At present, I'm in an Intro to Short Story class, and it's become one of my favorites this semester. One of the best aspects of the class is critique workshops. Every few weeks, we write a short story. Everyone reads each other's stories and we go over about four at a time. Now, regardless of …
Instinct is one of the most valuable tools a writer has. If you've ever been writing and just felt an unsettling sense of wrongness, it's likely your instinct kicking in to tell you there's something wrong with the story. Sometimes this feeling is so uncomfortable that you feel less motivated to write because of it. …
"The English major is a sinking ship, and it is my job to hand you a life preserver." During my first week of college orientation, I found myself going to session after session, meeting teachers or counselors, my future classmates or future professors. The last of these was a department meeting, which meant I had to …
Continue reading Why Writers are Made for World Denomination
A life update (and apology).
It had been weeks. Weeks of silence. Days filled those weeks, hours droned out those days, minutes ticked by in the hours. Seconds, dreaded seconds pattered the minutes, like raindrops that fall just too hard and feel like a strike when they hit. Each second was that moment when you slip and start to …
She was trying not to look at the crown but her eyes were too drawn to it. It's jeweled embroidery crept into the corners of her thoughts, seeping into her consciousness. She cast several glances at it, but a snap from the maid about keeping her head straight shook her gaze forward for the rest of the …
Hello, friends! I'm starting to realize having a structured plan just might not work for me. I intended to do prompts on Mondays, tips on Wednesdays, and editorial/opinion type things on Fridays. I intend on keeping the prompts just for the sake of having some organization in my life. But aside from that, I …
"Play it again," she begged. "I just played it three times," her sister protested. The younger one pleaded again, this time with her eyes. "You play it," her sister told her. "I don't know how." "Sure you do." The older sister picked the other's hands up and placed them on the piano. "You just follow …
Hello, friends! Setting is an important quality in writing. It's the background of the story. Without it, the characters would just stand against a white canvas or a greenscreen. Details about the setting are what make the characters' lives believable and attainable. It seems basic, I know. It's one of the primary necessities you learn …
It was a crooked little house, the imperfect kind that you could tell must have been hand-built. Sand-colored stones looped around the windows, lopsided squares of glass thrown and squeezed together at the front of the house. A chimney jutted off to the side, a sloped roof poking out beside it. A tree curled up from along …
Jayda Louise 