There's an ongoing war between literary fiction and genre. They're placed at odds with each other, a black or white fight to who's better. But in fact, there's a BIG gray area. In order to write a Real+Good Story, you need to know the actual differences between the two, how they're made up of the same stuff with different levels of emphasis, and how you can cater to that in your novel so your reader is satisfied. Plus, I made you a workbook that asks you the right questions about your novel so you can fuse genre conventions and literary conventions to write the best story possible.
Read moreThe Frankenstein Technique: How to Use Juxtaposition + Causality to Discover Deep Themes
When your story is falling flat and you're wondering if you should abandon it, DON'T! Learn how to use The Frankenstein Technique (juxtaposition, causality, and subtext) to bring deeper themes to your story and reinvigorate it with new life.
Read moreHow Write About Big Themes Without Being Too Sentimental or Cliche
We write “about” the world. We write to document the human experience: the beauty, the chaos, the pain, the sentiment. We want to write something real. But how do we evoke it without falling into cliche? Poet Joy Katz shows us how to defeat that pesky cloud of "aboutness" when it comes to big themes once and for all. Here’s how she got me to think about common, but big themes in a whole new way.
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