By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky Maybe it’s a psychological thing, some innate fear that our readers won’t pick up on our subtlety. So we over write. I’m a huge offender of this, but I’ve seen some published works that are pretty bad, too. Have you seen the “almost” sentence? Jake was…

By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky Endings can be a tricky business. It’s tough to do well. Here are a few things you want to keep in mind as you’re wrapping your book up. First Know where you’re going. Even if you don’t have an outline, have a plan in mind. It…

By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky I noticed something interesting when I worked as an editor for The Citron Review, the literary journal I founded in 2009. Here’s a quick glimpse of notes I often made to the other editors: Story 1: Sure! But it needs a new title. Story 2: Yes, but it…

By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky We’ve all made mistakes, and in the same way, our characters will, too. How we handle these mistakes, however, will dramatically impact our readers.  It’s important to remember two things about characters making bad choices. The first is that everyone makes mistakes, and these mistakes can…

By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky Each day, I begin my Creative Writing classes with a prompt. It seems, regardless of the prompt, someone doesn’t like it. I’ll often garner a few complaints about how the prompt is “stupid” or “lame” or “too hard.” To which, I say, “Too bad. Do it…

By Aaron Gansky @ADGansky During my undergrad studies, a student brought in a poem he’d written about he and his father cooking traditional Korean food. The poor kid was terrified. Our professor lacked tact and could be pretty harsh at times. With worried hands, he confessed his fear to us:…