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...

I'm happy to see a flood of comments and activity around the Corner these days! Thanks to a little help from Yahoo and other sources, a bunch of folks are seeing Creative Writing Corner for the first time. I welcome comments and I'm pledging to do a...

It's time for your regular tour through the archives. Take a look at a few posts from roughly one year ago: Editing Triumph Is Plot or Character More Important? What's Your Inspiration? 5 Ways to Get Inspired Push Your Reader, But...

In class last week, my professor was discussing the work of a few contemporary writers such as Zadie Smith and David Foster Wallace, and explaining how some critics have accused them of overdoing realism. You may wonder if that's possible. If you...

Lit Drift is a new site that's dedicated to fiction writing in all of its modern manifestations. The site has a very cool vibe and I urge to check it out. Here's a note from the founders: Lit Drift is abrand-spanking new blog, resource, and...

Remember those cartoon images of snowballs rolling down hills, getting faster and bigger until they're huge, thundering wrecking balls? That image is a great thing to keep in mind when working on the first draft of your story. First, the snowball...