Writer
When I was 13, my sister bought Collective Soul’s first album (Hints, Allegations, and Things Left Unsaid), and played it all summer long. As a result, every time I hear a song from that album, I am suddenly and very vividly 13 years old again. My brain has linked that music so irrevocably to my 13th year, and all the …
This is part 2 of how to create a prophecy or any other sort of archaic text for your story. In my previous post, we talked about the basic elements of a prophecy (who? what? when? where? why? is there cake? is the cake a lie?). Now we can bring together those elements and start creating the actual text of …
I came across Miss Snark’s blog years ago, and it’s been one of my favorites ever since. The very aptly named Miss Snark describes her occupation as “Satan’s literary agent”. Her blog provides an immense amount of information on the publishing industry, delivered in such a hilarious, scathing voice that her anonymity is a wise career move. Miss Snark closed …
A lot of writers are good at beginnings–starting off with a bang. Then there are plenty of writers who are masters of endings, knowing how to tie things up in a way that is both dramatic and satisfying. I rarely come across anyone who favors the middle section of a story. In my experience, this is the point where I …
Prophecies are a very common element among fantasy stories. I can hear you now.. “Cliche! It’s been done to death. Prophecies are so predictable (ha, get it?).” When paired with a protagonist that happens to be the ‘Chosen One’, yeah, I agree. This is a hard one to pull off in a fresh way. However, prophecies and predictions are present …
Left to my own devices, I tend to be a by-the-seat-of-my-pants sort of writer. More often than not, this gets me into trouble–not only do I end up meandering all over the place, it’s hard to finish things, and it makes writer’s block a true dead end. When I stalled out on my current novel project, I read a book …
For me, villains are the most difficult characters to write. I find that I have to spend alot more time developing their character and carefully editing their dialogue than I do any of my other characters, hero/heroine included. It’s difficult to nail down a convincing “evil”. The world is filled with cardboard villain cutouts.. people who want to take over …
A subject that came up between writing friends… how do you deal with the “escape scene”? Imprisonment of some sort is a much loved staple of the classic adventure story. So what makes a “good” escape, and what makes a “bad” one? How much detail, as a writer, should you go into when putting an escape into the story? Lets …
Meeting new people can be awkward. It’s as simple as that. While writing fiction, sometimes we’re faced with the dilemma of introducing very different people under unusual circumstances. Some time ago, I had a conversation with a friend who needed to do just that–but was drawing a blank on how to go about it. Here’s what we came up with:
I don’t care what they’ve told you–you can’t show everything. Some things you need to tell. Exposition is necessary, especially for spec-fic writers who can’t rely on their readers to already be familiar with the story’s setting. The trouble for me comes when I’m trying to figure out what information is necessary, and how to communicate it without breaking the …