Monday, March 28, 2011

Figures of Speech in Poetry

Figures of Speech are used to relate one term or concept using ideas or emotions which wouldn't naturally be used for the original term.


Friday, March 25, 2011

Structure and Nuance in Fiction: Long Story Workshops

A "short" story is typically less than 7,500 words (around 25 or fewer double-spaced pages.)  With out long story workshops, we pass well beyond flash fiction and the short-short story into fully-developed short stories and the early chapters of novels.


Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Revision and Unity: Crafting Your Long Story

The idea of "unity" is rather nebulous in fiction.  It can refer to unity of time and place (as in all the events occur in the same scene), or to unity of theme (the story has a tightly-focused symbolism), or to unity of character (the protagonist is developed and consistent).  By examining the focus of your story, you can develop and sharpen the implied meaning of the work as a whole.


Dialogue Grammar and Syntax in Fiction

Dialogue is one of the most important aspects of fiction.  It reveals the true voices of the individual characters while also foreshadowing to much of the actionBut to use it correctly, you'll need to be familiar with how dialogue works as part of the sentence and in constructing paragraphs.