In this post, we look at Billy Devine's birdhouses in Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. Combining universal symbols in genre fiction is a great way of adding depth without bogging down the story.

Commas are such great fun. Using them properly, sticking them where they don’t belong, leaving them out entirely—you can bring a lot of voice to your prose when you get crafty with commas, and not just in fiction or other forms of creative writing.

In The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller, blue is a rich and complicated symbol, explored in this article.