be the story

Carnival of Storytelling #9

Welcome to the Carnival of Storytelling!

Thanks to everyone who submitted articles. Please show your support by checking out other articles on these blogs.

If you would like to host an edition of the Carnival of Storytelling, please let me know.

Now, the most interesting posts in the blogosphere about telling stories…

Review and Analysis

• Let’s start off this issue with an unsolicited, but personally significant link. The more you write, the more likely you too will get one of these. Here it is: My worst review ever. (And BTW, if you’d like to write a review of this ebook, please contact me and ask for a review copy.)

• Robert Huttinger brings us his review of Writing Drama: A Comprehensive Guide for Playwrights and Scriptwriters, “by far the most comprehensive book available on the subject of screenwriting coming from a European author.”

Art and Craft

• Marcus Hochstadt presents a simple tip to help you overcome writer’s block, one which yours truly uses all the time and which actually works.

• And on a completely different note– Uh, I mean, on the same note Rebecca Dean also has a simple tip to help you overcome writer’s block, one which yours truly uses all the time and which actually works. Seriously, I can’t stress enough how important this technique is. And if I had a third post on the subject, I’d add it, too.

• Okay, actually I do. Here’s a post from yours truly, which expresses the same technique in yet another variation: “Why I Don’t do 70 Days of Sweat (and other sprints).”

• Looking for a title for your next book or article? Stephen Dean has some tips on deciphering Cosmopolitan headlines.

• From the halls of grammar, Steve Osborne explores the good/well conundrum.

• There comes a time in every blogger’s life when having answered every email, researched every YouTube video, and basically exhausted every imaginable resource, he finds himself in the desperate position of actually having to write. Argh! Brent Diggs shows us three ways to start our writing project.

• Orna Ross dug up this wonderful list, which I admit I need to internalize more fully: 8 storytelling tips from Kurt Vonnegut.

The Business of Writing

• If the thought of writing a whole business book is something you just can’t see yourself doing, there is a way you can start on a smaller scale, and still get some of the same benefits for your business. Carol Bentley presents 4 easy steps to authorship.

• Tiffany Colter, the Writing Career Coach, tells her seat-gripping story, “How I Got Here.” (Click on “Newer Post” at the very bottom of the page to go to each new post. The H.I.G.H. story usually continues in the middle of each post.) Her writing career started in seventh grade, and almost ended in tenth. This hits me where I live, because I could be staring into my own daughter’s future. There’s a lesson here.

• Amy M presents a short Q&A with novelist Julie L. Cannon. It begins: “As an author you do not have exclusive rights to publish under your own name…” And this part of the story explains why I brand my writing with “J. Timothy King” and not just “Tim King.” I also love her advice to novice writers!

• Then she gives us An Interview with first-time author Misty Massey. (I love stories from writers in this stage of their careers.)

• Shamelle tells us of her “Intimate Details Of My Love Affair With Writing.”

Fiction and True Stories

• A completely unsolicited link, a story snippet that so enthralled me, I just had to include it. By Joely Sue Burkhart, a snippet from Broken Angel: A Zombie Love Story.

• Much of what I’ve read recently, published or not, has failed to excite me. That’s why I fell in love with Jenn’s gripping romance short, “The Keys to Her Future.”

• Ryan Du Bois sends us a brief character snippet, entitled, “Enjoyment”.

• Here’s a life-thought experiment by Justin Duval, “mind TRIP.”

• From Apartment Manager Adventures, the true story of a plumbing repair gone awry: “Just a drip…”

• Bela posted a humorous anecdote on House Chronicles, “How to Catch a Mouse.” Had me rolling in the aisle.

And that is this edition of the Carnival of Storytelling! Feel free to comment here or e-mail me to let me know what you think.

If you would like to host an edition of the Carnival of Storytelling, please let me know.

Submit your blog post for the next edition with the carnival submission form. Links to this and future editions can be found on the Carnival of Storytelling index page.