The writing world is laden with rules. As I noted in my last post, adverbs and adjectives are now things editors want limited. An author must show and not tell the story. Perhaps one of the most important rules: prose should be written in active voice. Passive on occasion and when necessary is permissible, but... Continue Reading →
“Not adverbs! Run away! What are you thinking putting adjectives in a story? People ain’t got time for that! No, you need verbs and nouns when you write stories. That is only because the English language requires it.” This is a hyperbolic example of what it can feel like being a writer attempting to get... Continue Reading →
Look, I get it, literary journals need to make money. This is especially true if they are a paying market. Some choose to charge submission fees instead of cluttering their website with advertisements. I can respect that. However, there seems to be a rather large elephant in the room that isn’t discussed, submission fees, at... Continue Reading →
If you’re a writer and have submitted pieces to publishers, you have undoubtedly come across “standard manuscript formatting.” (SMF for simplicity) This may seem like a minor gripe, but SMF seems wildly antiquated. Sure 12-point font, and New Times Roman font I can get behind. But double spaced? Really? This is the day and age... Continue Reading →
I’ve written a little about my adventures so far in flash fiction. I’ve been doing this for less than a year, meaning I’m still getting my toes wet, but over the last several months I learned a lot. The sad truth is writing flash fiction and short stories for literary journals typically won’t result in... Continue Reading →
Since summer of 2019 I started to delve into the world of writing and submitting flash fiction. For those who don’t know flash fiction is a short story generally no longer than 1000 words. Each publisher defines the term differently, some places take up to 1500 words while others limit submissions to 500. Flash is... Continue Reading →
For my followers, both old and new, it may seem like I have abandoned this blog. To be honest I have toyed with that idea. A part of me has grown weary of the blogging sphere. Posts are often inundated with fake “likes” and “follows by people in a thinly veiled attempt to drive me... Continue Reading →
Hello followers, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. After six months of courting publishers, I finally got a flash fiction piece published! If you have a few minutes, you can check it out here.
In my last entry, I discussed victimhood and the culture growing around that. Pain is a shared experience, it is one of the things that all humans everywhere face. Most wish to avoid it, however more and more American culture appears to be embracing it, placing people into categories based on historical and emotional pain... Continue Reading →
I’ve said before that a big part of writing is observing the behavior of people. This observation enables authors to be guided toward more realistic characters. One observation that has become very apparent in recent years is hurt. So many people appear to be defined by the past and the pain that was inflicted upon... Continue Reading →
R. Michael 