Voice (Differences in Short Story and Novel Writing)

  For my Irish fiction class this past week we read the novel Breakfast on Pluto by Patrick McCabe. The story starts with a brief history of Irish revolution and then launches straight into this voice: “Although I’m afraid I don’t get too many clients these days! I can just imagine the reaction of my old acquaintance … Continue reading »

3 Reasons to Imitate

The writing program at Northwestern University values as a learning tool the imitation. We read established authors like Chekhov, Carver, and Saunders (to name a few of the very long list) and then set out to imitate them. Now, this imitation can be very liberal–some of us use them merely to get the germ of … Continue reading »