» A Guest Author

We Need to Talk About the Third Draft

By Andrew Park Third drafts? No-one told us about third drafts! If you’re a newbie writer ploughing through the first draft of your first novel, the idea of a third draft may cause you no end of dismay. “When,” you may ask yourself, “will this thing ever be finished?” The optimistic answer — at least…

Issue Five Hundred Seventy Four

5 Things Being an Editor Has Taught Me About Rejection

By Winifred Òdúnóku Many writers have their unique rejection stories to tell. Some rejections can be so demoralising that they make a writer stop submitting to a particular magazine, and there are those – the encouraging ones – that push writers to move out of their comfort zones. Meanwhile, some writers enjoy celebrating milestones of…

Issue Five Hundred Seventy Three

How Character Sketches Can Add Depth to Your Manuscript

By Emily-Jane Hills Orford What is a character sketch? Simply put, character sketches are a clever way to really get to know your characters before you even plot them into a story. If you don’t know your characters, how can you possibly convince your readers to know them? Plus, this exercise becomes a good resource,…

Issue Five Hundred Seventy Two Special Feature

How to Generate Plot Ideas for Flash Fiction

Ratika Deshpande My main struggle with writing fiction has always been coming up with a plot. I believe in writing the kind of stories one likes to read, but it’s not always easy to actually put that into practice. For example, I love reading about fantasy shops, scholars, palaces, and small villages. Yet it wasn’t…

Issue Five Hundred Seventy One Uncategorized

How I Turned My First Short Story Acceptance Into Four More Publications

By Dannye Chase Three years ago, on a bright April day, I finally got up the courage to hit “send” on my first story submission, for Improbable Press’s Dark Cheer: Cryptids Emerging anthology. (Well, okay, technically I made my spouse hit “send” for me.) When the reply came, it took a moment for the word…

Issue Five Hundred Seventy Special Issue

Want Your Expressions to Blossom? Translate!

By Nazia Kamali Coming from a family of doctors, I was raised to believe in the power of science and technology, and was conditioned to pursue the field. Writing was considered an extracurricular activity to pad the resume. Furthermore, writing in English was supposed to display my understanding of the second language that I learned…

Issue Five Hundred Sixty Nine Special Feature

5 Ways You Could Be Rejecting Yourself as a Writer (And How Not To)

By Ratika Deshpande I’ve been writing for about eight years now, during which I’ve gone through several phases of rejecting my writing before others could do so. Over time, I’ve learned to recognise these thoughts and developed ways to fight them. Here they are: 1. You think you are not ready This thought is especially…

Issue Five Hundred Sixty Seven Special Feature

The Pub Crawl: My Journey to Traditional Publication

By Dr. Meryl Broughton The paths to publication are many and varied. Mine was a bit like a lurching tour of different venues, seeking the right ambience where I could find acceptance for my unusual manuscript. When I started out, I was fresh-faced, clear-thinking and naive. By the end I was a seasoned drinker, familiar…

Issue Five Hundred Sixty Six Special Feature

Navigating Your Protagonist’s Emotional Journey

By Ley Taylor Johnson Character arcs are tough. There’s no way around it—despite being one of the primary drivers of the story, dealing with your protagonist’s emotions and weaving them into the plot is hard to do. You don’t want their feelings overwhelming the plot and making it seem melodramatic, but you also don’t want…

Issue Five Hundred Sixty Five Special Feature

How My Novel Was Resurrected From the Dead

By Thomas Smith My novel, Something Stirs, was one of the first haunted house novels written for the Christian market. Maybe even the first. And as such, the publisher that acquired it had big plans for the launch and subsequent marketing of the novel. In fact, previously a non-fiction publisher, mine was to be the…

Issue Five Hundred Sixty Four Special Feature

Writing About Food: Great Recipes Make Great Stories

By Emily-Jane Hills Orford Food is a big part of our lives, so it stands to reason that food should, and does, appear in written works. It doesn’t have to be just a mere mention of some special ribs shared in a dinner scene in your murder mystery. Food can be incorporated into the act…

Issue Five Hundred Sixty Three Special Feature

How a “Haiku Diary” Can Help Your Writing

By Ellen Levitt Wordsmiths may chafe at writing routines, but many of us embrace (or at least face) routines and rigor, in our quest to improve our work and meet deadlines. The advice to “write everyday” or “make regular writing a habit” is pervasive and for good reasons. There’s even an app for writing every…

Issue Five Hundred Sixty Two

9 Things I’ve Learned from 121 Rejections

Isha Jain When I started submitting to publications, my work was published thrice. I was only submitting to a few publications while studying, and I didn’t bother researching the market for more opportunities. Last year, I took it seriously and started tracking all my submissions in an Excel file. I have to say, it is…

Issue Five Hundred Sixty One

Setting the Scene for Your Story

By Emily-Jane Hills Orford Setting the scene is a vital part of bringing a story alive. Why? Quite simply put, it’s a matter of setting the stage and inviting the reader along to feel and experience what the characters are experiencing. Here’s a simple example of a setting: She must have made a wrong turn…

Issue Five Hundred Sixty

If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try A Little Less Sex

By Lisa Kusel I wrote the first draft of “Love Lies Here,” my fourth novel, in a six-week burst of inspiration. My then-agent had just submitted my memoir about my family’s disastrous move to Bali to a slew of publishers and I needed something to distract me from that tortuous “now we wait and see…

Issue Five Hundred Fifty Nine

Articles by A Guest Author