Monthly Archives: August 2012

Eight million or so

August 29, 2012 – 6:11 am

“There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them.” –The Naked City by Malvin Wald The thing about those eight million stories is, they’re all different from each other. And trying to make them be the same is a mistake. This is something that a lot of people – [...]

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Critique vs. Collaboration

August 26, 2012 – 6:46 am

One of the questions I’ve been fielding for years, usually from knowledgeable non-writers, has to do with the similarity between being in a critique group and doing a collaboration. Sometimes it’s buried in the assumptions behind the question (“In what ways do your critique group members influence your work?”) and sometimes it’s right there out [...]

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An Illusion of Reality

August 21, 2012 – 6:26 am

Fiction is an illusion. It’s a made-up tale of something that never happened…and it’s the author’s job to get the reader to accept that illusion for the length of the story, however long the story is. This basic unifying principle tends to get lost a lot, because so much fiction is mimetic – meant to [...]

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Characters, Plot, and Process

August 19, 2012 – 6:52 am

Writing processes are interesting things, not least because there are so many different kinds. Mine is particularly odd, in that I am neither a sit-down-and-wing-it writer, nor am I a plan-in-advance-and-stick-to-the-plan writer. I’m smack in the middle of the range, a plan-in-advance-and-then-periodically-throw-away-the-plan writer. The reason why I periodically have to throw away the plan has [...]

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Formal and informal

August 15, 2012 – 6:11 am

First off, it has been brought to my attention (thanks, John!) that I need to tell my regular readers that The Far West is now out and available in hardcover. The e-book will be out in October, they tell me. On to the post. Back in the day, one of my earliest beta-readers took me [...]

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Why This Is Not A Proper Blog Post

August 12, 2012 – 10:26 am

So this week has been crazy, yes, but it’s the last two days in particular that really did me in. Saturday in particular. It went something like this:   Wednesday   Me: Cazaril, that’s about six too many hairballs. I’m calling the carpet cleaners. Cazaril: Hmmm? Did you know there’s a bird outside this window? [...]

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Accessibility in Fiction

August 8, 2012 – 6:04 am

First, a happy dance: NPR just put out a list of 100 Best Ever Teen Reads, and guess what ended up at #84? I’m scunnered. Happy, but scunnered. It’s a fabulous reading list; check it out. And thanks to anybody out there who nominated or voted for my books. Accessibility is one of those aspects [...]

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Show and tell redux

August 5, 2012 – 6:30 am

“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” -W. Somerset Maugham I’ve had at least four questions from people in the last week or two about that hoary old piece of advice “show, don’t tell.” So even though I just did a post on it a few weeks [...]

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Dialog in general

August 1, 2012 – 6:25 am

…“and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?” -Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Dialog occupies an odd place on the list of fundamental fiction-writing skills. It’s a component of nearly all fiction, but it’s not absolutely necessary (Hatchet and My Side of the Mountain, for instance, both have [...]

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