Short Story
What is Magical Realism in Literature? Exploring El Realismo Mágico
What is magical realism? Imagine a woman discovers she can cry fabric (instead of water), so she starts a clothing business where she knots her tears into dresses. This odd blending of the magical and the mundane constitutes the elements of magical realism, a wonderful genre for writers of all paths. Magical realism authors populate…
Read MoreWhat is Conflict in a Story? Definition and Examples
There is no character arc, deeper meaning, or satisfying ending without conflict in a story. Everything we love about fiction hinges on a protagonist wanting something that he or she cannot have, and doesn’t know how to get. If you’re looking to tell moving, relatable stories yourself, you must learn how to create conflict in…
Read MoreJuxtaposition Definition: What is Juxtaposition in Literature?
Juxtaposition occurs any time a writer places multiple ideas or images next to each other, without drawing a clear relationship between them. It is, in other words, the art of encouraging inference, because juxtaposition encourages the reader to draw their own conclusions about the relationships between different things. Juxtaposition is a wildly underrated tool in…
Read MoreHow to Write a Short Story: The Short Story Checklist
The short story is a fiction writer’s laboratory: here is where you can experiment with characters, plots, and ideas without the heavy lifting of writing a novel. Learning how to write a short story is essential to mastering the art of storytelling. With far fewer words to worry about, storytellers can make many more mistakes—and…
Read MoreLearn to Write! 8 Tips on Learning How to Write
Learning to write is a process, one that requires consistent hard work and determination—and perhaps some magic! But, as with any other skill, it’s important to work hard on the right thing. Instead of providing a list of pointers on how to learn to write for general purposes, this guide will offer eight key tips…
Read MoreSatire Definition: How to Write Satire
If there’s any genre of literature designed to make fun of humankind, it’s satire. In both prose and poetry, writers have employed satirical techniques as far back as Ancient Egypt, utilizing the conventions and elements of satire to write about our follies. Satire writing has become more popular in recent years. This is partially due…
Read MoreProtagonist Definition: How to Create the Perfect Protagonist
If you’re writing any kind of fiction, from a short story to a screenplay, your story has a protagonist. This is the character or characters around whom the story centers. Without a well crafted protagonist, the rest of the story falls short, so careful consideration of a story’s protagonist(s) is crucial to effective storytelling. In…
Read MorePun Intended: A Look at Pun Examples in Literature
What do you call a sandwich made of wordplay? A pun-ini. The English language abounds with pun examples in literature. From Chaucer to Shakespeare, from the Romantics to contemporary poetry, writers have twisted language to explore new (and often hilarious) possibilities with words. We generally consider puns to have humorous intent. However, The pun in…
Read MoreHow to Start a Story: Examples and Inspiration
It happens to the best of us: you open a new word document, you’re faced with the many possibilities that a story can take, and then you realize you don’t know how to start a story. Or you do know, but you’re not sure how to start this story. Or you know exactly what this…
Read MoreHow to Write Dialogue in a Story
Writing dialogue in a story requires us to step into the minds of our characters. When our characters speak, they should speak as fully developed human beings, complete with their own linguistic quirks and unique pronunciations. Indeed, dialogue writing is essential to the art of storytelling. In real life, we learn about other people through…
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