Writing - The Journal Pulp

Posts from the ‘Writing’ Category

Five Reasons I’ll Keep Reading Your Story
April 25th, 2013 | Writing | journalpulp | 3 Comments
There are many reasons — many more than five — that I’ll keep reading your story. But there are also at least as many reasons I won’t. (For example: He had nothing in the way of a like God-concept, and at that point maybe even less than nothing in terms of interest in the whole [...]
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Do Not Start A Story With The Protagonist Waking Up
September 6th, 2012 | Writing | journalpulp | 2 Comments
“Do not start a story with the protagonist waking up,” says Joe Konrath. But with him here — as with so many other things — I must demur. Konrath’s peevish list of proscriptions came to my attention recently via Radical Roz Morris, who wrote about another preposterous notion Mr. Konrath (along with many others) has: [...]
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Writing Advice From Margaret Atwood and Vladimir Nabokov
June 27th, 2012 | Writing | journalpulp | 2 Comments
Margaret Atwood: Hold the reader’s attention. (This is likely to work better if you can hold your own.) But you don’t know who the reader is, so it’s like shooting fish with a slingshot in the dark. What fascinates A will bore the pants off B. Writing is work. It’s also gambling. You don’t get [...]
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Eavesdropping
March 1st, 2012 | Writing Games | journalpulp | 5 Comments
There’s a game that certain writers like to play — and in answer to your next question, it’s not called Hide-The-Salami (although that one is popular with certain writers as well, myself perhaps foremost among them), but “Eavesdropping.” Here’s how you play: Sit in a public place. Sit near people who look interesting. Have something [...]
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The Natural-Born Writer
January 6th, 2012 | Writing Talent | journalpulp | 3 Comments
There’s a dirty little secret about writing talent that I’d like to let you in on: it doesn’t exist. As a matter of fact, there’s no such thing as innate writing talent, and the most important trait a writer can possess is just the opposite of natural-born: it is a trait that must be willed. [...]
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Can One Learn To Write?
October 27th, 2011 | Writing | journalpulp | 3 Comments
There is among writers predominantly, though not exclusively, a rather absurd notion that you’re either a writer or you’re not, and that if you’re not, you’ll never be able to learn how. The notion is not only false: it’s dangerously false. Writing is like any other skill, only more so. In fact, so-called talent is [...]
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