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Mary Jane
- Sep 11, 2018
- 1 min
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Mary Jane
- Apr 14, 2018
- 5 min
Secrets of an Action Scene
Learn to use setting, packing, verbs and sensory details to build a compelling action scene.
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Mary Jane
- Mar 12, 2018
- 4 min
Crafting a Rich Beginning: A Swift Pure Cry, by Siobhan Dowd
I've been thinking a lot about beginnings - what captures us quickly and draws us into the center of story? We're told to start with action, bring the reader into the scene, and keep it moving. That's important advice, keeping us from lingering in backstory, setting the scene for too long, or wandering until we find the heart of the story. But an excellent beginning is something more. It has layers and meaning only revealed through reading the story, even while giving us the
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Mary Jane
- Jan 2, 2018
- 4 min
Applying the Tools of Memoir to Fiction - Mary Karr and Jeff Zentner's The Serpent King
In The Art of Memoir, Mary Karr writes of the need to burrow deeply into the writer’s psyche, to dig beneath the surface of how we want to appear to write with an authentic voice. “The author of a lasting memoir manages to power past the initial defenses, digging past the false self to where the truer one waits to tell the more complicated story” (102). Karr also stresses the carnal connection in writing: the sensory moment that joins the writer and reader at a psychic or ne
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Mary Jane Nirdlinger
- Nov 11, 2017
- 1 min
How does a baby bunny feel?
My children have two rabbits. Two rabbits became six (because that's how rabbits roll). That's right, this week, four teeny little bunnies arrived. My daughter is in love with her baby bunnies, delighting over their size, their colors, their little shut eyes and pressed-back ears. They are adorable. I asked her what they felt like in her hand. She didn't hesitate in her answer, "Like a small peach." Those words thrilled me. I could feel the weight and fuzz of that small life
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