The One Secret to a Deeper Memoir

by Joe Bunting | 26 comments

When I was 13, my best friend’s father, the pastor of my church, came out as gay. Years later, I decided to write about the experience.

I had this memory of my best friend being harassed by members of our church congregation as she walked home from school, but when I asked my mom about this, she reminded me I couldn’t have been walking home from school with my friend since we didn’t attend the same school. I had created that memory out of stories I’d been told.

Four Ways to Make Your Writing Sound Prettier

by Joe Bunting | 17 comments

Some writers write prose that sounds good. The writing makes you want to read it slow, as if you could let the words melt on your tongue. I once read some of Faulkner's Sartoris out loud to Liz. Faulkner is known for his long, convoluted sentences and huge jumps in...

Roz Morris on Why Writers Should Read

by Joe Bunting | 78 comments

Why do authors read? We all know why we should read more: to learn the rules, to understand the language better, to figure out which stories work and which don’t. But I wanted to get deeper than shoulds. Why do experienced, published authors actually read? Roz is about as experienced a novelist, not to mention blogger, as they come, so I hope this gives you an insight into a real author’s reading life, and how to improve your own.

There Will Always Be Too Much Work To Do

by Joe Bunting | 20 comments

This week, I began my new editing job by getting into a novel on track to be published in 2012. To prepare, I read three novels, two of which were by other authors in the same genre to get a sense of the “rules” of the genre. The other was the first book...

Hide Away Your Writing

by Joe Bunting | 17 comments

Happy Saturday, writing friends. As you know, on Saturday I have only one rule: do the opposite of something we did during the week. The reasoning behind this is simple. If you occasionally break the guidelines you set for yourself, your writing will never get stale,...