for writing technique geeks
Some short stories exist mainly as character studies. Fun With A Stranger (1962) by American author Richard Yates is one example. The story paints a portrait of a particular kind of old-fashioned school teacher. The reader feels empathy for everyone involved, from the young pupils to the teacher herself. STORY NOTES A man retells what it …
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The Stranger (1986) is the seventh picture book written and illustrated by popular American storyteller Chris Van Allsburg. This picture book provokes as many questions as it answers, and reminds me of the Australian picture book written and illustrated by Shaun Tan in which a tiny ‘exchange student’ arrives in an Australian home, he admires …
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Here’s the thing about horror: It can so easily turn into accidental comedy. Watch the original 1960s Twilight Zone series and what was once genuinely scary now offers a family-night laugh. An inverse is also true: What we once considered fun, innocent, cosy and child-friendly will morph over time into something sinister. In the second …
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“The Home Girls” is a short story by Australian writer Olga Masters (1919 – 1986), and the first story of Masters’ 1982 collection, also called The Home Girls. I’m interested in Olga Masters partly because her fiction wasn’t published until she was in her 50s. Then, when she was published, she won a bunch of …
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There is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up, holding, holding on […] Then there is the loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive. Toni Morrison Best cure for loneliness is solitude. Marianne Moore Edward Hopper was a master at depicting loneliness with paint. The sense …
In the 1880s Brander Matthews said that short stories should be spelt with a hyphen to distinguish between two different forms, which reminds me of the picture book vs picturebook debate. A short story is a story that is short. A short-story proper derives from the Romantic tradition and has its beginnings in myths and legends. …
The Bridges of Madison County is a 1995 American one-true-love romance. The film is based on a 1992 best-selling, terribly written novel by Robert James Waller. Stephen King gives the novel a roasting in his well-known book On Writing. Almost everyone who wants to be a writer seems to have read King’s writing book, part autobiography, part …
What does green symbolise in art and storytelling? Unripe (and by extension, naïve) Vital and vigorous (because Greek ‘chloros’ may have mostly meant ‘having sap’, independent of colour). By extension, green can symbolise youth. Young things tend to be moist (sorry) whereas old things tend to be dry (also sorry, blame those Ancient Greeks). Latin …
Three By The Sea is a 2010 picture book by British writer-illustrator Mini Grey. This storyteller comes from South Wales, which is somewhat evident in the setting. The most widely borrowed picture book from Mini Grey is the wonderfully metafictional Traction Man series. This one has metafictional elements also, and offers plenty of picture book …
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“Open House on Haunted Hill” is a Nebula Award winning short (ghost?) story by John Wiswell, published in 2020. I’ve recently immersed myself in ghost stories from the 18- and 1900s. But how does one go about writing a contemporary ghost story? Can modern writers still write an original and surprising ghost story? I mean, …
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