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Essay
How to Write a Better Rough Draft
by Jack Windeyer

I don't break for anything. I don't eat. —Harlan Ellison


Essay
Mind the Power Position — Nancy Kress on How to End a Paragraph
by Jack Windeyer

The last word in a paragraph is a power position —Nancy Kress

Essay
How Nancy Kress Uses Callbacks to Reuse Narrative Context
by Jack Windeyer

This is one of fiction’s major challenges: making readers understand a character’s motives when those motives are not simple. The way you create such understanding is through patterns of incidents.

Essay
Ursula K. Le Guin on the Subtle Art of Leaving Things Unsaid
by Jack Windeyer

“I do work very hard and consciously at my craft. At the sound, the flow, the exactness, the connections, the implications of my words.” — Le Guin

Essay
How Samuel Delany Gives Depth to His Throwaway Characters
by Jack Windeyer

How do you introduce a new character quickly, without making them wooden? Delany describes a technique that can lend depth to single-scene characters.

Essay
How Ursula K. Le Guin Leveraged Passive Verbs to Deepen Plot
by Jack Windeyer

When should you use the passive voice? Are there situations in which it’s preferrable over the active voice?

Essay
Hinting at Reversals
by Jack Windeyer

What makes a story memorable months or years after reading it? How can you make a plot device stand out, particularly when it is one as timeworn as a reversal?

Essay
Weavers Think About Weaving — Metaphors & Worldbuilding
by Jack Windeyer

What makes some metaphors seem at odds with the rest of the text and others enmeshed within it? How can you write similes that draw the reader into the world of the story?

Essay
Different ways to signal a flashback in stories
by Jack Windeyer

What are the tried and true techniques for writing a flashback? What can you accomplish through a flashback scene?

Essay
Nancy Kress’s Approach to Story Openings
by Jack Windeyer

How long do you have to hook your reader? One sentence? One paragraph? Longer?

Essay
The Triple Down Metaphor
by Jack Windeyer

Make your metaphor the best it can be by doubling down on it.

Essay
Why Theodore Sturgeon Was a Master of Tension
by Jack Windeyer

How can you quickly build tension between two characters? And how can you imbue that tension with a feeling of immediacy?

Essay
Flashbacks - How and Why to Write Them
by Jack Windeyer

What’s the difference between an internal and external flashback? Why might a writer use an internal analepsis instead of an external one

Essay
The Literary Shortcuts of Le Guin & Niven
by Jack Windeyer

The best short-story writers maintain an arsenal of shortcuts. Learn how to write concisely without lessening impact.

Essay
Future Exposition Now - How to Use Flash Forwards in Fiction
by Jack Windeyer

Learn how to use flash forwards (prolepses) to avoid adding too much exposition. What does a flash forward look like in a short story?

Essay
Description & Action — Liven Up Exposition with Snippets of Action
by Jack Windeyer

How can you describe the setting of your story without it reading like a dry litany of told facts? How can you keep this exposition centered firmly around the main character to keep it grounded in the narrative’s flow of time

Essay
The Care and Handling of Throwaway Characters
by Jack Windeyer

Are there extras in novels? Learn how successful authors handle characters that only appear in one scene.