Monthly Archives: March 2012

Technical difficulties

March 31, 2012 – 7:07 am

As many of you have noticed, the blog was out for a week and is now back. Unfortunately, the “back” part may be temporary; it’s back because the migration to the new server didn’t work properly and we had to un-migrate it. This means that some time in the next week (hopefully within the next [...]

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

Fictional Families

March 21, 2012 – 6:07 am

Families are often hard to deal with, even if you love them. This is true in real life, but it’s even more true in fiction, especially in science fiction and fantasy. A large part of the problem is that including the hero/heroine’s family in the story means that the number of characters instantly begins to [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Tagged , | Comments (19)

Specific Research

March 18, 2012 – 6:46 am

A while back, I had an inquiry from a reader regarding research, specifically asking how I went about researching historical slang and stage magic. I decided I’d answer it here instead of in email, because while the specific subjects are fairly easy to address, there are some general questions that I think would be of [...]

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Villains

March 14, 2012 – 6:03 am

There is really nothing like a good villain. From Blackie Duquesne to Darth Vader, they’re often the most striking and memorable characters in a story. A lot of the professional writers I know find villains a lot more fun and interesting to write about than heroes; several have gone so far as to turn their [...]

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

The Business of Writing: Addendum (Retirement)

March 11, 2012 – 6:38 am

So after all these business posts, people wanted me to write about retiring. I’m not surprised; it was kind of exhausting to think about doing all that stuff. In any case, this is the retirement-for-writers post. The very first question is: what does retirement mean to you, as a writer? Writing isn’t quite the same [...]

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The Business of Writing: Pulling it all Together

March 7, 2012 – 6:52 am

So there you have it: all seven areas of business – operations, sales and marketing, quality control, finance, administration, public relations, and executive – laid out for writers. Looking at them all at once like this is rather daunting, but not looking at them at all is a recipe for messing up. If you are [...]

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The Business of Writing: Executive

March 4, 2012 – 6:35 am

7. Executive – This has to do with strategic planning and overseeing everything else.  For writers, the Executive area means keeping an eye on all the other categories to make sure nothing is left out and everything stays in balance (which can be quite a trick for a one-person business). This is also where long-range [...]

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