Short Story
How 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…
Read MoreStatic Characters vs. Dynamic Characters: Definitions and Examples
You can categorize the people that populate your stories as static and dynamic characters. These categories correspond to character development: if they’re a changed person by the end of the…
Read MoreWhat is an Antagonist? Definition & Examples
Because most stories involve conflict, most stories also involve an antagonist. Your protagonist—the main character—will struggle to achieve something important to them, and the antagonist will further complicate this struggle.…
Read MoreLiterary Fiction vs. Genre Fiction
The world of fiction writing can be split into two categories: literary fiction vs. genre fiction. Literary fiction (lit fic) generally describes work that’s character-driven and realistic, whereas genre fiction…
Read MoreLeaving
He’d be leaving town soon. He’d be leaving, lightly loaded, on the bus. Two items still to part with: A car with bad breaks, significant steering problems, and bald tires.…
Read MoreHow to Submit to Literary Journals
For the last few months, you’ve opened the document on your computer and spent time constructing sentences, reading, researching, and working on the right metaphor for your poem, short story,…
Read MoreDad is Inside Mom
Dad is inside Mom. They are so far up each other’s business that Mom engulfs Dad like a sausage casing. They operate in stereo now, in layers. The heft of…
Read MoreThe Gates Chip
The medical and media establishments dismissed it as superstition. At first Vivian sided with them, but then the Gates chip implanted during her second covid shot started kicking in. Before…
Read MoreDislodged
In my dad’s day there they called it personnel and it was in the main hospital, which our family referred to as the Zoo. Now they’d stuffed HR into the…
Read MoreThe Not Knowing is Most Intimate
The dharma teacher’s wife is leaving him after forty-nine years of marriage. I think of him as you and I lay under the trees, away from the rest of the…
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