Monthly Archives: October 2011

Beats Now and Then

October 30, 2011 – 6:54 am

“Beat” is actually an acting term. In a movie or play, it describes a brief interruption or pause in the action or dialog. The result of putting a beat in can change the emphasis on a line of dialog or the meaning of an action, and do it extremely economically. The detective’s moment of stillness [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Tagged , , , , | Comments (3)

Fantastic history

October 26, 2011 – 6:13 am

This was supposed to go up Sunday; apparently being out of town glitched my brain and I managed to get it written but not posted. Sorry about that. We now return to our regular posting schedule. I’m in Tulsa at the moment, at the Nimrod conference, and yesterday they had me do a session on [...]

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

After the Writing

October 19, 2011 – 6:55 am

In the comments on “being a writer,” JP asked about the afterward part – the stuff that’s not writing. And this is rather a good time to write about it, since I’ve been in the midst of doing publicity stuff for Across the Great Barrier for the past few weeks. Much as nobody believes it [...]

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Being a writer

October 16, 2011 – 10:13 am

When people ask me when I knew I wanted to be a writer, I always tell them that I never did want to be a writer. I wanted to write. Being a writer was something that happened by accident. Recently someone asked me what I meant. Surely, if you want to write, that kind of [...]

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Two or more at a time

October 12, 2011 – 6:30 am

Every so often, someone asks me if I work on more than one book at a time. It’s a more complicated question than most people think it is, because there’s work, and then there’s work. Writing comes in phases. Very long phases, but phases nonetheless. There’s six months to a year of writing the first [...]

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The Hat Lecture

October 9, 2011 – 6:18 am

Back in the day, on Usenet, I had a little lecture that I posted periodically, whenever too many folks seemed to be bemoaning the horribleness of the submission process so much that they were losing sight of the actual job of submitting. (Make no mistake; the submission process is horrible and lengthy and depressing, but [...]

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The Problem with Sequels

October 5, 2011 – 6:58 am

The problem with sequels is that the writing and publishing process gives readers too much time to think. Let me unpack that a little. It takes me one to two years to write a novel, and this is fairly typical of most of the professional writers I know. Yes, there are folks who work faster [...]

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

Hack Writer’s Gambit

October 2, 2011 – 6:17 am

The other day, my walking buddy and I were discussing various bad-plotting mistakes made in various TV series, specifically the sort that used to be called “hack writer’s gambit.” I say “used to be called” because a quick series of googles found very little in the way of modern references for the term. So I’m [...]

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