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How to tell an emotionally compelling story

I recently read The Story Paradox by Jonathan Gottschall, which is all about the dangers of storytelling. If you’re interested in learning how stories work, you’ll want to set aside some time to read this book. I wanted to talk about a point he makes early in the book, which is that stories where the…

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Packing emotion into tight spaces

When I’m writing, I rarely listen to music because the words of the lyrics interfere with my words. If I need to drown out the kids across the street, I will listen to white noise or an instrumental station on Pandora. Sometimes, though, if I’m doing something like giving feedback to students, where the lyrics…

Where to find good writing (and publishing) advice

One of the challenges in taking writing and publishing advice from other authors is that they usually know only what works/worked for them. An author who has only been publishing for a little while has a very limited experience to draw from. I understand why published authors want to give advice despite not having expertise…