Tag: constructive

John Barth, a Novelist Who Found Possibility in a ‘Used-Up’ Form

John Barth was a pioneer of literary postmodernism.Credit…Bettmann/Getty Nobody likes the comic who explains his own material, but the writer John Barth, who died on Tuesday, had a way of making explanations — of gags, of stories, of the whole creative enterprise — sing louder and funnier and truer than punchlines. The maxim “Show, don’t […]

16 Writing Challenges to Inspire Your Craft

Writing can get kind of lonely sometimes. Not only that, but it can get stale. Sometimes we fall into a formula when we write books, or we can’t get ourselves past the first few chapters of an idea, or we’re stuck in the dreaded middle section of our novel for what feels like forever. It […]

Am I the Literary Assh*le? To Blurb, To Follow, To Ghost (Or Not to Ghost)?

Welcome back to another edition of Am I the (Literary) Asshole, the only advice column that asks you to take everything you read here with a grain of salt (and by that, I mean you should have a margarita). Nothing like a little citrus to get the brain juiced up and to keep the scurvy […]

Matthew Salesses! V (Eve Ensler!) Doomsday cults! 26 books out in paperback this February.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all of the new books coming out each month. And, as a result, it’s easy to miss or put off getting books that came out in hardcover, even the ones that garnered all the buzz. But fear not: the paperback reprints of February (also, how is it already February […]

Negative Tone Words – Ultimate Guide & 77 Examples

negative tone words Are you familiar with the concept of negative tone words? The mood and emotion conveyed through writing is a key component of what makes it effective, and tone words are a powerful tool at your disposal. This guide focuses exclusively on one type of tone words – negative tone words . These […]

Writers’ Corner: A Hoppy Ending

Sturgis Writers’ Mill It was late autumn, and my grandson was celebrating his birthday with a family party at my home. The buffet sandwich bar sprawled across the table, along with a variety of veggies and chips. Giving the layout one final inspection before guests arrived, I noticed a tiny, broken corner of a dark […]

We Asked AI the 5 Steps to Writing a Country Song – Take a Look at the Results

Sometimes it’s those nuances that make a good country song great. The heartrending story, told verse by verse. A quiver in the vocals. Lyrics that leave the listener thinking long after the story has been told. Videos by American Songwriter LIVE & RAW Shy Carter Full Performance Add in the other fundamentals of a song, […]

15 Engaging Topic Sentence Activities To Foster Strong Writing Skills

A strong leading sentence is what captivates readers and entices them to want to know more! The beginning is the perfect place to start when building anticipation as no story is complete without this element. We’ve curated a list of 15 unique topic sentence activities that will captivate your students’ attention and help them develop […]

Nebraska Warrior Writers Project gives veterans and their families a voice, sense of togetherness

Military veterans, and family members of veterans, in Nebraska, get together every Saturday to put pen to paper. “Writing just takes you to a whole different level,” Cindy Cronn, who co-facilitates sessions in Omaha, said. It’s a level reached by dozens who take part in the Nebraska Warrior Writers Project. “It has been designed for […]

Writing in the Era of ChatGPT

Key points Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT can produce effective summaries of text. ChatGPT was able to provide a good summary of the replication crisis in psychology and proposed solutions, an area the author is an expert in. Using large language models to produce basic summaries of text can speed up writing, but it […]