A good story is a “constructed reality,” and this is no less true of non-fiction than of fiction. Getting this constructed reality from your head into the heads of your readers requires more than just a command of words. Two tools for conveying a sense of reality are structure and pacing. Structure works on the macro level of story, while pacing works on the micro level. Both together serve to carry the reader smoothly through the story like a whitewater rafter who has lost his paddle, and must trust you to get him safely through the rough bits.
Writing as Self-transformation: Q & A with author Yael Shahar
Chaya Rosen, the founder of Art and Writings of Destruction and Repair, discusses writing as a tool of self-transformation with Yael Shahar, the author of A Damaged Mirror. How can story-telling become redemptive? What do names have to do with teshuvah–with returning to our better selves?
Writing Process Blog Tour
Why do we write what we write? How do we go about creating the worlds and moods that flow from mind to mind through the medium of words? Writers are, first and foremost, moodsmiths and only secondarily wordsmiths. This contribution to a multi-blog survey of writers around the world explores the process behind the words.