For four decades, an English professor at San Jose State University has run a fiction contest for a single opening sentence to "the worst of all possible novels." He has decided to retire the contest.

For most of my editing career, I’ve worked in the lower rungs of the writing world, polishing the prose of inexperienced and, often, unskilled writers. I love it. Bad writing fascinates me. I obsess ...

“She had a body that reached out and slapped my face like a five-pound ham-hock tossed from a speeding truck.” That sentence, submitted by Lawrence Person of Austin, Texas, was the Grand Prize Winner ...

When you think about how you spend your day, a lot of it probably involves writing. You write emails, and text messages, and proposals, and memos. You spend time writing in ways you don’t even think ...

Although she hated the acrid taste and bite of the cigarette she had just lighted, the woman with tousled gray hair, narrowed eyes and a sneer of a mouth sauntered over to the tired-looking man at the ...

If you’ve got a story to tell, tell the story. No need to dress it up in a tutu. Many moons ago, my late friend John Van Doorn strolled ‘round the newsroom flashing a $5 bill, promising it to whoever ...

All advice is suspect. I'm not suggesting you break all the so-called rules of creativity you've collected. Only that every tip can be counteracted with its opposite. And some advice is just plain bad ...

A bad check is one drawn on a nonexistent account or with insufficient funds. Learn about potential legal consequences and ...

We are living in the Golden Age of Bad Writing Instruction. Mind you, the teaching of writing has always been problematic in the K-12 world. If you are of a Certain Age (i.e. mine) you may have fond ...