Avatar photoPeter Selgin

Peter Selgin is the author of Drowning Lessons, winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction (Univ. of Georgia Press, 2008). He has published a novel, Life Goes To the Movies (Dzanc, 2009), three books on the craft of fiction writing (Writer's Digest, Serving House Books, Broadview Press), and a children’s picture book, S.S. Gigantic Across the Atlantic (Simon & Schuster). His first essay collection, Confessions of a Left-Handed Man (University of Iowa, 2012), was a finalist for the William Saroyan International Prize. A novel-in-manuscript, “The Water Master,” won the Faulkner-Wisdom Prize for Best Novel. His memoir, The Inventors (Hawthorne Books), which won the Housatonic Book Award, was among Library Journal’s Best Nonfiction Books of 2016. He is Associate Professor of English at Georgia College & State University. Find out more at his website.
The Wonderful Thing About Line Edits
single light bulb
The point of line edits isn’t to say, “My way is better!”, but to give a fellow author the gift ...
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Beware of Similes or Metaphors That Leave Readers Unaffected
Image: pint glass full of Lion stout
Effective “defamiliarization”—an unexpected comparison—results in readers viewing the commonplace in new ways, but beware of employing it in half measures ...
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A Vivid Character Is More Than a Series of Attributes
Image: a limp marionette
Description alone won't bring a character to life; it must be supported with evidence of a personality—and the more concrete, ...
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When Your Story Opening Does Nothing But Blow Smoke
Image: blank paper in a typewriter
When your narrator walks readers into the story, hand-in-hand, make sure you're really going somewhere and not just blowing smoke ...
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Exposition Should Serve the Scene, Not the Other Way Around
Image: coastal cliffs at sunset
Exposition works when it arises organically from a scene. But a scene that only exists to deliver exposition might leave ...
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The Problem Confronting Memoirists: Overabundance of Material
Image: interior of old railway carriage
Our lives contain an abundance of indelible experiences, but a good memoir isn't just about us—it's about illuminating a facet ...
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The Pros and Cons of Present Tense
Image: rows of brightly colored Jell-o shots
To convey a sense of immediacy, nothing beats the present tense. But for readers to want to stay in that ...
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The Value of Touching Details
Image: grid of mugshots
The point of fiction is to make believers out of us. Small details provide authenticity, making an invented world feel ...
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Why Writers Should Use a Clearly Defined Perspective—Not an Indeterminate One
Image: dim light from top of basement stairs
To convey a scene clearly, your narrator must experience it clearly—from a specific, well-defined perspective rather than a vague, general ...
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The Seductive Power (and Danger) of Metaphors and Similes
Image: aerial view of Manhattan street grid
Used judiciously, metaphors and similes can help readers see more clearly. Overuse, or ones that seem forced, can draw attention ...
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Beware of Blending One Too Many Literary Devices
Image: log cabin bedroom with carrycot
In a story that straddles multiple genres or narrators, they can't all have equal weight. Avoid confusion by making one ...
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Point of View: Moving From Plural Perspective to Individual Perspective
Image: confusing flowchart
To write in plural perspective—articulating the inner thoughts of a group—ensure you're also giving enough personal expression to your narrator ...
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Vivid Storytelling Requires Delivery of Experience, Not Just Information
Image: train tracks disappearing into the distance
Mastering POV—a particular sensibility operating from a specific vantage point—can make the difference between bland and vivid storytelling ...
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How to Evoke a Unique, Human Character—Not a Generic One
Empty peanut butter jar
Even a trivial detail can justify its place in your first sentence, so long as it achieves every sentence's ideal ...
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The Challenge of Sensational Story Openings
Renjo La Pass to Mount Everest, Nepal
Who, what, when, where, why and how: An effective opening doesn't necessarily address them all, but presents the best ones ...
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The No. 1 Rule for Flashbacks in a Story Opening
birthday cake
Rule No. 1 for flashbacks: until and unless you’ve invested us in a scene, don’t flash back (or away) from ...
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Why It’s Hard to Successfully Start a Story With a Dream
carousel horse
A problem with fictional dreams is that they ask us to invest emotionally in an experience only to have that ...
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Writing About Addiction: It Often Takes Two Perspectives
writing about addiction
Writing about addiction is tricky business. While most stories have a single protagonist, addiction narratives are usually about two people: ...
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Art’s Highest Purpose: To Complicate Our Feelings
bicycle handlebars
Now and then my students and I broach the unavoidable question: What makes a work of art? The question can ...
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Looking Back: A Retrospective Narrative That Appeals to the Senses
Looking Back: A Retrospective Narrative That Appeals to the Senses
The only stories that matter are those we inhabit personally, not just with our minds, but through our senses. Remember: ...
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When Your Opening Has an Excess of Nested Scenes, or Russian Doll Syndrome
When Your Opening Has an Excess of Nested Scenes, or Russian Doll Syndrome
If you’re determined to transition readers quickly through various scenes occurring at discordant times, skillful handling of tenses, and particularly ...
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Throat Clearing: When Your Story Opening Is in Search of Itself
Throat Clearing: When Your Story Opening Is in Search of Itself
Some story openings happen to get the author’s pen rolling, to blow some warmth onto the icy blank page, to ...
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Where to Begin: The Search for the Inciting Incident
Where to Begin: The Search for the Inciting Incident
Where to begin? Of all the questions that harass novelists and others with a story to tell, it has to ...
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Asked and Answered: Framing Story Questions Effectively
Asked and Answered: Framing Story Questions Effectively
Sometimes everything we need for our story openings is there, more than we need, in fact. It’s just a matter ...
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How to Use Adjectives Wisely and Judiciously
How to Use Adjectives Wisely and Judiciously
With modifiers, you want to choose your battles. Just because every noun offers itself up for modification(s) doesn’t mean you ...
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True and False: Two Kinds of Narrative Suspense
True and False: Two Kinds of Narrative Suspense
"True" suspense raises the question, “What’s going to happen next?” It arises organically and authentically from characters and their actions ...
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In Storytelling: Never State What You Can Imply
In Storytelling: Never State What You Can Imply
Telling readers what to think or feel is the job of a propagandist. A storyteller’s main purpose, on the other ...
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How to Establish Routine While Building Character on the First Page
How to Establish Routine While Building Character on the First Page
Routine is important. Without routine the extraordinary events that make for a plot have nothing to work against or to ...
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Writing Scenes: Crafting the Setup and the Payoff
Writing Scenes: Crafting the Setup and the Payoff
As writers, we’re always either setting up some moment or scene, or paying it off. Since scenes are the building ...
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The Pleasures of Genre
The Pleasures of Genre
Literary fiction’s subsumption by other genres and vice-versa has become so pervasive one must wonder what distinction if any can ...
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Inhabiting Our Scenes: Information Versus Experience
Inhabiting Our Scenes: Information Versus Experience
One reason behind the supremacy of the writing rule “Show, don’t tell” is that telling is, frankly, harder. To gain ...
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How Your Story Opening Foreshadows (Intentionally or Not) What’s to Come
How Your Story Opening Foreshadows (Intentionally or Not) What's to Come
To those who may object that the mere fact of two opposite-sexed people sharing the first scene of a novel ...
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The Challenge of Pulling Off a Dead Narrator
dead narrators
I have had mixed feelings about ghost narrators. As narrative sleights-of-hand go, it strikes me as a little too easy, ...
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How to Make the Best Use of “Routine” Events in Your Fiction
routine events
When we read about routines in fiction, or in any kind of story, most if not all the pleasure we ...
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How Works of Fiction Can Be Boiled Down to Two Types of Plots
Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
In most works of fiction, either a character's status-quo condition of discontent is challenged when opportunity presents itself — or ...
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Avoid Nagging False Suspense Questions in Your Story Opening
Avoid Nagging False Suspense Questions in Your Story Opening
Among a novelist’s chief challenges is that of determining what information to supply when and where: how to balance the ...
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The Deadliest First Page Sin—Plus a Critique of Two Novel Openings
your first page
While there are seven deadly first-page sins I commonly encounter, there is one that's most deadly of all: default omniscience ...
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