The Log-Line: Can You Pitch Your ENTIRE Story in ONE Sentence?

Today we’re going to chat about log-lines. Some of you might be wondering if I was trying to give you a heart attack with my title. Maybe you think this feat is impossible. AN ENTIRE NOVEL IN ONLY ONE SENTENCE? Maybe something simple, plebeian and commercially formulaic *flips hair* but ART cannot be forced into a …

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Back to School: Why Great Papers, Essays, and Blogs Need Outlines

papers, writing, blogs

First of all, I’d like to dedicate this blog post to Mrs. Barbara Bender who taught my high school sophomore year American Literature class. It wasn’t that the reading selections were all that riveting, or that we had any kind of “Oh, Captain, my captain,” kind of moments. What made the class so pivotal in …

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Is Your Story STUCK? 5 Reasons Your Novel is Breaking Down

If you’ve been writing any amount of time you’ve been there—STUCK. Stuck is the place we never want to be, but goes with the job. Every writer at one time or another has experienced the literary doldrums. We hit a spot that, no matter how hard we try, we just cannot seem to move our …

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DysFUNctional: World-Building from Orwell to Apocalypse

world-building

Say it with me: world-building is fun. Seriously! It’s the only way—aside from global domination—we will ever get to arrange the world exactly as we want. Don’t like green peppers on your supreme pizza? Banish them! Hate people who squeeze the toothpaste tube from the middle? Declare them subversive enemies of the regime! Yet, some …

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FEAR: Why Humans Crave Stories That Disturb Them

Fear is, in all likelihood, the single most complex human emotion. Our fears can keep us up at night, but they can also be the only thing that keeps us alive. They can save us, strangle us, liberate us or even destroy us. Like fire, fear can be mesmerizing and for sound reasons. We understand …

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