Writing Outside the Box

This week's reading is a short story by Erini Katopodis. It has really interesting themes and I'd highly recommend you reading it before...

The novel is the longest type of story we will be looking at, and they are typically around 80,000-120,000 words. Of course, this is...

The final type of story we will be discussing this month is the novel. This is the longest type we will be looking at, and it is...

Here are my top tips for writing a good novella: 1. You will need to think more about genre. Although they aren't as long as novels,...

This week's reading is a short story by Blair Hurley. For the next two weeks we'll still be looking at short stories / flash fictions...

As I said in my first post, a novella is typically a stand-alone book of up to around 40,000 words. A novella is able to be published in...

This week we're going to be looking at the novella. A novella is longer than a short story, but shorter than a novel. Again, there is...

Here are my top tips for writing good short stories: 1. Try developing a flash fiction into a short story. This is something I have...

This week's reading is a short story by Amanda Ajamfar. It was published on the Paper Darts website - this is a great resource for...

Similarly to flash fiction, there is no exact definition of a short story. Short stories tend to be a few pages which can generally be...

This week we'll be discussing the short story. Short stories are longer than flash fictions: they have a more developed plot, but can...

Here are my top tips for writing good flash fiction: 1. Read lots of other flash fiction. I really can't recommend this enough - and...

This week we're looking at a great example of a flash fiction by Emily Devane. If you missed it, you can find it here:...

A flash fiction is a very short story, usually only consisting of a few hundred words, although there is no real boundary. If you are...

This month, our focus is going to be types of story. We'll start by looking at flash fiction - don't forget to read this week's story...

The rise-fall-rise plot, otherwise known as the Cinderella plot, looks like this: This is the most basic iteration of the plot, and Kurt...

The next plot we're looking at is the fall-rise plot, also known as the man in a hole plot: This tale invokes a more emotional response...

This week we were looking at a short piece by Mia Couto, if you missed it you can find it here: http://www.massreview.org/sites/default/f...

The first of the "happy ending" plots we'll be looking at is the classic rising plot, sometimes referred to as the Rags to Riches plot:...

The fall-rise-fall plot (also known as the Oedipus plot) looks like this: This plot is named after Sophocles' play Oedipus Rex. The...