Although we want to evoke sensation and make it possible for the reader to feel, we don’t want to fall into sentimentality.
CRAFT: Sentiment & Sentimentality by Ellen Bass
CRAFT: Elevate Your Essays: Writing By Bringing the Interior to the Exterior by Estelle Erasmus
The best way to get into the underlying emotions of a story is to start with action, aka the inciting incident.
CRAFT: Recovering and Reclaiming Memory by Amy White
Like many authors … of creative nonfiction, I’m both inspired by and often turn to ephemera as “original source material.”
CRAFT: Biased Language in CNF: Crafting with a Careful Eye by Jennifer Chong Schneider
As a biracial writer…I often struggle with how to write about race: my race, my parents’, their families’…
CRAFT: Writing Emotional and Environmental Grief by Sarah Fawn Montgomery
“In many ways, memoir grieves a life that no longer exists.” — Sarah Fawn Montgomery on writing about loss.
CRAFT: How to Leave an Essay by Suzanne Farrell Smith
Deciding when and how to leave an essay is hard. You don’t want to drag on, but you don’t want to “dismount too early.”
CRAFT: Using Physical Comedy to Energize Dark Memoir by Susan Lippincott Mack
In literature, physical comedy may be slapstick or it may use subtle references to body functions….
CRAFT: Big Writing Dreams? Here’s Why You Need to Enter CNF Contests by Nicole Breit
CNF contests are worth submitting to, even if you’re a new writer. In fact, they’re a fantastic place to start.
CRAFT: Pedal and Prose: 3 Writing Tips from the Tour by Stephanie Hunt
In this month’s CRAFT column, Stephanie Hunt shares Tour de France-inspired writing tips.
CRAFT: How to Critique Writing About Trauma in a Safer Way by Yolande House
To avoid unleashing more pain on someone….here are some guidelines I’ve developed for writers giving feedback….
