Just a light reading list for you today but of course every one’s got value: the keys to writing in general and short stories and screenplays in particular, the role of the reader, and how to work well with a graphic artist. It’s all Great Stuff. Enjoy!

CRAFT

If you’ve ever wondered How to Write a Short Story (and who hasn’t, if you’ve tried?), James Scott Bell’s (@jamesscottbell) piece on The Kill Zone is an excellent discussion of what makes a short story different from a longer work, besides length (duh!). The answer his “boys in the basement” came up with after a friend asked Bell the question, is that “a short story is about one shattering moment,” which can be internal (emotional, psychological) or external. So can’t a novel also have a shattering moment? Of course...

Variety in your writing life. Rachelle Gardner advocates it and we’ve got it: craft-wise, business-wise, life-wise, even wise-cracking-wise. Great—even wise—tools for your toolkit.

CRAFT

Allison Vesterfelt (@allyvest) guest posts on Jeff Goins’ blog with the question, Is Your Writing Timeless? Yes, she really does mean, is your writing dealing with issues that will still matter a long time from now? Now, that seems like a tall order, a task reserved for “literary” fiction and not for the other genres that are too often dismissed as “mere entertainment.” Yet non-literary fiction can certainly deal with questions of how people deal with big issues in their lives—mortal or psychological danger, loneliness, fear, conflict—without descending into plotless maundering...

Holy hotcakes, Batman! Check out the Great Stuff we’ve got today! The first three posts qualify as Extra-Great Stuff in my mind, and the others are none too shabby themselves. Check ‘em out.

CRAFT

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s excellent Your Story Opening: Shock vs. Seduction on Jane Friedman’s blog opens today’s Great Stuff, and what an opening it is. This excerpt from her book Fine-Tuning Fiction actually starts with a brief discussion of pace and who drives it—antagonist early, protagonist later—then gets into those two types of openings. The shock opening grabs the reader’s interest and attention right away...

Primarily a business focus in today’s articles but Kristen Lamb’s funny piece on not being a social media tools tool is a nice counterpoint.

CRAFT

James Scott Bell’s (@jamesscottbell) The Perils of Pure Pantsing on The Kill Zone could also be titled “In Praise of Structure.” Note that that’s structure with a u, not stricture with an i. Late in the post, Bell writes that structure “helps readers feel what you want them to feel” (italics his). I compare structure to the bare scaffold of a building. It defines the general shape but says nothing about where the doors and windows will be, the number, shape, or size of the rooms, or what the exterior will look like. That’s where the architect’s art comes in...

It’s the Ides of March—beware! It’s about to be St. Patty’s Day—rejoice! (But don’t drive afterwards.) Some big news about Google Reader, in case you hadn’t heard, along with our usual supply of Great Stuff.

CRAFT

I’ll let you in on a secret. When Lisa Cron (@lisacron) asks, Does Your Protagonist Have Amnesia?, she’s really asking about you, not your hero(ine). Why? Because, she says, that character’s past is her prologue, what leads to the change she needs to make over the course of the story. If you’ve forgotten to develop the critical details of that past (and not the 1,000-question list of irrelevant details some writing teachers advocate), you won’t know the how and why of the past that makes that change critical...

Whoa! Is today a double, or even triple, unlucky day: 3-13-13? Not a bit! In fact, it’s your lucky day with the Great Stuff that’s waiting for you below, including news of a major shift in Random House’s proposed ebook contracts and 11 steps to creating a good looking CreateSpace POD book.

CRAFT

Keith Cronin (@KeithCronin) advocates a learning technique that a writer friend of mine swears by: Be a Copycat. Note that that’s copycat, NOT plagiarist. The idea is simple: by copying—word-for-word—particular passages—the opening scene, a chapter, the climax, whatever—of the work of an author whose work you admire and respect, you will gain insights into how they did what they did that you never would have simply by reading the same work...

Whew! All caught up. Had a good weekend at the Tucson Festival of Books, but leaving the house before 6:15 in the morning and not getting back until late that night doesn’t leave much time for reading blogs or writing about them. No matter: we’re back on schedule.

CRAFT

“Motivation-reaction units.” Sounds like parts from a rocket engine, doesn’t it? Katie Weiland (@KMWeiland) says no, that phrase is just another way of describing the cause-and-effect sequence that defines each event in a story. The cause is some kind of outside stimulus. The effect is the reaction—well, three reactions, actually: feeling and/or thought, physical action, speech...

Happy Friday, everyone. The Tucson Festival of Books is this weekend and I’m psyched. This is always a great event. Maybe I’ll see you there. Meanwhile, there’s a big kerfuffle afoot over some new ebook contracts from Random House. See below for much more on that, plus other, far less controversial Great Stuff.

CRAFT

Jordan Dane (@JordanDane) offers terrific advice in 8 Key Ways to Edit Suspense & Pace into Your Finished Manuscript. If that title isn’t enough to make you want to go read it, I’ll tease a few of her suggestions: figure out if you’ve started at the best point; is the setting the right one; does the protagonist’s “black moment” occur at the best possible place? Valuable stuff here.

Rachelle Gardner (@RachelleGardner) injects a moment of sanity in what other m...

Sorry for the light late-in-the-day post but I’ve spent most of the day as a judge at a science fair, then had a meeting to run this evening. So, without further ado…

CRAFT

Yuvi Zalkow’s (@yuvi) back with some material he extracted from a Skype interview with author Thaisa Frank (@ThaisaFrank). What struck him, and it may strike you too, is her comment about The Failure of the Intended Story, by which she means, she starts to write a story and gets stuck. The process of getting un-stuck then reveals the better/deeper/more real story. How about that? Said another way, if we were to treat “writer’s block” not as a block but a deflector, like a bumper in a pinball machine, we can use it to our advantage, to go in a new and more profitable (artistically and maybe commercially) direction...

I hope you’re enjoying Great Stuff’s new home. I had a bit of a scare with it on Friday (web site launches are always a bit fraught anyway, so I shouldn’t have been surprised) but all ended well. There’s still more to do with the site but at least we’re up and running.

Today’s Great Stuff is full to overflowing, so I won’t hold you up any longer. Dive in!

CRAFT

You might not think that writing and lawyering have much in common (we’ll not get all snarky here), but lawyer and published novelist Tara Conklin (@TEConklin) makes the case for the commonalities—or case-preparation techniques—you can use to write more effectively in Write Like a Lawyer: 5 Tips for Fiction Writers. A few examples: create a timeline, interrogate your characters, and use only persuasive facts.

Jam...