fiction

The distinction between literary and genre fiction is stupid and pernicious. It dates back to a feud between Robert Louis Stevenson and Henry James. James won, and it split literature into two streams. But it's a totally false dichotomy. George R. R. Martin

Remember when Women On Writing had their free competition awhile back? I entered a flash fiction story I wrote for the old FF Litopia contest. They offer a critique which was interesting. It highlights that old problem of how the reader and a story create a whole different dynamic than you...

I got recommended this so decided to try the FREE TRIAL. This is the snowflake method... Somehow it makes my craw to rise. Like this is why I cant read a lot of genre fiction. I'm sure a template like this works tho. And I might have done better with my first book if I had, had it. Anyone...

Hi Litopians I am working on a historical fiction based on research I've accumulated on the life of my grandfather. My first chapter (Society of American Fakirs) was on PopUp submissions, but can't seem to find the link. I'm considering a format where each chapter starts with the short newspaper...

A reader is not supposed to be aware that someone's written the story. He's supposed to be completely immersed, submerged in the environment. Jack Vance

“The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes.” Agatha Christie

Women over 45 love books – it's time the book trade loved them back COMMENTMAY 24, 2022BY HARRIET EVANS Patronised, pigeonholed and ignored, women over 45 are buoying up book sales but are rarely consulted or celebrated in publishing. I wasn’t surprised last week at a literary festival when...

Here is Mushens Entertainment agency's advice on wordcount per genre with also an internal link to advice for children's fiction. https://www.mushens-entertainment.com/blog/how-to-edit-word-count

New blog post by Claire G – discussions in this thread, please --- Well, it sort of is… I’ve been fascinated by dystopian fiction for many years – any story which explores a dramatic change in the way of life for a society, if not humanity (which can of course cross into the post-apocalyptic...

Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures. Ralph Waldo Emerson

'Fiction, imaginative work that is, is not dropped like a pebble upon the ground, as science may be; fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners.' Virginia Woolf Virginia Woolf

The fiction writer’s ambition is modest and overweening: to take the imprint of the passing moment, capture it in the right words, keep it for the future to read. Tess Hadley dley

Crime fiction is the fiction of social history. Societies get the crimes they deserve. Denise Mina

Fiction and poetry are medicines: they heal the rupture reality makes on the imagination. Jeanette Winterson

Fiction can be more real to the reader than reality itself because fiction is the essence of life. James N. Frey

“Fiction is life with the dull bits left out.“ Clive James

'Fiction is not a dream. Nor is it guesswork. It is imagining based on facts, and the facts must be accurate or the work of imagining will not stand up.' Margaret Culkin Banning

“I think fiction is fundamentally an act of sharing, of intimate human communion. There’s no limit to its intimacy, nor its candour. To be drawn into a story is like receiving an embrace, to know you are not alone. Readers may begin a novel feeling at first that they’re entering a foreign...

Fiction is lies; we’re writing about people who never existed and events that never happened when we write fiction, whether its science fiction or fantasy or western mystery stories or so-called literary stories. All those things are essentially untrue. But it has to have a truth at the core of...