By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky You’d think deserts would have predictable weather patterns: Deathly hot, Hot, and Not as hot. But here in the High Desert of California, we enjoy (or suffer) unpredictable weather patterns. The desert, for us, is not so much a lack of weather. It’s weather at the…

By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky Recently, I talked a bit about a movie I saw that did a good job of setting things up and bringing them to fruition. While not the main point of my post, it reminded me of a principle Bret Anthony Johnston taught me some time back. Before he…

By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky The last class I taught at the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writer's Conference was how to write explosive short fiction. It’s a topic near and dear to my heart. As an editor of The Citron Review, an online literary journal specializing in flash and micro fiction,…

By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky You hear writers often mention the “fictive dream.” John Gardner called it a “vivid and continuous dream.” It’s a term used to describe a simple principle: no one wants to read a book. There, I said it. Man, it feels good to get that off my…

By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky While there are a variety of ways to organize the events in your story, some work better than others. I’ll give you a quick sampling of options that you have as well as a few benefits and potential drawbacks of each. For each example, let’s assume…

By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky If you’ve followed my blog much, you’ll know how much importance I put on the first line. Just as important, and just as tricky, is the final line. If I could make one observation from my years as a literary editor, I’d say that the best…