Category Archives: Writing Craft
More Dramatic Than the Situation It Depicts
A while back I went to a retrospective for the late American photographer Gary Winogrand. Part of the exhibit was a short film recording of Winogrand giving a talk to a group of UCLA students. During the question and answer … Continue reading
The Onus Is On Us
I’ve been reading POP! by Mark Polanzak. It’s his “fictional memoir” about his life after his father died from a heart attack when he was seventeen years old. He calls it a fictional memoir because he says fictionalizing the events … Continue reading
Don’t Be Afraid to Tell Your Story; or the Genius of Roxane Gay
I have to confess to a problem. I’m afraid to tell stories. It’s not that I fear the actual telling, writing about a series of events that build to some sort of climax and/or resolution. Rather, I’m afraid to begin … Continue reading
Isaac Babel and Flash Fiction
My short essay about Isaac Babel’s flash fiction is now up on SmokeLong Quarterly, a website dedicated to the form of flash. The essay is part of their “Flash, Back” series that “asks writers to discuss flash fiction that may … Continue reading
Effective Use of Cliche in Narrative
Along with “Show, don’t tell,” the other writerly maxim most commonly batted about is to avoid the use of clichés. Nothing marks a novice writer (or one who isn’t really trying or not paying attention) more than sentences filled with … Continue reading
Hitchcock Truffaut and Some Thoughts on Craft
Artists of all types – writers, painters, composers, et al. – have always drawn inspiration from work by other artists in their chosen fields. I’m often inspired to write after reading a really good story, one I find beautiful or … Continue reading
A Writing Prompt
Recently I’ve been thinking about how the arts – writing, painting, photography, music – inspire each other, not just in like fields, but also across genres. The idea was prompted when I watched the documentary Hitchcock/Truffaut. In the documentary there … Continue reading
A Writing Prompt
Writing prompts are little imagination-jogs (aka kicks in the literary pants) meant to get a writer, well, actually writing. They’re most often employed to overcome that notorious phenomenon known as writer’s block, the wall of trepidation the blank page seems … Continue reading
Stefen Styrsky 