It’s time to get some instruction! It’s not that I haven’t had any. I did go through school and I did some creative writing for a number of years before stopping altogether for thirty years. When I started writing again, I was creaky and rusted and made every error imaginable but it really was like riding a bicycle. The first results weren’t great, but I was able to put together something that resembled a story upon my glorious return. Over the past year and a half, I’ve bee

I wish I could say I have no idea why novelettes and novellas are not popular, but unfortunately, I think I know why. But I’ll skip over that and return to this point at the end of the post. Regarding reader experience, I believe that you can offer a full story in a novella, and while more difficult in a novelette, I still think it’s possible. I like to think I’ve written some pretty complete stories in short form, but I’ll list some famous examples first: The Fall of the Ho

For long fiction (for me that is anything from a novelette to a novel) I start with an idea. I don’t plot out before I start writing, but if it is longer than a short story then I definitely will switch to outlining my story. I find that for longer fiction (novelettes, novellas and novels) this usually means that the first part of the story needs to be completely reworked, but I don’t see it as a waste of time. Writing without a clear destination gets the process going withou