There’s an odd stigma in the literary world that genre fiction holds less merit and is somehow less important, relying too heavily on bells and whistles that literary fiction writers refrain from implementing. I call bullshit through cupped hands through a megaphone. Good genre fiction not only provides thought provoking allegories, asks existential questions, as well as epiphanies of self-realization, but these stories that people scoff at provide a much broader gateway for burgeoning readers and writers to become immersed in the literary world.

Writers of genre fiction may have their heads in the clouds often, but getting lost in another world or way of life is all some people want when they sit down to read. I believe our journal should display the wide taste in subject matter that can reach and appeal to a diverse demographic of people. A literary journal that limits its fiction section to solely consist of literary fiction can, over time, appear stagnant and one-note. The addition of genre fiction stories gives a journal far more options for what will appear on the cover of any given issue of the magazine (or header, in the case of an online magazine), as well as the order stories will be displayed in the journal which can greater exemplify linear themes and techniques throughout various kinds of stories, told in different ways.

Iconic genre fiction has challenged and contributed to the way generations of readers perceive the mold of a story and raise the expectation of what a fictional story can say and do to enthrall a reader. 

I believe that unless a literary journal is trying to make a name for itself or stand apart as a prestigious literary fiction journal, it’s doing itself a massive disservice by ignoring the interest, skill, and passion that writers of all levels have for genre fiction. The demand for genre fiction has prompted new literary magazines such as Rivet: The Journal of Writing That Risks and Remarkable Doorways. More and more literary magazines like these two are looking for groundbreaking or immersion-worthy genre fiction with each passing month; at least seven have sprouted up in the first two months of this new year.

Runestone can provide an outlet for aspiring undergraduate writers that aren’t ready or aren’t comfortable submitting literary fiction. Runestone can incentivize burgeoning writers to want to submit and work on their stories, giving them a leg up in the arduous process of being prolific in the literary world.

I would love to see a wide array of diversity both in content and voice in Runestone. I firmly believe if our literary journal is going to be compromised of work from undergrads, edited by undergrads, then the journal should appeal to, and represent, undergrads.

Meet the blogger:

My name is Cole Pentico and I am a senior in the BFA program at Hamline University. I primarily write genre fiction and my favorite technique is to take a plot or theme that seems familiar to a reader and augment the story into something all my own. 

Many writers around the world attempt to search everywhere for new material. Many of us are also unfortunately constrained to searching only where we live, but this does not have to be a negative thing. No matter where you live, inspiration is around you. For instance, right here in the fair and wonderful Twin Cities.

Still searching for inspiration? Still unable to tear down this writer’s block? Well start out by flipping to the Comics section of your city newspaper. You may come across the beloved strip titled Peanuts, where Snoopy and Woodstock reside, chuckling at Charlie Brown as he attempts to kick a football but lands on his butt because Lucy moves the football. Charles Schultz, from our very own Minneapolis, MN started out his morning routine with a jelly donut as he paged through his mail and then he would go sit in his studio to write his daily comic strip. He was a normal, creative guy. Just like all of us. 

If you’re still suffering from writer’s block – still searching for that inspiration, or even if you’re curious about where some of your favorite authors get their inspiration, again take a look at Minnesota native Charles Schultz. Schultz named his principal Peanuts character Charlie Brown after one of his co-workers at the Art Instruction Inc. Schultz literally took inspiration from his own life to create the infamous characters that we all know and love. 

To conclude, having writer’s block happens to all of us as writers. Charles Shultz is someone I have chosen to use as a good example of a great Minnesota native who got his inspiration from his own life, working with playfulness and humor to create brand new comic ideas every single day.

Meet the blogger:

My name is Shane Orr and I am a graduating senior at Hamline University. I am majoring in Creative Writing with a minor in English. I have a strong background in Creative Nonfiction writing. I hope to someday be a technical writer in the field of medicine or in animal studies.

As a self-proclaimed burgeoning techie, I’m obsessed with things that make me feel like the future is unfurling in front of me. A few months ago, I watched a short documentary by the Verge via YouTube about a company called Wattpad. It’s a platform for writers to post their work and get feedback, though to say so little would not do it justice.

On average, Wattpad has about 20 million unique visitors per month. That’s like getting the entire state of New York to read in the same library. Content is whatever you want it to be. One of Wattpad’s largest success stories comes from a woman who wrote a fanfiction that landed her a book deal, with a movie in the works.

Sound familiar? It’s not Fifty Shades of Grey, but still a fanfiction about the British boyband One Direction. In my mind, I hear some of you protest about quality literature, but that does not diminish the number of people out there reading. That’s something to remember. As writers, we want people to read, and we must be able to adapt if we want our work to be read.

A year or so ago, I came across a story written in Twine. For those who haven’t heard of it, Twine is an interactive story platform. Imagine a choose-your-own-adventure story, online. Except themes aren’t limited to G-rated kiddy tales about turning down the wrong hallway in a haunted house.  

The story I read was called Even Cowgirls Bleed. It was a humorous queer tale about a city girl moving out West to be a cowgirl. Every time you made a decision, a gunshot sound effect went off, and the highlighted option changed color while the story automatically scrolled down. The cursor turned from the triangular white pointer into the aiming sight of a gun.

The background can change, the font can change, and the sound can change, along with many more options. With Twine, you have more control over the way a person reads your story, giving your prose more novelty, and perhaps, the ability to go viral. (Maybe that’s your chance to score an interview and a giant TV from Ellen.)

Back in the day there were a limited number of options when it came to getting your work out there.  You put quill to parchment and sent letters, perhaps pamphlets or bulletins, maybe a soapbox on the corner where the snake oil salesmen spent his afternoons. There were magazines, newsletters, books advertised within books. Things generally took a while to get out there.

Now getting work out into the universe only requires an internet connection. I’ve seen videos on YouTube of poets animating their work along with creative visual artists. Six-word stories and memoirs on Twitter. Cooking blogs getting cookbooks. Ebooks on Amazon. (Good) horror stories on Reddit. The internet is ablaze with content. If you want in on the circulation, get burnin’.

meet the blogger:

Rebecca Drobinski is a born and raised Minnesotan. Most days, she thinks about life as a hermit in the woods, cozied up with books and blankets. She hopes to one day write good things.

As a poet I am a bit of a language geek. The structure of language from diction to syntax is fascinating and playing with it makes me feel a bit like a mad scientist. However, examining language I think is key to improving writing in general and is not something exclusive to poets. 

Digging into the entrails of the English language can seem a little bit daunting especially when you start talking about things like labials, sibilants or begin counting syllables and doing scansion. It can start to look a little like a math equation. Don’t be afraid though, there are simpler concepts that you can use to improve your writing without having to dive into the heavy linguistics, as much fun as that is.

I think one of the more exciting things we did in one of my early poetry classes was looking at the structure of humor (a lesson plan idea from Cody Walker). Humor is all about timing and language. Say the wrong word at the wrong time and it kills the flow of the joke (like that friend you have who is awful at telling stories). The New Yorker has a caption contest each week where one of their artists draws a cartoon and the readers submit captions to go along with the illustration. Then they are voted on by other readers and the best ones get published the following week.

The combination of coming up with something funny and relevant to the illustration plus the 250 character limit (the majority of winners are much shorter) means you have to be incredibly creative with your language. Its something screenwriters for sitcoms do all the time when they are coming up with those oh-so-quotable one-liners or when someone writes a particularly funny tweet. 

Take this cartoon for example. The winning phrase was, “Don’t repeat this,” three simple words and what would seem like something really easy to come up with, but it’s a little more complicated (and exciting) than that. First, notice that they chose “Don’t” as opposed to do not, and notice how that changes the tone and flow of the sentence, would “Do not repeat this,” be better? 

One of the other finalists was “We have to stop eating the seed money”. The key things to notice here are “We have to” as opposed to simply, “stop eating the seed money” or something like “We must stop…” etc. Small changes can alter the entire meaning of the phrase and can make it sound better or awkward.

Its an exercise you can do with other things, including your own work. Watch your favorite comedian and notice how they time their jokes and when they take their pauses, see if you can find the punctuation (this also works on Presidential speeches). 

This other caption contest features some unusually lengthy finalists. But the first place finalist, “We have to move out—I just sold a painting,” is really just two shorter phrases linked together. It simulates a sort of build-up and punch line structure with a natural pause (like a caesura in a poem) represented by the long dash before the joke hits you.

The constrictive nature of these contests is what’s so important to pay attention to. The forced structure causes the submitters to think more creatively about how they set up the language of each caption. It’s similar in more formal poetry like sonnets, sestinas, couplets etc. The structure is what forces writers to flex their linguistic muscles.

Really this is just an exercise in taking a closer look at your work and how you are structuring individual sentences and phrases. It works extraordinarily well for dealing with small bits of your work (like an individual line in poetry or some dialogue in a creative nonfiction or fiction piece) in a more in-depth way.

Meet the blogger:

I’m a senior studying English and creative writing. An aspiring editor and poet, I’m really into the art of language. My favorite authors are Walt Whitman, Neil Gaiman, Matt Rasmussen and Ray Bradbury. I also spend a lot of time with my pet fish and travelling the world.

When a 20-something signs onto their social media accounts, what do they see? What I see is a mixture of things; pictures from a friend’s spring break trip, a horrifying debate about what color a certain dress is, and fairly common rants from my passionate political friends. While the world of the internet may seem like a vast wasteland where information and opinions are dumped into 140 characters, it has the potential to be so much more than that. It can be a place where literature can thrive, and undergraduate writers can have their voices be heard. 

In creative writing courses, we read works from the greats: Flannery O’Connor, Joyce Carol Oates, Shirley Jackson and many more who inspire us to be better writers. Write things that matter.  This is where the undergrad brings something new to the table. We may not have our degree yet, but we are striving for much more than that. We want to write to let our voices be heard, write to the relevant topics that we face today, write to make these things matter.

At times as a student, it’s hard to keep your school work, social life, and online life separate. One minute I can look through all of my social media friends and see Facebook posts about a recent news event at another college, tweets about a new song that just dropped by Kanye West or how crazy a friend’s weekend went. Ten minutes later I’ll be reading hard copies of work from my other undergraduate classmates and go through the process with them, read work that’s relevant to my own life, while the online world keeps updating every few seconds. Wouldn’t it be great if all this blended into one sitting? Online literary journals are the way to do it. Now I can read the best work from all over the nation, from undergrads who haven’t yet had their voice heard in the literary world. 

With Runestone, an online literary journal for and edited by undergrads, we get a chance to create something new for the world of literary arts. Now when I scroll through my social media, I can begin clicking on links to a great piece of fiction a talented young writer has worked on, or a poem that has reached the masses of youth on social media. Online literary journals can join the ranks of social media and begin a new way to connect with others all because it’s refreshing and relevant to what is being talked about in our culture, and what is being talked about online. 

It’s time to hear from the undergrads, the next generation of writers that have been submersed in a world where the next great story could be a click away, and readers who want to keep those pages refreshing. We’re ready. 

Meet the blogger:

I am studying creative writing with an emphasis on fiction, with a minor in English and Sociology. Upon graduation I hope to break into the publishing world, working in marketing and publicity some day. Fun fact: I can recite the alphabet backwards!