I have a confession to make. For the longest time, I was a reading purist. And by that, I mean if I heard that you listened to audio books every day, I would not have considered you a “reader,” or even a book lover by any means. To me, the act of reading was the…
A super fun story that has all the staples of a children’s fantasy: snarky princesses, sneezing dragons, forbidden forests, and riddle-spouting magical beasts. The trouble never gets too dark, and the cheerfulness never gets too corny. A book that I can imagine reading aloud to any special little kid(s) in my life.
One of the things I’ve come to notice about my favorite stories is their ability to take contrasting subjects and make them mingle and harmonize. This can be found in characters we’ve seen for decades: the good girl with the bad boy; Beauty and her Beast; the average IQ tagging along with the renowned genius.…
I recently had this question posed to me by a friend regarding a short story I have been writing: “What’s easier: the first draft, or the second draft?” And in pure C.M. fashion, my response was: “It depends on the day.” The first draft, I explained, is “you telling yourself the story”—a quote that is…
This is one of those literary devices that can really ruin the element of surprise once you get used to spotting it. Based on a writing philosophy observed and often practiced by Russian author Anton Chekhov, the law of “Chekhov’s Gun” states that a storyteller should never introduce a gun in Act One of the…