Andrew Johnstona day ago9 minDawn of a Storyteller: The First Chapter of a Serial NovelToday is the 7th anniversary of The Fabulist - don't worry, I'd forgotten it too until I went poking around for material. On this date in...
Andrew Johnston3 days ago5 minWriting Flash Fiction: Three Acts in a Tiny Word Count(Part 3 in an ongoing series) If you've already tried your hand at writing flash fiction, then you've already learned something important...
Andrew Johnston4 days ago4 minStory Rejections and You: Lessons Learned From 700+ RejectionsBefore I continue with the series on flash fiction, there's a side topic I should probably touch on. If you've been following my series, ...
Andrew Johnston7 days ago4 minCensorship, Propaganda and Storytelling as Mind ControlWhile I've been sitting here, waiting for the government's digital vivisectionists to turn the internet loose, I've had ample time to pon...
Andrew JohnstonJun 255 minWriting Flash Fiction: 5 Broad Ideas to Get StartedPart 2 in an ongoing series. Short stories live and die on their concepts. Without a lot of room to build rounded characters, establish s...
Andrew JohnstonJun 224 minWriting Flash Fiction: Introduction (The "What" and "Why")Even with our ongoing cultural obsession with really long books, the literary scene may actually be trending toward very short works. Fla...
Andrew JohnstonJun 194 minThe Risky Art of the Multi-Character Point of ViewLiterature has a long history of novels with different characters offering their own points of view. In the English language alone, you h...
Andrew JohnstonJun 174 minRevising and Editing Dialogue: 5 Quick TipsI love dialogue. Writing dialogue is perhaps my favorite part of the process, and even as many editors have disfavored stories featuring ...
Andrew JohnstonJun 144 minOn the Mundane Realities of CensorshipThis is supposed to be a writer's blog, with writing advice and background notes on works in progress and the odd original story. It is n...
Andrew JohnstonJun 94 minThe Million-Word Novel: More on Long Novels and Word CountI'd like to go into a bit more detail on novel length. The previous post was analysis, this is opinion. I've written several times on ver...
Andrew JohnstonJun 33 minOn Serial Fiction and the Importance of Basic StorytellingThe most popular thing I've ever written was, from a craft standpoint, terrible. This was about seven years ago, at a time in which some ...
Andrew JohnstonJun 11 minNew Sales for MayAfter a long dry spell, I have two news sales this month: "Experimental Diet" goes to Mythaxis and "Swarm Mechanics" goes to Daily Scienc...
Andrew JohnstonMay 282 minThe Ideal Novel Length: Finding the Best Word CountOne of the most frequently asked questions by authors seeking publications is "How long should my manuscript be?" It's a hot topic for a ...
Andrew JohnstonMay 264 minA Brief Guide to Literary Voice: Building Memorable DialogueDialogue is the best way to understand a character – far better than a verbose, clinical description – but only if it's well used. The se...
Andrew JohnstonMay 268 minSeven Deadly Sins of Dialogue Tags: Examples to AvoidHow many people have written posts on this exact topic? Dozens? No doubt. Hundreds? I'd believe it. They keep writing them because it's a...
