Anna Staniszewski

Categories: A Closer Look

• Making a Story Your Own

  Today I wanted to talk about fairy tale retellings, especially since that’s what I’ve been focusing on in my writing recently. Right now I’m about halfway through reading Ash, a retelling of Cinderella by Malinda Lo. I’m really enjoying the story and the writing is lovely. As I’ve been reading, I’ve been thinking about the

• A Lesson on Openings and Setting from DARK LIFE

  One of the things that makes speculative fiction so fascinating is setting. Often you want to give the reader a sense of the setting right away, but how can you do that without boring her? Well, as I was reading Dark Life by Kat Falls yesterday, I realized she does this very well. First off,

• Finding Your Middle Grade Voice

  In a recent post on Children’s Writing and Illustrating, David Caruba shared some of his “State of the Children’s Book Publishing Industry” presentation from this year’s NJ-SCBWI conference. There was lots of great info there, but what really stood out to me was his report on the middle grade market.
  Middle grade stories remain strong, although

• Endings Are About Trust

  So did you watch “Lost” last night? I’m still processing it, but it did make me want to talk about endings. While I was watching the incredibly long finale, I thought back to what Marla Frazee said at the SCBWI conference: “Endings should disarm us. They should be satisfying and mysterious at the same time.”
  I

• 6 Reasons I Stop Reading (and How to Avoid Them)

  I’ve been having great luck with books recently (Before I Fall, Incarceron, Mistwood) but for a while I was in a serious reading dry spell. I’d pick up book after book and not get more than a few chapters in. After reflecting on all those books I couldn’t get through, I’ve come up with a

• A Lesson on Dual POV from INCARCERON

  I just finished reading Catherine Fisher’s Incarceron yesterday and can’t stop thinking about what a great story it was. Of course, when a book stays with me like that, I try to analyze what exactly worked about it. I think in the case of Incarceron, it was the story’s fascinating (but not off-putting) complexity and

• Tell Me a Story

  I’ve been driving more than usual recently, so I grabbed a few audiobooks from the library to help pass the time. I’m not usually a big audiobook listener, but I must say I’m starting to like the experience. Something I’ve noticed with the past few books I’ve listened to is that I’m much more likely

• What Makes Comedy Work?

  I’ve been thinking a lot about comedy recently and what makes it work. There are so many different kinds of comedy it’s difficult to point to one technique and say: “Aha! Here is the secret to making people laugh!” But I came across something in James Scott Bell’s The Art of War for Writers I

• Are Stand-Alone Books Dying Out?

  In case you haven’t noticed, books in a series seem to be a big thing these days, especially in YA. Of course, the popularity of series is nothing new, and they make a lot of sense for publishers as well as for readers. But I’ve been wondering if the popularity of series might be affecting

• Characters Don’t Have to Be Nice

  I just finished reading Before I Fall last night and this morning it’s still swirling around in my head. It’s about a girl named Sam who has to relive the day she died over and over until she gets things right (kind of like Groundhog Day but a little more morbid). There were so many