Open Loop Press » character

First, Do No Harm: John Pipkin Re-visions History

editor — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 05:00:21 +0000

"I often tell my creative writing students that the biggest challenge in writing is that we really haven't created any new emotions in the last 2000 years, that the same things that people are experiencing now are the same set of emotions that human beings have always experienced, we just talk about them in a different way and we experience them in a different context […] so the challenge in writing historical fiction is then to figure out what the contexts were in which these experiences were encountered."

Writing Exercise: Research Your Story With Foursquare

editor — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 17:06:04 +0000

Last week I heard Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley talk about the evolution of an idea. From question to concept, prototype to vocation, Crowley explained that Foursquare came about not because he had a striking business plan and market-tested concept, but because he decided to make something he wanted to see in the world. This advice is as true for writers as it is for startup CEOs. Passion is the first ingredient. But what comes next? While tools on their own don’t make the writer’s story great, they do make his job easier. Which brings me back to Foursquare. Foursquare ...

A Study in Character: Dedra Johnson on the “Real” Voice in Fiction

editor — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 06:32:25 +0000

"I've always liked the idea of the unreliable narrator, or the multi-layered narrator, where you understand more than the narrator is telling you, and so I very intentionally did that with her. Sandrine being a child made it possible to do that."

Fiction as Fibbing: Benjamin Taylor

editor — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 04:02:01 +0000

"It's about fifty percent based on certain things I know from real life, and about fifty percent made up out of nothing, just out of daydreaming. I think that's the way it should be. This is not memoir, this is not autobiography, this is not confession. It's fibbing. It's making things up."

Exploring Transition: Aryn Kyle

editor — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 03:53:38 +0000

"I think a lot of my writing begins with something I lived or something I saw, but then develops from the question, 'What would it have been like to live through that experience if I was this person, or that person, or if this had happened rather than that?'"