Storytellersunplugged

One of the sad truths of writing is that one cannot simply write.That's the high school lit class fantasy, of course – someday you'llwrite the Great American Telepathic Talking Horse Novel which willsell millions, make you rich and famous. This novel will, of course,be so well written that editors will be magically drawn by itsgoodness to your house, and will beat each other senseless with largebags of money in order to obtain for themselves the privilege ofpublishing it. Fame and fortune will ... Read More

by Janet BerlinerAs writers, shouldn't we want everyone to read?A whole lot of years ago, I got into a bunch of trouble giving schoolbooks to the son of a woman of color in South Africa. Not satisfied, I gave schoolbooks to a girl of thirteen who was working as a nanny for people I knew instead of going to school. When my oldest daughter was almost five and I was pregnant with my second, I helped set up and run an Outreach ... Read More

THE FILTH AND THE FURY“Why do you write such filth? Nobody wants to read that.” So said my mother after reading the opening chapters of my first novel, The Unwelcome Child. Initially I was perplexed. What filth? I hadn’t realized I’d written any. Okay, there’s some cursing. But some of my best curse words I learned from my mother. My very first was bullshit — which my mother pronounced as ‘bowl shit.’ I never ... Read More

– Jeffrey ThomasI have respect for Elmore Leonard. Let me say that first. But man...I don’t have much respect for rules. (See Joe Nassise’s essay of February 15, dealing with Leonard’s ten rules of writing.)The first rule of Write Club is: there are no rules.How dismal the reading experience would be, if every voice were the same. Imagine every song sung by the same singer – even if it were a great singer. Every character played by the same actor. Even a ... Read More

My apologies to Mr. Joseph Nassise, my fellow Storytellers, and to the regular Storytellers Unplugged readers, for failing to provide last month’s essay. This time of year is always crazy for me at work, but I can’t blame it all on work. This time of year also depresses me, and sometimes the will to write is as slim as my time to do it. It’s the cold mostly, but the shortened days and the extra dark take a toll on my mood ... Read More

by Richard Steinberg“We exponents of horror do much better than those Method actors. We make the unbelievable believable. More often than not, they make the believable unbelievable,” Vincent PriceWe live in a too real world where ten-year-olds put babies in microwave ovens, where teenagers discover an injured man in a vacant lot and do nothing . . . except stop by from time to time to watch him die and decompose; where adults sexually abuse everything from children to livestock, and then ... Read More

By Jeff MariotteI can’t remember which writer it was who said (or wrote) “I write the books I’d like to read, if only someone else would write them” (paraphrasing here; since I can’t remember who it was, I certainly can’t remember the exact words. But that was the meat of it).It’s a good approach, though, whoever said it. Or as Rick Nelson put it in song, “You can’t please everyone, so you gotta please yourself.”Another bit of writerly wisdom (albeit less sound) ... Read More

by Justine MuskJust back from the Southern California Writer’s Conference, where I led workshops and said things like, “You need to take us inside the physical experience of transforming into a giant puddle of metallic goo.” After listening to people read and discuss, and chiming in thoughts of my own while wearing what I hope was an expression of serene wisdom, I heard certain points made more than once. For example:Live inside the fictional moment, don’t stand outside and apart from ... Read More

By Weston Ochse I was thinking the other day about my friends. Not those people I went to high school with, or old army buddies, but the friends I've made in the writing profession. It's amazing really how close you can get to someone without spending any real time with them, and on some occasions, never having met them at all. I started writing in the mid-90s. Very soon I fell ... Read More

I’d wager to say that developing a high concept premise is something all writers struggle with from time to time. Let’s face it—it’s not easy to boil down a four hundred page novel to twenty-five words or less. As difficult as it is, however, there’s nothing more valuable than having those precious few words readily available when someone asks, “What’s your book about?”If done well, your premise can very well prompt an agent or editor to ask for your complete manuscript or ... Read More