Protagonists Suck
You know what the worst part of most traditional stories is? The protagonist. Protagonists are never the best part of…
How to Use Snapchat Filters in Instagram Stories
In early August, Instagram introduced “Stories,” a new feature the company asserted would let users “share all the…
How to Make People Fall in Love With Your Ridiculously Competent Hero
We all love characters who are good at what they’re doing. Nobody wants to root for someone who screws up constantly or…
To This Day, I Am Terrified of The La Brea Tar Pits
Outside the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum, there’s an installation. In a still-bubbling lake of asphalt, a mammoth drowns…
A Collection of Six-Word Stories From a Dark Digital Future
We don’t know much about the future that these very, very short stories come from. But we do know that they have…
How the Hell Did I End Up in Michigan?
Welcome back to the Connected States, the project that involves me living in a van for a year, driving around and…
"He Said, She Said": Is There Any Cooler Way To Show Dialog In Fiction?
So you've written some sparkling dialogue, and even made sure your characters don't all have the same "voice." But…
15 More Mortifying Wrong Window Tales
We thought we knew the extent of human shame. We thought wrong. After publishing some of your most mortifying follies…
io9 Newsstand: Best Stories of the Week for October 6 - 11
Last month, Nebula award-winning author and editor Eugie Foster passed away at the way too early age of 42. Eugie was,…
Tell Us Some Six-Word Science Fiction Stories!
Can you spin just six-words into a whole story? We hope so, because we want to hear your best (and shortest!) science…
I Was Hidden on This Guy’s Hard Drive for Over Six Years
Six years ago, photographer Joey L. was accidentally caught on film by a fellow snapper. Six years later, the pair…
How humans have created stories through the ages in a nine-panel strip
It doesn't matter if it comes from a book, a movie or a friend: Conflict is what triggers the majority of the stories…
Google+ Stories Might Actually Make Photo Albums Beautiful (and Easy)
Raise your hand if you've ever gone on a vacation (or even to an event for a day), taken a bunch of photos, sworn…
Cast Your Vote For the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories of 2013
Every year, the science fiction and fantasy trade journal Locus asks the public to select from its editors' picks for…
A New Geo-Tagged Storytelling Site Might Be The Ultimate Travel Tool
How do we discover new cities to visit? How do we remember where we've been? With all the tools at our fingertips, I'd…
Watch This Animated Fairy Tale About a Noble Quest to Fix Wi-Fi
In this modern age, there aren't many sleeping beauties to wake, dragons to fight or treasures to hunt. But there are…
The Universal Shapes of Stories, According to Kurt Vonnegut
The fundamental concept behind Kurt Vonnegut's master's thesis in anthropology at the University of Chicago was, in…
Read some of our favorite flash science fiction -- written by you!
Six words, used carefully, can build up a world — and that's just what these pieces of flash science fiction, covering…
She's trapped in a barbaric past, and she just wants to help people
I've written a lot about what it takes to create a new adventure hero from scratch — and now you can read a story where…