He got up and sat on the edge of the bedstead with his back to the window. “It’s better not to sleep at all,” he decided. There was a cold damp draught from the window, however; without getting up he drew the blanket over him and wrapped himself in it. He was not thinking of anything and did not want to think. But one image rose after another, incoherent scraps of thought without beginning or end passed through his mind. He sank into drowsiness. Perhaps the cold, or the dampness, or the dark, or the wind that howled under the window and tossed the trees roused a sort of persistent craving for the fantastic. He kept dwelling on images of flowers, he fancied a charming flower garden, a bright, warm, almost hot day, a holiday—Trinity day. A fine, sumptuous country cottage in the English taste overgrown with fragrant flowers, with flower beds going round the house; the porch, wreathed in climbers, was surrounded with beds of roses. A light, cool staircase, carpeted with rich rugs, was decorated with rare plants in china pots. He noticed particularly in the windows nosegays of tender, white, heavily fragrant narcissus bending over their bright, green, thick long stalks. He was reluctant to move away from them, but he went up the stairs and came into a large, high drawing-room and again everywhere—at the windows, the doors on to the balcony, and on the balcony itself—were flowers. The floors were strewn with freshly-cut fragrant hay, the windows were open, a fresh, cool, light air came into the room. The birds were chirruping under the window, and in the middle of the room, on a table covered with a white satin shroud, stood a coffin. The coffin was covered with white silk and edged with a thick white frill; wreaths of flowers surrounded it on all sides. Among the flowers lay a girl in a white muslin dress, with her arms crossed and pressed on her bosom, as though carved out of marble. But her loose fair hair was wet; there was a wreath of roses on her head. The stern and already rigid profile of her face looked as though chiselled of marble too, and the smile on her pale lips was full of an immense unchildish misery and sorrowful appeal. Svidrigaïlov knew that girl; there was no holy image, no burning candle beside the coffin; no sound of prayers: the girl had drowned herself. She was only fourteen, but her heart was broken. And she had destroyed herself, crushed by an insult that had appalled and amazed that childish soul, had smirched that angel purity with unmerited disgrace and torn from her a last scream of despair, unheeded and brutally disregarded, on a dark night in the cold and wet while the wind howled

The Blog

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    The perfect length of a short story can be tricky to figure out. Make it too long and you exceed the reader’s attention span and nobody wants to publish it; make it too short and you have flash fiction on your hands. Edgar Allan Poe described the proper length of a short story by saying […]

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    If you’re like me, you go through the same editing motions with every single piece of writing. Why not change it up? Consult these 15 innovative editing strategies and you’ll find a way to edit your book into greatness.  By following these, you’ll strike the perfect balance between copy editing (grammar and spelling mistakes) and […]

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    There are three parts to a character: a personality, a backstory, and a motivation. These three things are what create your story.  Most important of the three is the character’s desire, or motivation. A motivation has the potential to be the backbone of the entire story, create a character arc, or add a more complex dimension […]

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    What would you do if a writer emailed you saying they were going to commit suicide? It happened to Cynthia McCabe, a journalist at the Washington Post. She was in bed one night, checking her email, and read an email from a complete stranger named Dennis Williams who said that he’d published one novel that no […]

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    With his new Random House release, “How to Write Like Tolstoy: A Journey into the Minds of Our Greatest Writers,” author Richard Cohen shines a light on history’s greatest storytellers. This spectacularly written how-to is not your average road map to becoming a pro. Throughout the pages of this delectable dish of writing advice, Cohen delves […]

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    Some writers hate outlining while others think it’s a godsend. Which kind of writer are you? And have you tried the other side? Those who are against outlining usually say they enjoy the discovery process they experience as the story unfolds. They learn more about their story, their characters and their own selves as a result […]

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    One of the hardest things about writing is nailing dialogue, and many writers mess up dialogue tags. How do you describe with mere words the complexity of a conversation? Unlike film, in which characters’ expressions and inflections can be clearly observed, in writing, the author has to paint these scenes without using a visual image. […]

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  • 10 Crowdfunding Platforms for Writers image of tag icon

    Why not get people to support you while you write your book, instead of waiting until afterwards?  This is called crowdsourcing or crowdfunding, depending on whether you are using the crowd for money or for support.  But how does one go about crowdsourcing? There are many ways and the steps are simple. First, determine what […]

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    One of the most difficult scenes to write is a kissing scene, or really any scene when when things get hot and heavy. Writers worry about being too obscene (will my mother read this?), or even worse, not vulgar enough (no one wants to be labeled a prude).  Humans are private creatures when it comes to lust, and […]

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