In my last blog I talked about how important it is to leave some things up to the readers imagination when writing description, but this doesn’t mean that description isn’t important. It’s just as important, in fact. So how do you go about writing description? I’ve found that the best way to go about it is keeping in mind the five senses while writing. When describing a scene you don’t want to make the mistake of just describing the things your characters are seeing, but at t

Time and time again I’ve heard: a story's magic is found in the details, but a lot of it is not. In fact, when I read, most of that magic is found in the gaps, the holes that my imagination fill. Believe it or not, but those holes can make your story more vivid to your reader. But as a writer, how do you know when you've crossed that line from just right to too much detail? There is no right answer, but I’m sure we can all agree that our imagination plays a crucial role in ou

Before you sit down to draft a story, do you consciously decide on the tense? Or, like me, do you just go for it and see what your subconscious mind selects? One of my first stories I tried to write was written in past tense, initially. But, over the course of several days in which I pittered away on my computer, I somehow switched to present tense. I find that this problem is rather prevalent among many new writers. Has it ever happened to you? Over the years I’ve been able

As writers and/or artists it is our worst fear to be the victim of plagiarism. As people of creation, when we write a story or poem we are bleeding our essence into every word, every letter. When creating a sculpture we cut away and cut away at the clay until we see a piece of ourselves emerge, until we're satisfied with that little bit of light or darkness in ourselves. Our creations are extensions of ourselves. They are our memories, our darkest secrets, our first kisses, o

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year! Today I wanted to talk a little bit about submissions. We’ve had a TON for our first issue of The Hungry Chimera, for which we are very grateful to you all! Afton and I are VERY lax when it comes to our submission guidelines, as many of you may have come to know. But, you can bet that other places aren't so easy (or as awesome, but that's my opinion). Take, for instance, a fancy magazine that’s been around for a