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Category: fiction
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Writer’s Digest Mystery…Solved! 7th place in Literary Fiction!
Ok, while I had hoped it might rank even higher, my short story, “The High Price of Fish,” won 7th place in the 82nd Writer’s Digest Competition. There were a heavy number of entries, so I’m quite happy about this! I’ve really been concentrating on reading great short fiction writers this year and learning technique…
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Opening paragraphs #002: Add a bit of mystery!
Let’s jump right into today’s opening paragraph by taking a look at the start of Allegra Goodman’s “La Vita Nuova”: The day her fiance left, Amanda went walking in the Colonial cemetery off Garden Street. The gravestones were so worn that she could hardly read them. They were melting away into the weedy grass.…
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Opening paragraphs #001: Strength AND vulnerability, at the same time!
For today’s starting paragraph, I decided to go with one that packs quite a punch. First, read how Megan Mayhew Bergman begins “Housewifely Arts”: I am my own housewife, my own breadwinner. I make lunches and change light bulbs. I kiss bruises and kill copperheads from the backyard creek with a steel hoe. I change…
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Cody Klippenstein #005: A gentle touch with personification…
Is it day five already? Our final day of looking at some of the writing technique Cody Klippenstein uses in “Case Studies in Ascension”? It’s gone by quickly. For today, I decided to end with a tool familiar to most every writer: personification. Let’s read the passage first: Neither Obaa-san nor I have been…
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Cody Klippenstein #004: Long sentences for description…
In the past three days, we’ve seen pathos, simplicity, soft sounds, euphony, hard sounds, cacophony, and connotation in Cody Klippenstein’s award-winning story, “Case Studies in Ascension.” Today, we’ll see another technique she makes use of that puts the reader THERE in the moment, visualizing what’s happening in the story. Here’s the example, first: I…
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Cody Klippenstein #003: Connotation and cacophony!
Yesterday, we saw simplicity, softness, and single-syllable words in a romantic passage in Klippenstein’s “Case Studies in Ascension.” Today, we’re going to see the tougher side of this young, talented writer. While she may have used short, soft words to describe a loving moment, look what she does as we near the END…
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Cody Klippenstein #002: Simplicity, softness, and single-syllable words
Before we get to today’s lesson, here are a few of the accolades for Cody Klippenstein and her work that I’m aware of: 2011 She’s a finalist for Malahat’s Open Season Awards 2011 She wins The Fiddlehead’s fiction contest 2011 She wins Prism International’s short story contest 2012 She wins Malahat’s Open Season Awards for…
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Cody Klippenstein #001 VOICE through pathos!
If you want to add VOICE to your writing, Cody Klippenstein is the one to turn to. She has won many major writing awards for her short fiction, including “Case Studies for Ascension,” which won the Zoetrope All-Story Short Fiction Contest. It’ll be our study text for this week and it’s up on…
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Gaiman #005: Explore a difference
As I’ve said before, contrast makes writing interesting. But in a longer work of fiction, it’s possible to REVISIT the same contrast in different ways. Here’s how Neil Gaiman does that in The Ocean at the End of the Lane: “Adults follow paths. Children explore. Adults are content to walk the same way, hundreds…
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Neil Gaiman #004: Hit ’em hard!
Take a look at how Neil Gaiman piles on the negatives at the beginning of chapter 7 of The Ocean at the End of the Lane: The next day was bad. My parents had both left the house before I woke. It had turned cold, and the sky was a bleak and charmless gray.…