CRAFT
I Love the Bad Ones Best
By Louise Marburg There is perhaps nothing more annoying to hear from an editor that they find a character too unsympathetic to be believable. Part of me wonders if the character in question might in fact be all too believable,…
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Interview: Julie Buntin
CRAFT: Marlena’s opening is striking on a craft level for several reasons: first, there’s no withholding. We learn right away what happens to Marlena. And second, the use of the present tense serves to put us in the moment, in…
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What Makes a Collection?
You’ve amassed some stories. Maybe you have enough for a collection, maybe you’re still a few shy. It’s not an obvious grouping of stories: there are no common characters or recurring places or a clear theme. How do you organize…
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Obsessions
Obsessions lie at the heart of most of the things we do well. And figuring out what your obsessions are in writing may well be the key to figuring out that next short story or novel. Poet Natalie Diaz talks…
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Author’s Notes
A note from the author accompanies each of the stories we publish. We ask the author to write something—anything—about the craft in their story. We love these Author’s Notes, as they shed an important light on each story. Every time…
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LIGHT THE DARK, edited by Joe Fassler
Light the Dark, edited by Joe Fassler Penguin Books, 2017 A collection of craft essays from a series in The Atlantic, this is a book to treasure, one to read again and again. The online series, called “By Heart,” is curated…
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Opening Lines
The start to a story is so important. It’s what draws the reader in, it’s what sets the stage for everything to come. When we read stories (and especially when we read submissions!), an arresting first line can capture our…
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Character Research
When it comes to doing research for a novel or story, the resources are endless. We typically turn first to non-fiction sources, writers documenting the history of the time. Often, though, these accounts are written after-the-fact as the historian makes…
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Favorite First Sentence: WAYS TO DISAPPEAR
“In a crumbling park in the crumbling back end of Copacabana, a woman stopped under an almond tree with a suitcase and a cigar.” Ways to Disappear, Idra Novey’s debut novel, is about a South American writer who has disappeared,…
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Switching Tenses
Most writers, it seems, prefer one tense over another. Many of us use the past tense as our default, as it allows for foreshadowing, and, conversely, it allows reflection from the present “telling” moment. We’re telling a story of which…
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