September 30, 2009 – 6:30 am
Several years ago, I was asked to give a speech on the topic of book-banning, from the viewpoint of a fantasy writer. It’s quite long, so I have carved into four parts to post as part of Banned Books Week. This is the second part of four.
__________
I wrote that story for this speech, because I [...]
September 29, 2009 – 6:37 am
Several years ago, I was asked to give a speech on the topic of book-banning, from the viewpoint of a fantasy writer. It’s quite long, so I have carved it up into four parts to post as part of Banned Books Week.
It begins with a story, because I am a writer and most things lead me to [...]
September 28, 2009 – 11:13 am
Every year, the American Library Association holds Banned Books Week in September. This is that week.
I’ve felt rather strongly about Banned Books Week for a long time - even before I met the teacher who was nearly fired because she put “Dealing With Dragons” on the reading list for her fifth-grade class (a parent, who [...]
September 27, 2009 – 8:28 am
Exactly what constitutes ”good writing” is a subjective judgment, and it can be extremely hard to separate from one’s personal taste - not the least because one is unlikely to read books one doesn’t like, and if one doesn’t read them, one can’t tell whether they’re “good writing” or not. Furthermore, there can be an enormous [...]
September 21, 2009 – 8:21 am
Years ago, when I was an unpublished wannabe, I was at a local SF convention trying to learn the True Secret of Writing from the professional writers in attendence. One of them (I think it may have been Gordy Dickson) threw out a piece of advice that has stood me in good stead for all [...]
September 17, 2009 – 9:46 am
Why don’t you do a collection of Enchanted Forest short stories, like Book of Enchantments only all Enchanted Forest?
Well, mainly because I’m a novelist. Short stories are really hard for me; in thirty years as a writer, I’ve written roughly fifteen publishable short stories. Ten of them are in Book of Enchantments; three more were [...]
September 12, 2009 – 9:18 am
I asked Caroline to do a guest post on her view of writing Kate and Cecy, particularly The Mislaid Magician. And this is what she says:
—
Pat said, “You’re going to kill me.”
That’s the way I remember my first encounter with THE MISLAID MAGICIAN. Pat Wrede and I were just finishing up with page proofs for [...]
September 9, 2009 – 12:00 pm
Alex asked “how you felt about the stand alone getting a sequel with the Kate and Cecelia books. I think you did an amazing job with escalation with these books, but did you have a hard time creating the right level of escalation?”
Well, for starters, “getting a sequel” isn’t quite the right phrase. The first [...]
September 5, 2009 – 9:34 am
The comments on the last post started getting into endings and the escalation of threat, particularly as related to series books, and I discovered I had quite a lot to say on the subject even though I haven’t written a long-running series myself.
The first thing is that not all trilogies or series are the same. [...]
September 2, 2009 – 10:13 am
There are a couple of ways of looking at plot, ranging from the bird’s-eye view at a macro level to the order of scenes, and events and incidents within scenes. The one most people run across first - and one of the most useful ways of looking at it for many writers - is the [...]