21 Fast Hacks to Fuel Your Story With Suspense

The Writer's Digest has a great guest article from Elizabeth Sims called 21 Hacks to Fuel Your Story Suspense. This is a great collection and terrific resource to turn to.

Write the Ideas Down

Neil Gaiman's advice for being a writer, in response to a recent question.

"I have been trying to write for a while now. I have all these amazing ideas, but its really hard getting my thoughts onto paper. Thus, my ideas never really come to fruition. Do you have any advice?"

Neil Gaiman responded (in good humor):

Write the ideas down. If they are going to be stories, try and tell the stories you would like to read. Finish the things you start to write. Do it a lot and you will be a writer. The only way to do it is to do it.

See the full response at Neil Gaiman's blog.

What can I do to re-start being a writer?

Great question on Quora "What can I do to re-start being a writer?"

What are the best short stories?

Recently there was a great thread on Quora where participants shared their own short stories, some short and with an unexpected twist, and some short stories from well known authors.

Here is some of what was suggested:

• All You Zombies -by Robert Heinlein
• Suit Up - Nikant Vohra
• The Elephant Vanishes and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman - Haruki Murakami
• Gift of the Magi - O'Henry
• A Small Good Thing - Raymond Carver
• The Third and Final Continent - Jhumpa Lahiri
• Impact of job change - Dinesh Enid
• Flowers for Algernon - Daniel Keyes
• The Last Leaf - O. Henry
• The Swimmer - John Cheever
• Goodbye, My Brother - John Cheever
• Pet Milk - Stuart Dybek
• Victory Lap - George Saunders
• The Word - Vladimir Nabokov
• Notes to My Biographer and War's End - Adam Haslett
• The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
• The School - Donald Barthelme
• An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge - Ambrose Bierce
• The Diamond as Big as the Ritz - F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Ice Palace - F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Dice, Brassknuckles, & Guitar - F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Nick Adams Stories - Hemingway
• Good Old Neon - David Foster Wallace
• A Good Man is Hard to Find - Flannery O'Connor
• The Lottery - Shirley Jackson
• There Will Come Soft Rains - Arsène Hodali
• The Fall of the House of Usher  - Edgar Allen Poe
• The Birthmark  - Nathaniel Hawthorne
• The Metamorphosis  - Franz Kafka
• The Egg - Andy Weir (this also had a short video adaptation)

10 Ways To Turn Your Real Life Experiences Into Science Fiction

An article from iO9 explores 10 different ways to turn our own life experiences into science fiction stories.

See the full article at: http://io9.com/10-ways-to-turn-your-real-life-experiences-into-science-1672787624

Thoughts on Writing

I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one.

Flannery O'Connor

The Ultimate Source of Writing Prompts - Reddit

I discovered this week a writing prompts treasure. Reddit has a dedicated section to writing prompts called Reddit Writing Prompts. This section is constantly being updated and enriched with comments. Definitely worth coming back!