Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

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Category: Story

fiction and other truths

  • The right question

    Robert McKee’s “Story” is my current best writing friend. It’s a book about how to write screenplays, but it is excellent as a guide to sorting out the architecture of a good story regardless of the format. I love it for being pragmatic. Here’s an example: “Here’s a simple test to apply to any story.…

  • Long time coming

    I have been thinking about “The Booker Rebellion” for seven years. I have been writing it in my spare time for five. And yesterday, a day of furlough from my newspapering job, I finished the final draft of the first chapter. It is good. It is pointing, finally, in the correct direction. I am easy…

  • A pile of decent work

    Writers argue, always, about careful crafting on the front end of a project vs. headlong writing to get the story in place before fine tuning sentences and paragraphs. Here’s what Annie Dillard said about that: “The reason to perfect a piece of prose as it progresses — to secure each sentence before building on it…