Craft Capsule: Oblique Strategies
The author of the story collection Black Light explores the generative power of “the weird.”
Craft Capsules
In our weekly series of craft essays, some of the best and brightest minds in contemporary literature explore their craft in compact form, articulating their thoughts about creative obsessions and curiosities in a working notebook of lessons about the art of writing.
Craft Capsule: “Unlikable” Characters
The author of If You Leave Me focuses not on a character’s likability but rather on making that character feel true.
Craft Capsule: Multiple Narrators
The pleasures and pitfalls of writing a novel with multiple perspectives.
Craft Capsule: The Art of Research
How does a writer tell a story set in another country during a time before she was even born? Research, research, research.
Craft Capsule: Who Are You?
The desire to tell stories is one thing; finding the stories you want to tell is something else entirely.
Craft Capsule: Find Your Voice
A simple exercise to help lead you closer to the fiery core of your own, utterly unique, narrative style.
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Craft Capsule: A Form of Salvation
Simon Van Booy writes about opening your whole life to creativity.
Craft Capsule: Tao Te Ching
Simon Van Booy considers writing as a process of instinct rather than thought.
Craft Capsule: A Bird in the Sky
Simon Van Booy puts inspiration and the writer’s realm of possibility into perspective.
Craft Capsule: Infinite Distance, or The Starry Archipelagoes
Dan Beachy-Quick explores the infinite possibilities of poetry and the idea that metaphor can be a philosophy, and poetic craft a means of living a life.
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Craft Capsule: Rhyme and the Delay in Time
Poet Dan Beachy-Quick considers rhyme, easily derided in workshop but able to make of the mind a wind-chime.
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Craft Capsule: Hundreds of Eyes
Dan Beachy-Quick imagines the poem as a peacock with tail outspread, and the phosphorescent circle on each feather an actual eye. The poem lets us see through every eye.
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Craft Capsule: The Craft of Humility, the Craft of Love
A poet and essayist recalls his personal introductions to poetry and its craft during his younger years.
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Craft Capsule: Every Novel Is a Journey
Authors share their notes on writing in this series of micro craft essays. In the latest installment: Tayari Jones completes the journey of writing her novel An American Marriage.
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Craft Capsule: Finding the Center
Authors share their notes on writing in this series of micro craft essays. In the latest installment: finding the center of your story.
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Craft Capsule: The Scourge of Technology
Authors share their notes on writing in this series of micro craft essays. In the latest installment: writing around tech in contemporary fiction.
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Craft Capsule: Finding Your Story
Authors share their notes on writing in this series of micro craft essays. In the latest installment: finding the story that challenges you.
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Craft Capsule: Real Time vs. Page Time
Poets and writers share their notes on writing in this series of micro craft essays. In the latest installment: considering process when writing a scene with action.
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Craft Capsule: The Art of Active Dialogue
Poets and writers share their notes on writing in this series of micro craft essays. In the latest installment: writing active dialogue without the use of gerunds.
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Craft Capsule: On Reading Aloud
Poets and writers share their notes on writing in this series of micro craft essays. In the latest installment: reading aloud.
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Craft Capsule: On Endings
Poets and writers share their notes on writing in this series of micro craft essays. In the latest installment: Is anything ever really over?
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Craft Capsule: We Get to Make a Mess
Poets and writers share their notes on writing in this series of micro craft essays. In the latest installment: the messy art.
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Craft Capsule: Run On
Poets and writers share their notes on writing in this series of micro craft essays. In the latest installment: the energy of long sentences.
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Craft Capsule: Before Craft, or Hug Your Independent Bookseller
Poets and writers share their notes on writing in this series of micro craft essays. In the latest installment: remembering the life-saving importance of reading.
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Craft Capsule: Memory, With Soundtrack
Poets and writers share their notes on writing in this series of micro craft essays. In the latest installment: how art and pop culture influence memory.
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