Listen Like a Poet: Let Language Oxygenate Your Fiction (Full)

by Melissa Goodrich

So you want to write a story. You pack it tight, stuffing the scarecrow with straw. You’ve got plot, characters, a setting, dialogue, and emotional stakes. All those ‘elements of fiction’—that’s good. Essential, even! But is that all it takes? Is it A Story?

A story becomes a  A Story for me when it starts breathing and moving independently — when Franke…