by Cole Salao
Chekhov’s gun is a dramatic principle suggesting that every element you add to a story must contribute to the whole. It was introduced by Russian playwright and short story master Anton Chekhov, who said: “Remove everything that has no relevance to the...
by Cole Salao
A portmanteau (pronounced: port-mahn-tow) is the combination of multiple words to create a new word. The concept was first introduced by author Lewis Carroll in his novel Through the Looking Glass, in which Humpty Dumpty explains to Alice how words can be combined:...
by Yen Cabag
As a student or writer, you know that you don’t want to commit plagiarism. But did you know that when you change a few words here and there from a passage that somebody else wrote, it may still be a form of plagiarism? When a revised passage remains too close to...
by Cole Salao |
A MacGuffin is a term popularized by film director Alfred Hitchcock, who describes it as “the thing that the characters on the screen worry about, but the audience don’t care.” A MacGuffin is usually established in the first parts of a story, then slowly...
by Yen Cabag
Many short story writers and novelists enjoy the ease of publishing their works digitally. But when it comes to poets, many are contributing to the revival of the printed book thanks to the rising popularity of chapbooks. If you’re wondering what a chapbook,...
by Yen Cabag |
The world of journalism is fast-paced and cutthroat: only the best can remain at the top. As people’s attention spans are getting shorter, you need to fight to grab their attention and keep them reading as long as you can. The good news is, the inverted pyramid...
