OR SPIRITUAL PRACTICES TO GROUND THE READER Every religious or spiritual tradition has its own set of rituals or practices that utilize the body and the natural world. As writers, we can use the physicality of these practices to ground…

What does it mean to “write the next great story”? You might find the phrase stifling or intimidating, to think of writing a “great” story from the start. It is for me. When I sit down to work on the stories I want to write, I start thinking of the people who will, hopefully, one day read (and judge) them—and then I judge them. Maybe we (read: I) should just focus on writing a story, then work to make it great in subsequent drafts. That’s what was talked about by many instructors at the WD Annual Conference in Cincinnati in October: Get something on the page and then edit, revise, and make it what you want. It’s also what Pat Barker, Booker prize-winning author of the Regeneration trilogy and the…

My book talk in the library should have started 15 minutes earlier. The room’s only occupants were my husband—my loyal book marketing grunt—and me. I was annoyed with the library (and myself, to be honest) for failing to promote the event more widely. Yet I was amused to be in the company of Stephen King and Margaret Atwood, both of whom admit to no-show book events. “Are you sure?” Michael asked. “You really want a picture of you in this empty room?” Yes, I was sure. But would I post the photo? It could backfire. People might assume I was an author not worth hearing whose book was not worth reading. I felt social media’s L-shaped fingers plastered on my forehead. Writers are all too familiar with the sting of…

You are a writer who most likely publishes your work or intends to one day. That makes you part of the writing and reading community. And as part of this community, it’s a good idea to support the people who self-publish books. Why? There are many reasons. All authors need support, and that support comes from different places. Those in traditional publishing have access to many professionals who can help them along, but independent authors have only the support system they put together on their own. Depending on how long they’ve been in the business of self-publishing, that may amount to a handful of relatives, friends, a freelance editor or two, and a few writers they know. How can you expand this support system? As part of the self-publishing world,…

You’ve finished the Next Great Story. Feels good, doesn’t it? But now you have to market it. I hate to tell you, but you may receive more than one rejection from publishing houses. I received rejections from 63 publishers before my book Deep Thoughts found a home. I saved the rejection letters, and recently I went through them, to see if there were things I could learn. I discovered several ways that we can all be better writers. TRY TO FULFILL A PUBLISHER’S NEEDS Several of my rejection letters said my manuscript “didn’t meet (their) needs.” When I read those words, I still kick myself and feel ashamed. Why didn’t I consider the publisher’s needs more carefully? His needs were probably out there, but I didn’t notice. I was too…

If you’re a writer, you’ve had someone tell you their idea for a story. It’s just part of the gig: people thinking that writing fiction is all about the idea, the big twist, the edgy premise. Instead of what writing is really about—the work.1 They never want to do the work, do they? They tell you their mind-blowing, culture-shifting idea and then demand half the royalties2 after you spend the next six years of your life locked in a room writing the damned thing as you slowly transform into a much less wealthy Howard Hughes.3 Sure, sure, you need the idea. At some point, your story has to be about something, after all—but it’s a big mistake to assume that great stories have to be about big ideas, that there…

To demystify the funny personal essay, let’s break it down into its parts: FUNNY comes in many forms, including but never limited to: observational (comedy in daily life), dark (comedy in tragedy), satirical (weaponized comedy via criticism of bad actors and institutions to change minds/the world), surreal (comedy about the 5th dimension), and anecdotal (comedy in your personal life). Funny personal essayists get to/must live the anecdotal life. Sometimes I’ll do something just because it will make a good essay. My niece dated a “Survivor” cast member who was voted off first, and when I met him, I said on accident, “You’ll be a great essay.” PERSONAL. Your experiences, expertise, feelings, opinions, insights, problems, embarrassments; your perspective and your voice—all of this is your superpower. It’s what sets you apart…

As a journalist and the author of two young adult novels, I’m always curious about how writers start in a new genre. The journalist in me follows my curiosities because there’s often a good story to uncover. When two books came across my desk to review, I thought the authors would be perfect to ask about switching genres. First, I spoke with Emiko Jean, whose debut adult thriller The Return of Ellie Black garnered a rave review from the master himself, Stephen King, but who started out in the YA space. I also chatted with TV writer and screenwriter Yulin Kuang, who penned her debut romance novel How to End a Love Story, to understand how a writer can make jumping genres seem seamless. For Jean, the idea for The…

When a story isn’t working—when you know it’s not quite coming together, when beta readers and crit partners confirm your fears but can’t put a finger on why, or you’re not getting offers from agents or publishers—savvy authors start trying to diagnose the issue by examining its component parts, like characterization, plot, and stakes. But often, the problem is both more intrinsic and overarching than any one storytelling element; authors get lost in the trees and can’t quite get a grip on the forest. If you know your story lacks something, the problem may be a missing, vague, or undefined central story question. WHAT A STORY QUESTION IS (AND ISN’T) The simplest way to think of your story question is as the main unknown that readers are reading to find…

Many of the greatest stories (including poetic tales) written in the past 100 years or so were originally shared with the world in publications, whether print or digital. With that in mind, I’ve highlighted a few paying markets that publish stories by writers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Use this list as a starting place to try and publish your own great stories. COLORADO REVIEW  (ColoradoReview.colostate.edu/colorado-review) Colorado Review publishes three issues per year of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Launched in 1956, this magazine pays $300 for short stories and nonfiction; $100 for poetry; and $100 for cover art, which is frequently a photograph. The editors say, “Colorado Review is committed to the publication of contemporary creative writing. We are equally interested in work by both new and established writers. While…

While it may not be the first thing you think about when reading a book, jobs are integral to a character. Kiela is a former librarian who turns to making and selling jam to protect her secrets (The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst). Jack Torrance’s employment at the Overlook Hotel is what sets his family up for tragedy (The Shining by Stephen King). Formerly struggling writer June Hayward dives into the complicated world of being publishing’s darling (Yellowface by R. F. Kuang). The way employment influences your world-building might surprise you, and it’s worth casting a critical eye over your plot to see if anything changes or comes up for you when thinking about the following. TYPES OF JOBS When you’re thinking of the types of jobs that will be…

Note: The setup for this edition of Frontlist/Backlist is a little different than usual. The parts that writers should look to for examples and inspiration in their own writing is similar in both books, so I’ll address them together after the synopses. Frontlist Tartufo by Kira Jane Buxton (Grand Central Publishing, Literary fiction/satire, January 2025) SYNOPSIS: The small, rural (imaginary) Italian village of Lazzarini Boscarino is on the verge of disappearing from the map. Its one beloved restaurant has closed, the town hall has been overrun with mice, and any tourist who gets lost enough to end up in the town is quickly scared away by Al Pacino, the perpetually pregnant and angry cat sitting next to the welcome sign in the piazza, or Giuseppina, whose misguided efforts at attracting…

PAUL GOAT ALLEN has worked in the publishing industry for the last three decades in a variety of positions, including publicist, blogger, editor, and publisher. As a genre fiction book critic, he has written more than 10,000 reviews for companies like Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Chicago Tribune, and BN.com, and interviewed hundreds of authors. He has published stories in a wide variety of categories, from crime fiction to romance to folkloric fantasy. He is also an adjunct instructor and mentor in Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction graduate writing program. ELISSA BASSIST is the editor of the Funny Women column on The Rumpus and author of the tragicomic memoir Hysterical, a semifinalist for The Thurber Prize for American Humor. As a founding contributor to The Rumpus, she’s written cultural and personal criticism…

4 STORYTELLING ELEMENTS TO USE IN YOUR POETRY When I was in college struggling to write any story longer than 20 pages, I turned to poetry to help me structure a novella. I wrote a 39-line sestina (a poetic form that follows a pattern of alternating the same six end words over six sestets and a concluding tercet). Without getting into all the esoteric rules I created for myself, I basically wrote a story broken into 39 sections—each of which concluded with a line from my original sestina. The story wasn’t great, but it helped me break past a page-count barrier. In this case, poetry helped me write a story, but there’s no rule against telling stories in poetry. Many of our earliest known stories were epic poems like the…

Death Violations Trilogy, Sisters of the Wild Sage, Kill Three Birds (Cyberpunk noir, weird westerns, fantasy mysteries; Mocha Memoirs Press) WHY SELF-PUBLISH? I received my first publishing contract in 1998 from an online small press. Before my book reached the editing phase, the company closed. I had already submitted the manuscript to agents and traditional publishers for several years prior. It was then I decided to publish the manuscript. This was at the dawn of e-books and print-on-demand technology. A few places had begun offering software to assist authors with self-publishing. The responsibility of being able to control your art is heavy but rewarding. HAD YOU CONSIDERED TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING? Yes. All three of my Cybil Lewis novels were initially published by Parker Publishing Company. The first two books received a small advance…

Savannah Greenwell, owner and senior agent at Two Daisy Media, says her love of reading blossomed when she picked up her first Nicholas Sparks novel as a freshman in high school. Greenwell graduated from Northern Kentucky University with a degree in criminal justice and a minor in sociology. She self-published her first book in 2013, and in 2018, she founded a literary agency. “I launched Two Daisy Media because, at the time, it was much harder for some self-published authors to find representation,” she says. “There are so many talented authors that go unseen. I wanted to give those authors a voice in the spaces they were having issues getting into.” Many of Greenwell’s clients are independent or self-published authors who are interested in foreign rights, audio rights, and more.…

Have you ever stared at a blank page, the cursor blinking mockingly as your mind scrambles for a fresh idea? You’re not alone. Every writer, no matter how seasoned, grapples with the occasional creative drought. But what if captivating story ideas weren’t a rare gift bestowed upon the chosen few, but a skill waiting to be honed? Welcome to your personal Fiction Factory, where we’ll transform that blank page into a launchpad for unforgettable stories. New York Times-bestselling author and award-winning writing instructor Jonathan Maberry reminds us that “Fiction is crisis.” It’s not about “giving a bunch of happy people a nice day.” Instead, it’s about embracing tension, challenges, and the need for problem-solving. Whether it’s an apocalyptic thriller or the eponymous Poky Little Puppy losing its ball under the…

In the last 30+ years that I’ve worked as a book critic, the publishing industry has experienced some radical changes. The birth of digital publishing and the rise of e-books, the sad demise of independent and chain brick-and-mortar bookstores, and the emergence of audiobooks, have irrevocably restructured the publishing world. But arguably the biggest transformation in writing and publishing fiction over the last few decades is more subtle—and so much more profound. It’s the speed in which narratives progress, both in terms of content and structure. Everything is faster, more streamlined, built for those readers with the attention span of mayflies. Welcome to the brave new world of instant gratification: SMS language, 280-character (or shorter) tweet lengths, and endlessly scrolling through Instagram Reels and TikToks, swiping after mere microseconds if…

Pat Barker is a writer’s writer. Though she’s accumulated numerous accolades over her decades-long career, including a Booker Prize and a Guardian Fiction Prize, and was made a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) for her services to literature, she still concerns herself with things like what it means to write effective dialogue and looking past the bad first draft to see if a story has legs. “The thing about writing is it’s not difficult,” Barker says, now in her early 80s. “The rules of good writing are incredibly simple. It’s just that it takes you 50 years to learn.” This sense of humor about her writing life filled our conversation ranging from her opinion about whether a writer’s unfinished work should be published posthumously (“I do actually have a…

I was always going to be an editorial agent. I’ve known this for as long as I’ve known I’d work in publishing. It was relayed to me that this would entail extra labor: An editorial agent is a literary agent who provides extensive feedback (at no added commission) on their clients’ manuscripts with the goal of giving them a competitive advantage. “You’ll tire of it,” some warned. “You’ll burn out.” These words were uttered with good intentions, and I’m grateful to have heard them. But I’m even more grateful not to have listened. Editorial agents exist for a simple reason: because publishing is an oligopsony, a fancy term for an industry where there are few buyers and many, many sellers. Every year, hundreds of thousands of writers pitch their books,…

Writers are often given the advice to figure out our characters’ motivations and goals. Sound advice, given that these elements drive the characters’ actions—that is, the plot. What does your protagonist want? The answer can be just about anything: • Solve a crime … or get away with one. • Find true love … or escape a damaging relationship in order to get a new lease on life. • Fulfill a quest … or wriggle out of it. • Travel to a distant planet … or stay home. • Get a promotion or coveted job or win a prize … or find a way to exit the rat race. Knowing what your character wants is key to developing a story that your readers will connect with. For example, let’s consider…

Writing and publishing advice for picture books, middle-grade, and young adult storytelling. In sixth grade, I intentionally missed basketball sign-ups. I’d long decided it wasn’t for me, but fear of disappointing my sports-obsessed father prevented me from telling him the truth: I just didn’t love sports the way he did. So instead, I memorized the deadline, left the reminder flier crumbled at the bottom of my backpack, and waited for the day to pass. The night after the deadline, thinking victory was already mine, I pulled the flier out of my bag and performed what I thought to be an Oscar-worthy performance of dismay that I had missed the chance to be on a team. Much to my horror, my father believed me, and with a quick call to the…

Writer’s block has tormented scribes since our ancestors first etched cave messages that oddly resembled the assembly instructions of IKEA furniture. When muses couldn’t help with writer’s block, writers often turned to the holy trinity of chemical inspiration: caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol. Nowadays, there’s an endless assortment of creativity supplements, ranging from Red Bull to Zoloft. If self-medicating doesn’t spark the imagination, writers can hire the contemporary muse—a licensed clinical psychologist. What if the literary titans of the past used modern-day medications or therapies? Here’s a peek at the classics, reimagined. GULLIVER’S TRIPS To treat his childhood traumas, Gulliver is prescribed psilocybin mushrooms and discovers it’s possible to have magical journeys without leaving home. PRIDE AND PROZAC Follows the turbulent relationship between Elizabeth Bennet, the daughter of a country gentleman,…