What Chekhov Can Teach Us about Endings

Fiction writer David Jauss analyzes Chekhov’s endings and explains why they were revolutionary at the time — and what we can learn from them today:
Early in his writing life, Anton Chekhov became convinced that new kinds of endings were necessary in literature.  While writing Ivanov, his first major play, he complained to his publisher about [...]

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What Makes a Book Great? A Voracious Reader Shares Her Insights

Editor’s note:  From October 2008 to October 2009, Nina Sankovitch read one book a day and wrote about it on her blog, Read All Day.  After learning about this project in a New York Times article, I went to Nina’s site and found some terrific insights into what makes a book great – so I [...]

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Guest Blog: Laura Schenone on Writing About the Past

An award-winning memoirist offers advice on writing about family and history — and family history:
Tomorrow we arrive in Florida for the holiday, and I can assure you that within a few hours, my mom and I will reach some minor tension over the Thanksgiving Dinner.  For example, I’ll want to scrub and roast the sweet [...]

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Guest Blog: Essayist Maureen Stanton on Why Insight is the Last Thing to Come

For this writer, the creative process happens in stages – and the final one makes all the difference:
The first is the molecular stage, that early collection of bits of information, what I find fascinating, unusual, funny or poignant at the time it occurs, whether I retain it in memory or in a physical form [...]

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Guest Blog: Lisa Romeo Adds Her Two Cents to the Writer-as-Parent Manifesto

[Editor's note:  Yesterday, on her terrific blog about writing, writer/editor Lisa Romeo talked about Louise DeSalvo's piece in this space and added some tips of her own.  Thanks, Lisa, for giving me permission to post them here as well.]
Just the other day I was passing along tips to some writing class students who have school-age [...]

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Guest Blog: Louise DeSalvo on Why Having Kids is No Excuse

A celebrated memoirist calls the bluff of a parent who laments that he doesn’t have time to write:
He was across the street raking leaves, and I went over to say hello one a cool autumn day, to take a break from my work, writing about my father’s life during World War II.
“How did you write [...]

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Break the Block in Five Minutes

Award-winning writer, translator, and editor C. M. Mayo explains the power of the five-minute exercise:
“I don’t have time to write.”  Everyone and their uncle who has that bodacious idea for a screenplay, it seems, leans on this one.  Do you?
I’m a writer, but that doesn’t mean I always have the time I’d like for writing – the big [...]

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Guest Blog: Kamy Wicoff on Why and How Writers Need to Network

The founder of the social networking site SheWrites shares her vision for a better (publishing) world:
Rumor has it that there was a time when writers didn’t have to do anything but write.  There was no such thing as a “platform,” no marketing plan to be incorporated into a book proposal, no need to hustle press [...]

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Guest Blog: David Harris Ebenbach on Why He Writes Short Stories

… and why we shouldn’t all be writing novels:
We are frequently told, by the market and also by the novelists that the market promotes, to revere certain forms of writing over others. The publishing industry by necessity emphasizes profits, and novels sell better than collections of short stories, which means there’s pressure on fiction writers; [...]

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Guest Blog: Novelist Aimee Liu on Writing Like a Grown-Up

How a conversation with a successful magazine writer forced her to clarify her ideas about what and why she writes:
Years ago I had coffee in NYC with a very talented writer who has traveled around the world writing articles for such publications as Esquire, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair.  He talked like a machine [...]

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Guest Blog: Novelist Yona Zeldis McDonough on Two Pages A Day …

… or What I Learned About Writing from Eating Candy
A long time ago, before I wrote my first novel, I despaired of ever having the time to undertake such a large and arduous project.  I had two small children and my days (nights too, come to think of it) seemed hopelessly fractured; my time, or [...]

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Guest Blog: Alexandra Enders on Claiming Authority as a Writer

What do you say when someone asks, “And what do you do?”
When someone asks what I do, I say I’m a writer, or sometimes a novelist, but I never say I’m an author. Most writers I know are the same way. It sounds humbler, I suppose, more like what we do instead of what we [...]

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Guest Post: Chad Taylor on Why Writers Should Care about Twitter

Tips on Networking 140 Characters at a Time, From the Guy Who Brought Me Pizza Once
(Not really.  I began following Chad Taylor on Twitter after reading his witty repartee with writer Susan Orlean.  Awed by his ability to be insightful, pithy, and clever within Twitter’s haiku-like restraints, I invited him to write a post revealing [...]

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Guest Blog: New York Times Bestselling Author …

Pamela Redmond Satran on Making “The List”:
When Christina asked me to write a guest blog about how it feels to be on the New York Times Bestseller List — my new humor book, How Not To Act Old, is #7 on the Paperback How To, Advice, and Miscellaneous for August 23 – all I could [...]

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Guest Blog: Debra Galant on Being Between Novels

Exploring the Process of Coming up with the Next Big Idea
I am between novels. I’ve been between novels for close to seven months now, which is typical for me. I am a slow germinator. I’m not devoid of ideas – that’s not the problem – I’m just devoid of an idea that I think I [...]

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Guest Blog: Judith Lindbergh on Raising the Dead

Historical novelist Judith Lindbergh writes about her irrational passion for research.
The joy and burden of my literary life is research.  There is nothing more exciting to me than the 22-inch high stack of academic texts, museum exhibition catalogues, and translated ancient manuscripts sitting on the corner of my desk like an untouched burial mound [...]

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Guest Blog: Simple Lessons from a Master of the Craft

Writer Mark Trainer talks about what he learned from Pulitzer-prizewinning author Peter Taylor:
I used to work for the writer Peter Taylor.  Because of a series of strokes, he wasn’t able to type his own manuscripts.  He was barely able to write legibly with a pen.  I had been a fan of his writing since college, [...]

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Guest Blog: Jennie Nash on 10 Do’s and Don’ts for Writers Seeking Feedback

Some handy rules for when, why and how to ask readers to respond to a work-in-progress:

1.  Don’t Ask Too Early in the Process
Work that is still incubating is too fragile for critique. Wait until you have a clear vision of your project so that you don’t get swayed by what other people think. I usually [...]

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Guest Blog: Marina Budhos on Endings & Best-Laid Plans

Author Marina Budhos writes about finishing her latest novel:
My plan this summer was to force myself to write to the end of my historical novel, a book I have been working on for a number of years while I completed other projects.  Summer is my best writing time, when I am home, puttering around [...]

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Guest Blog: Marty Kihn on Working Without a Deadline

Bestselling* author Marty Kihn reveals the secret of his success:
How is it possible to get something done without a deadline?  An easy question, really.
Get a dog.  I’m totally serious. My beloved Bernese Mountain Dog, Hola, has for the past five years awakened me every morning at 6 a.m. and not a moment later. She won’t [...]

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Guest Blog: Lisa Romeo on Dealing with Rejection

Literary essayist, editor, and writing coach Lisa Romeo writes:
Writers tend to think of rejection as something done to us by outsiders. We paint it as something we cannot control, as something to be feared and avoided, when in reality, rejection begins with ourselves.  Early on.
Even before we start writing, we reject our own creativity.  We [...]

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Guest Blog: Julie Metz – Some Thoughts on Memoir and Fiction

The memoirist Julie Metz, who is now working on a novel, writes:
When I wrote my memoir, Perfection, the story of my discovery of my husband’s secret life only after his sudden death, my focus was on careful recall aided by journals and letters.  And yet, since I love reading fiction, I wanted my memoir to [...]

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Guest Blog: Pamela Redmond Satran on Naming Characters

Novelist and naming expert Pam Satran writes:
There’s a character named Billie in the novel I’ve been working on since the invasion of Iraq.  But Billie wasn’t always in the book: Until this spring, she was Lily.
Well, she wasn’t really Lily, but the character who played her role in the plot was named Lily until the [...]

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