Josiah DeGraaf

Story Embers Editor-in-Chief

Josiah DeGraaf is a high school English teacher and literature nerd who fell in love with stories when he was young and hasn’t fallen out of love ever since.

He co-founded Story Embers in April 2018 and leads the site as editor-in-chief, where he sets visions and goals, reviews submissions, handles web design & marketing, and oversees site initiatives.

Someday Josiah hopes to write fantasy novels with worlds as imaginative as Brandon Sanderson’s, characters as complex as Orson Scott Card’s, character arcs as dynamic as Jane Austen’s, themes as deep as Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s, and stories as entertaining as Wayne Thomas Batson’s. In the meantime, you can find him teaching writers at Ink Slinger Academy or writing short stories on his website as he works toward achieving these goals.

Personal Website
Why Triangles Are the Secret to Writing Killer Scenes Every Time

Why Triangles Are the Secret to Writing Killer Scenes Every Time

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Have you ever noticed that one area of plot tends to get neglected? If you browse writing blogs on a regular basis, you’re probably familiar with multiple strategies for structuring a plot, such as the Three Act, Snowflake, Save the Cat, or Hero’s Journey templates. But advice on structuring individual scenes? That’s rare. Knowing how to plot an entire novel is useful, but if you struggle to craft the scenes and chapters within it, you won’t make much progress.

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How to Write Stories that Christian Readers Actually Need

How to Write Stories that Christian Readers Actually Need

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Why does Christian fiction as a genre have to exist? Why can’t we ditch the special label and simply write good fiction? In the first installment of our article series exploring The Promise of Jesse Woods, Josiah answers these objections and explains what the book teaches about crafting explicitly Christian themes that resonate with readers.

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Why Do Readers Enjoy Objectively Bad Books?

Why Do Readers Enjoy Objectively Bad Books?

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We all have books we hate where we can’t fathom how anyone else could enjoy them. And yet scrolling through the reviews of even your least-favorite book on Amazon or Goodreads will inevitably reveal a number of five-star write-ups. Why do readers like these books? And why does this matter to authors?

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Announcing Our Free New Video Course

Announcing Our Free New Video Course

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Last summer at our annual staff retreat, we ran into a dilemma. Many people want to become published authors. But that dream gets buried under rejections, discouragement, and life’s responsibilities. So they give up. Since we desire to help Christian storytellers excel, this presented a challenge: Why do writers quit? And how can we empower them to continue pursuing their goals?

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Celebrating Our First Anniversary (Plus a Big Announcement!)

Celebrating Our First Anniversary (Plus a Big Announcement!)

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One year ago, we founded Story Embers. Over the past year, we’ve reached 20,000+ visitors, got a listing in the Christian Writers Market Guide, crafted our manifesto of excellent Christian storytelling, and published 70+ articles on the writing craft. Now it’s time for us to take our next steps. And we want you to be a part of it.

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