January 25, 2012 – 9:50 am
For a certain kind of writer, the opening of a story is easy and fun - you get to allude to mysterious events and drop ominous clues. And then comes the middle, where all the stuff you’ve been alluding to has to start showing up and actually turning into something, and everything falls apart.
The first, [...]
January 8, 2012 – 6:34 am
When a writer has a big, complicated novel with lots of subplots and plot arcs that need to weave around each other, there are two main things he/she needs to do: 1) keep track of all the things that are going on offstage and in different plot arcs than whichever one is currently at the [...]
December 18, 2011 – 6:55 am
One of the most frustrating things that happens to writers is having a batch of characters worked into just the right spot for the plot to take off…and discovering that they won’t do whatever is supposed to come next.
When you want your characters to go left, and they want to go right, there are three things [...]
December 4, 2011 – 6:24 am
There’s a problem I’ve noticed cropping up more and more often lately, in the way some authors first develop and then over-develop their plots and subplots, allowing both them and their characters to proliferate beyond the ability of mere mortals to keep track of them all, until the whole edifice starts crumbling under its own [...]
November 20, 2011 – 6:56 am
Last post, Libby said:
I’ve been having trouble with that point in a story from the lead-up to the climax to the aftermath… once I hit the part where all the stuff I’ve been alluding to has to APPEAR, things tend to go over too smoothly and much too quickly, and I think it’s ultimately unsatisfying. [...]
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 evidently [...]
August 14, 2011 – 6:37 am
There’s an analogy that’s been around for a long time – I’ve been using it myself for years – comparing writing a novel to a long-distance road trip, usually at night. The comparison goes, in the car, you can only see as far as the headlights light up, but you only need to see that [...]
One of the supposed truisms of writing is that a good plot must have conflict. And while this is, in fact, true, I’ve seen it misinterpreted so many times that I thought I’d talk about it a little.
The problem always seems to come in the definition of “conflict.” We hear that word so often on [...]
I’ve talked more than once about the Big Three - plot, characterization, and setting. They started off as the earliest writing advice I recall getting (and I wish I could remember the name of the writer who told me that, so I could credit him properly), as the three things one can do in a [...]
Lately, I’ve been getting anxious queries from a lot of close friends, who know a) exactly when my book deadline is, b) just how many other desperately important things I have going on to distract me from writing, and c) how many plot threads I still have to wrap up. “How is the book going?” [...]