Allison K. Williams's Blog, page 25

Why Mississippi? For Writers, It’s All About Place

By Shirley Wimbish Gray

I’m from Mississippi and for many people, this is a flyover state, a place to be seen from a plane window, but not experienced firsthand. There may be some valid reason for that, but as writers, we need to create immersive settings even about those places people don’t like. Otherwise, we’d all be writing about Tuscany.

I’ve learned about developing a deep sense of place from other Mississippi writers. Here are my main takeaways.

Start with what you know, even ...

Writing “How To” Instructions: What I Learned from the Lowest Genre

By Skip Morris

Among those poets, essayists, and fiction writers who pass judgment on one another’s genres, all seem to agree: the how-to branch of expository writing is the lowest on the literary tree. A plausible view I suppose: how-to writing must be straightforward—metaphor becomes almost a sin. Artful shadow meanings become risky indulgences. And to be nearly impossible to misunderstand, sentences are kept simple and, typically, short.

How-to, for the most part, is true surface pro...

Stop Clenching: On Releasing the Physical Tension in Writing

By Michelle Webster-Hein

Throughout much of my life, I’ve been what I’ll term a “forcer.” That is, I have tended to set my mind to some end and then to force that desired outcome through sheer strength of will.

This has backfired for many reasons. For one thing, willpower wears out. For another thing, when one is focused only on moving forward, one fails to consider that one might be moving in the wrong direction.

Had I actually allowed myself, for example, to pause during college a...

The Adverbial Dilemma

By Cindy Causey

I wrote my book Sensible Shoes without obvious, telling adverbial dialogue tags. Are there adverbs in the book? You betcha. It’s hard to write a book without them.

So, you can imagine my surprise when I received edit notes from my publisher informing me there were 940 adverbs in my 73,000-word novel, and half of them would need to be removed.

I walked onto the nearest ledge and sat there for three days. I complained mightily to everyone I spoke to, including telemarke...

Just Another Ordinary Writer

By Kara Jacobs

I received bad news the other week. I am ordinary. Thank god my parents are dead and gone. The news would have killed them.

It started with feedback on a piece I’d written for and read aloud in a small writing group, one of those writing groups in which you are all friends and support each other unconditionally.

My piece was about childhood family vacations. “Well,” said my friend Rose, when I finished reading and sat back with my customary half-embarrassed, half-self-...

In Which Herman Melville Seeks Critique in an Internet Forum

By Kim Lozano

There’s an online writing activity I like about as much as having someone else floss my teeth—posting the first line of a story in internet forums to receive critique from whoever’s willing to help. This practice is common on Reddit; I’ve also seen these threads in Facebook groups that are otherwise valuable places for writers to share advice and resources.

It seems like a helpful idea—share the first line of your work-in-progress with the group members and get feedback. T...

I Do Not Fear the Submission

By Jenny Klion

Jenny Klion, Big Apple Circus

I’ve been a circus clown, twice, all my life really, and I do not fear a writing submission. 

I’ve toured with traveling shows, in theater, dance, circus, and opera, been on curtain-pull duty for an elephant act, the danger of which cannot be overstated. I do not fear a writing submission. 

I’ve heard from backstage a terrible accident occurring onstage, a rigging failure that caused an aerialist to fall from the top of the tent to the sawd...

Life-Changing Advice from a Pro: Break Down the Wall

By Claire Polders

“There’s a wall between you and your writing,” my literary agent in Amsterdam told me over a cup of strong Dutch coffee at her kitchen table.

I was twenty-seven and had just finished my first novel. She was near the end of her career and had brought Don DeLillo and Paul Auster to Dutch audiences.

“What wall?” I asked.

I’d given myself completely to my story, or so I thought. I’d carried my flawed characters through escalating troubles until they changed in ways n...

4 Ways to Build Your Memoir’s World

By Katie Bannon

“Worldbuilding” often calls to mind fictional settings—Hogwarts, Gatsby’s mansion, Alice’s Wonderland. But creating a vivid world on the page is just as essential to creative nonfiction, including memoir.

Crafting a rich, evocative world on the page is one of the best ways to pull readers in and make them care about you and your story. When a reader is immersed in the “world” of a memoir—for instance, in a highly detailed, sensory-rich scene—they feel closer to the chara...

Don’t Listen to Anybody

By Jason Prokowiew

A well-known poet told me in 1998 that my writing wasn’t good enough for our college writing program. I can imagine the hallway outside her office where she told me this, and recall the buzzy fluorescent lights outside her door, can still feel the cold of that moment, her assuredness.

I reel still, at a 21-year-old me, fresh out of abusive, neglectful home and high school experiences, wounds wide-open and taking what she said as truth, holding it as objective for year...