One fascinating thing about both observing people and creating characters is the wide variety of ways that they can look at the world. Some people are realists, some pessimists, some hopelessly...

5***** Stars Urbex Hotel, originally uploaded by Batram. This urban, burnt-out setting is certainly evocative; there are a lot stories that could have taken place in this photograph. What do YOU...

Do you operate in a social community that's filled with writers like yourself? Sometimes I envy the kinds of people who are surrounded by literary friends, and sometimes I'm very glad that I've...

As I mentioned before, I'm hard at work on a very long short story that will hopefully include many elements combined of past stories. I want this story to have a strong backbone and a rich level of depth, so I'm doing a little more work than I usua...

Reading a classic short story can be immensely helpful for cultivating tone, mood, and syntax. On top of these details, though, I find that my sense of a story's structure has come less from trial and error and more from noticing the structure of...