The Chopping Blog

By emotionally moving the reader, we compel them to want more—the difficult and elusive goal for any writer—just to get the reader to keep turning the damn page.

The short story is a race car, it’s a snapshot, it’s a bird.

David recently appeared on PenPodcast.com to discuss writing, editing, and hitchhiking on sailboats.

Narrative coaching can take many forms, and what exactly it involves depends on the author's needs and goals.

Ask yourself: what’s the worst thing that could happen to my protagonist in this situation, short of complete failure or death?

The moment you supply resolution, you stop the plot from moving forward.

Backstory can be an effective tool for developing character and adding tension, but it often gets mishandled. In simplest terms, backstory becomes a problem when there’s too much of it, and when it comes too soon.

What makes one manuscript stand out from the next? What snags and red flags will land your work in the bin rather than on the shortlist?

Taste is subjective, but craft is not.

I can’t tell you how to write a golden contest submission, but I can share what wins me over when I’m screening entries, and I can also explain how the screening process works. Armed with this information, you should be able to take your contest hustle up a notch. 

In our third YouTube episode, two Darling Axe editors read the first pages of several manuscripts and pose the question: would you turn the page? 

The writer’s version of a home run comes when the reader is so deeply submerged in a scene that the world around them disappears.