Home  >  emtwytte

Author: emtwytte

November 1, 2016

Stupidity Takes the Fright out of Horror

Is it just me, or is it true? Stupidity takes the fright out of horror. Take your generic horror story: an Average Joe, presumed to be relatively intelligent, finds himself (or herself) in the middle of some awful and very probably supernatural danger. Average Joe must then find a solution and/or fight through the situation to either defeat it or simply survive. Throughout...
Categories Characterization, Plot, & Setting/Literary Devices & Writing Techniques Comments: 2
October 27, 2016

Do You Ever Hate Writing?

Do you ever hate writing? Sometimes, when we get to a writing exercise, a student will groan, “Ugh, I hate writing!” And while Dorothy Parker was being witty when she said it (when wasn’t she being witty?), the students who say this are deadly serious. They’re teenagers (so I’ll admit there’s probably some hyperbole involved), but at least some of them honestly and...
Categories General Thoughts & Updates/Quotes, Words, & Phrases Comment: 1
October 25, 2016

The Line Between Prose and Poetry

I got on facebook to reply to one invite and, predictably, spent the next hour distracted by various people’s posts. The one that finally inspired me enough to break the fb tunnel vision was a shared article about anxiety called “Anxiety Is an Invalid Excuse” from Just Cut the Bullshit. Besides the gripping illustration of a hard situation, the post caught my interest...
Categories Literary Devices & Writing Techniques/Poetry Comments: 0
October 18, 2016

A City’s Character: More Writing Inspiration from Travel

A while back, I talked about how to make the most of travel delays with the people-watching writing prompt, but even if there are no (or few) people around, you can still find plenty of useful inspiration in your travels by considering a city’s character. Places are like people. They have a certain look, a certain feel. They have their...
Categories Inspiration/Literary Device Exercises/Travel/Worldbuilding Exercises/Writing Prompts Comments: 0
September 30, 2016

Food as a Writing Prompt

You can’t use food as a writing prompt! Or can you? Hmmm… Food can be used for worldbuilding. It’s inspired the readers to recreate the dishes from books and movies (Did you check out the recipes from Studio Ghibli and Avatar: the Last Airbender or from the Harry Potter series and LOTR?). Heck, if people can find Jesus on a potato chip, then why can’t we find a scene...
Categories Characterization Exercises/General Thoughts & Updates/Plotting Exercises/Writing Prompts Comment: 1