Kristine Starling | Freelance Creative Writer

  • Book Update: Finding My Way Through the Forest

    Book update! It’s been a daunting journey, but I’m excited to share that I’m about 80% finished with a major developmental edit of my novel! This stage of the process has been one of the most challenging and most rewarding parts of writing so far. Every chapter, every scene has…

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    4 min read

    Book Update: Finding My Way Through the Forest
  • Popular Fantasy Tropes: Why These Classics Never Get Old

    A nostalgic look at the popular fantasy tropes that define the genre and why they still seize our imagination. You ever hear a story and think, I’ve heard this before? The farm boy who turns out to be the lost prince. The scrappy orphan who, surprise, is the key to…

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    4 min read

    Popular Fantasy Tropes: Why These Classics Never Get Old
  • Exploring The Metamorphosis: A Perspective Beyond Gregor

    Transformation is often imagined as something poetic, something endowed with purpose. But what of the changes that bring only ruin? What about the slow unraveling, the spaces left behind, and the silence that settles like dust? For a recent humanities course, I was assigned to write a passage from Franz…

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    4 min read

    Exploring The Metamorphosis: A Perspective Beyond Gregor
  • Shaping a Stronger Story in A Developmental Editing Process

    There comes a time in every writer’s journey when the story we imagined, the one we poured our blood, sweat, and sleepless nights into, meets the cold scrutiny of an editor’s eye. And in that moment, we see it for what it truly is. Not a failure, not a mess,…

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    4 min read

    Shaping a Stronger Story in A Developmental Editing Process
  • The Last Unicorn: Why This Fantasy Classic Still Matters

    “The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were still clear…

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    4 min read

    The Last Unicorn: Why This Fantasy Classic Still Matters
  • The Legacy of Dragons: Myth, Meaning, and Magic

    There are creatures of legend, and then there are dragons. The beasts of fire and sky, the lords of ancient hoards and prophecy. To speak their names is to summon something old, something primal, a force woven into the marrow of our collective mythos. I have always loved dragons, though…

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    4 min read

    The Legacy of Dragons: Myth, Meaning, and Magic