Somewhere in Eastern Nigeria, 16th of June, 1968 I avoided looking at the dead man’s face even as I approached. My intention was to quickly search the body for weapons and ammunitions. I wasn’t particularly picky, even a knife would do at the moment. Guilt scratched at the back of my mind, preaching a sentimental... Continue Reading →
SACRIFICE ...all "good" things come to the desperate... Somewhere in West Africa 1679 “It's a girl,” the midwife mumbled in a raspy voice. She was a short woman with a bent back, and withered skin much like dates—shrivelled and brown. Nneka smiled a little then turned her face away. She wasn’t sad, but at the same... Continue Reading →
Oyo Empire, Western Africa. 1650 All members of the Supreme Council of the Oyo Mesi and Ogboni fraternity were present. They sat on polished wooden stools that lined the ancient walls of the throne room, and each held his face stiff and unyielding, filling the place with that air of impending doom. Ayibi sat, relaxed in his... Continue Reading →
Since Punctuation is a motherload topic, I wouldn’t be giving a full lecture on it, but I will try my best to touch the basics. A good writer must know where to use commas, full-stops, semicolon, dash, em-dash, quotation marks, question marks, exclamation marks, ellipsis, parentheses e.t.c. Proper punctuation usage is something readers barely notice... Continue Reading →
Is your story happening now or did it occur in the past? There are about twelve tenses in the English language but we will be focusing on the two types of tenses most stories are written in. Present Simple Tense Here, the narrator or viewpoint character tells the story as it is happening. I hand... Continue Reading →
An immersive story needs masterful usage of words that are arranged just right. When a writer's word bank is stocked, her story flows from fingers to keyboard at a faster, more fluid pace. Fact is, many find writing tedious because they lack the right words to use. You wish to write a story floating in... Continue Reading →
The third person point of view is the most popular point of view in fiction writing. Here the narrator is not part of the story but he knows enough to tell it in great detail. Words like he, his, himself, they or it are used when narrating the story. Examples: ... instead of allowing herself... Continue Reading →
Point of view (which would be referred to as POV for the most of this class) has to do with who is telling the story—the perspective from which the story is being narrated. Why is POV important in fiction? Readers need to know whose head they are in and this, in turn, gives them a... Continue Reading →
Let’s get something cleared up before we start. Try not to look at fiction writing like some sort of tall, hard-as-hell-to-climb mountain. Doing that wouldn’t help you in any way. We will approach these classes brick by brick, and I promise to be as simple as possible in my explanations and examples. I strongly believe... Continue Reading →
There are two times I remember intense pain waking me from sleep. One was a bad case of food poisoning in my first year at the university; nearly died. The second was when I was in JSS 2 or JSS 3, can't remember. It felt like a chainsaw was let loose in my stomach.... Continue Reading →
I died on the 17th of April 2018, and it was all my fault. It was night, I was drunk as hell and stepping on the gas pedal like a maniac. Though the sharp bend road sign flashed at me, I ignored it. I mean, the road was stretched out in front of me, and... Continue Reading →
