The crowd roared, chanting a chorus of indecipherable mumbles. They pushed forward, reaching out to touch the moisture and static which was building on the platform ahead. They stood by, unsaited, waiting for the blade to drop on the defiant sacrifice. *written as a response to the Three Line Tales week 55 photo prompt.
Tag: creative writing
Revising the Story Tracker
Professional writing is hard. Over the past few months, I have had to rein in my expectations. It takes a lot longer to get an answer from publishers than I expected. And rejection is a much more common result. The long duration of the publishing process makes it all the more important to have some … Continue reading Revising the Story Tracker
SHARE: List of Fantasy Cliches
While looking around for publishers to send my work to, I stumbled on this post which is linked to in Silver Blade/Silver Pen's submission guidelines. I have posted about cliches before. These are one of those things (like adverbs) that editors get unjustifiably hung up on. Like first-person POV and present tense and adverbs, cliches … Continue reading SHARE: List of Fantasy Cliches
My Story on “Playing with Words”
Colleague and fellow blogger Kavita Chavda has set up a new website called Playing With Words that uses contributor content. It has a very minimalistic setup, which seems nice in an age of media and imagery overload. Anyways, I wrote a story for her based in my Valley of Magic mythology, which I think turned out … Continue reading My Story on “Playing with Words”
Water and Blood – A (very) Short Story
It felt good to finally be clean. The smell of fish guts and the sea still covered her hands like an aura, but at least the blood was gone from between her fingers. Sparrow sat at a wooden table on the far end of the butchery. The windows were open wide, welcoming the salty night air … Continue reading Water and Blood – A (very) Short Story
The Man Who Expected to Die – Friday Fictioneers, 3 February 2017
I watched the man cross the street through the glass eye of my high-powered rifle. He wasn't my target; he had nothing to do with me. I was here to kill a killer, not some guy in a faded wool coat. Then he turned his head up towards me; understanding restructured his face. Instead of running, he … Continue reading The Man Who Expected to Die – Friday Fictioneers, 3 February 2017
3 Ways to Become a Better Writer
Most writers know two simple ways to get better at writing. They are the basic tips of any professional writing program or class. Stephen King summed it up quite well in his great treatise of the craft On Writing, suggesting "If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a … Continue reading 3 Ways to Become a Better Writer
The Rules of Good Microfiction, REBLOG: TLT – Wildfire in lavender
Story writing gets harder the shorter your story gets. Regardless of its size, a piece requires several things in order to be a complete story: characterization, crisis, and resolution. You could call it the CCR rule of short story writing (as in, if you don’t heed the rule then who’ll stop the rain?) This proves … Continue reading The Rules of Good Microfiction, REBLOG: TLT – Wildfire in lavender
REBLOG: A Crash Course In Suspense
Victor has some good points here about building suspense. Particularly in fantasy and action, suspense is vital to keeping the reader engaged. Readers do not want to given everything easily, suspense is emotion and emotion is why people read. As Victor suggests, foreshadowing is a good tool for building suspense. Letting the reader know something … Continue reading REBLOG: A Crash Course In Suspense
To be King – FFfAW
Harry watched the yellow banner billow in the wind. He was fixated on one of the Chinese characters, the one that meant "king" (王). He wondered to himself what it would be like to be a king. He was British, so would he be a king like the mythical Arthur or the historical William I? Though, … Continue reading To be King – FFfAW
JM Williams 