Monthly Archives: June 2011

Out of Context (Overheard at 4th Street 2011)

June 29, 2011 – 6:55 am

Rather than do a normal sort of round-up of how wonderful last weekend’s Fourth Street Fantasy con was, I opted to collect an assortment of interesting comments heard and overheard during the course of the weekend. A few were made by panelists on actual panels; some were made at panels by members of the audience; [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in General, Writing | Tagged , , | Comments (6)

What Everybody Knows

June 26, 2011 – 6:29 am

On the very first day at Fourth Street Fantasy convention (which as of this posting, is still in session for another half-day or so), Elizabeth Bear mentioned running into a writing myth I’d never heard myself before: Women can’t ride stallions, because stallions get aggressive around women. Geldings or mares only for female riders, please. [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Tagged , , | Comments (12)

Surprise and Suspense

June 22, 2011 – 9:57 am

Alfred Hitchcock gave a famous definition of the difference between surprise and suspense. It boils down to this: If a bunch of guys are playing poker and suddenly a bomb goes off under the table, that’s a surprise. It’s not what the viewer expects. If, however, the viewer knows the bomb is there from the [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Tagged , , | Comments (9)

Rewriting the past

June 19, 2011 – 6:30 am

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there” – L.P. Hartley  One of the tricky aspects of writing books set in any vaguely recognizable version of history is the inevitable clash between now and then, on pretty much every level. There are an enormous number of things that most people know or believe in [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Tagged , , | Comments (9)

Where one writes

June 15, 2011 – 6:42 am

Writing is one of the few occupations that aren’t tied to a particular place and time. It’s something that you can do anywhere, any time, if you want to. So I used to find it odd to hear so many writers talk about their desks and offices (and I thought it was especially odd that [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Tagged , , , | Comments (14)

Mailbag #5

June 12, 2011 – 6:09 am

What first inspired you to write? I hate questions like this because they make so many assumptions about “inspiration.” But since you ask… Probably a combination of my mother, my father, and the family I grew up in. This tends not to be the answer people are looking for when they ask this question, so [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Mailbag, Writing | Tagged , | Comments (10)

Barn Door

June 8, 2011 – 6:43 am

Once again, I am late on a book. This time, it’s a combination of things: first off, I didn’t count on how much time handling my Dad’s taxes would take this year; second off, I didn’t count on yet another family crisis involving meeting with lawyers and bankers and what-not cropping up at more or [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

On Characters

June 5, 2011 – 6:19 am

There are four really, really important things to remember about characters: Characters are people. (Yes, even if they’re aliens or elves or talking rabbits.) People, and therefore characters, are all the same. People, and therefore characters, are all different. Most important of all: Every person, and therefore every character, is an individual. Taking these assertions [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Tagged , , | Comments (5)

Keeping the pipeline full

June 1, 2011 – 6:31 am

Writing is a profession with a very long lead time. For the majority of writers, writing a novel takes somewhere between six months and two years (there are, of course, folks who can do it faster or who require even more time, but they’re outliers). Then you have a wait for editorial revisions, and then [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Tagged , , , | Comments (4)