YEAH WRITE!

The Yeah Write Review | Issue 02

The Yeah Write Review is more than just a literary magazine—it’s your new creative writing textbook! But don’t worry, it’s full of fun stuff, and there are no deadlines or homework assignment except WRITE!

The Review features 10 writing advice articles written by English majors, Creative Writing MFA candidates, and published authors. Topics cover fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and include topics from writing about death in a believable way to framing an argument in your personal essay to considering the news ways that poetic meter is used.

Feel like they forgot something? Have an anecdote about tackling that particular writing technique that you want to share? Think our article is a bunch of bullshit? Click on the Two Cents icon that’ll take you right over to “class”—unique message boards for each article where you can share your two cents about the topic (similar to when we have discussions right here on Yeah Write!).

And don’t worry, we didn’t forget the entertainment. The Review also has 5 short stories, 6 poems, and 3 nonfiction pieces by writers from all walks of the literary life. We think these pieces will knock your socks off, and they’re all short enough to be read on your subway ride, the toilet, or before bed.

We also have a new store! Very exciting.

Purchase your print and/or digital copy here.

Cases in point:

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak: AMAZING. I Am the Messenger? Only got 11% before I stopped reading. (*Addendum: I did know that I Am the Messenger was published before The Book Thief. I guess I should rephrase “first novel” to “most famous novel”.)

White Oleander by Janet Fitch? Life changing. Paint It Black? Only got 22% before I stopped reading.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt? Spectacular. The Little Friend? Only got about 70 pages (I had to stop reading because I started while I was visiting an aunt in Colorado, but it didn’t grab me enough to seek it out again once I got home).

…and the list goes on.

I read Everything is Illuminated and then Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (all the way through) and though I loved both, he uses a lot of the same elements in both books, which sorta ruined the magic for me. I’m still obsessed with Everything is Illuminated though, that might be my favorite book.

It doesn’t mean that I’ve never liked more than one book by one author (and none of this applies to series). It’s just lately this seems to be happening, which sucks when I’m spending at least $10 on every book I download.

I just don’t understand, though, how someone can be a one hit wonder when it comes to novel writing. Writing a great book by chance seems so odd to me, since you have to think about so many elements—character development, plot arc, pacing, language, symbolism, themes… the list goes on and on. If you’re smart enough to carefully construct all of those things together for your first book, why do some authors fail so miserably on their second go? Is it because they have manuscript deadlines? Is it because they think that they can rest on the laurels of their well-received first novel…?

Thoughts?