Tag Archives: tools

More on Prologues

January 22, 2012 – 6:30 am

The whole point of a good prologue is to do something that the writer cannot do in the main part of the story without violating some important aspect of storytelling, like chronology or viewpoint or continuity. For instance, if the main story is told entirely from the viewpoint of one central character and takes place [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Also tagged , | Comments (7)

The Problem with Prologues

January 18, 2012 – 6:26 am

Prologues are out of favor these days, one of the “forbidden” (by whom?) writing techniques, yet people keep asking about them because they know intuitively that the technique has enormous possibilities. Quite a few folks go ahead and use them anyway. Sometimes this works brilliantly; other times, not so much…and the problematic usages reinforce the [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Also tagged , , | Comments (11)

Not Flashing Back

January 15, 2012 – 6:40 am

Flashbacks are one of those indispensable writers’ tools that tend to alternately get encouraged and discouraged, depending on whether or not they’ve been overused and abused recently or not. They’re a way of slipping the reader back into the past of the story, so that a particularly important incident or incidents from the characters’ backstory [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Also tagged , | Comments (8)

Misunderstanding grammar

January 11, 2012 – 6:48 am

Once again, I have been driven to frothing at the mouth by a would-be writer-and-critiquer’s thick-headedness in regard to both the construction of the English language and the so-called rules he’s trying to apply, and you folks are going to have to put up with the resulting rant. My apologies in advance.
This particular comment involved [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Also tagged , | Comments (26)

Keeping track

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 [...]

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Metaphorical manuals

December 21, 2011 – 6:30 am

This summer, I got a new car. Well, new to me - it belonged to Dad for several years, until he decided that with Mom gone, he didn’t really need two cars and he liked the other one better.
Anyway, it’s a 2008 model, with lots of snazzy bells and whistles that I’ve never had on [...]

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Making an impact

November 13, 2011 – 6:31 am

A novel is not a movie; writing a scene is not the same as filming one.
It is amazingly easy to forget this, when we are constantly bombarded with visuals in our everyday lives, from movies and TV, to YouTube and those animated ads that are all over the Internet, to the photo of Cousin Greg’s [...]

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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 [...]

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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 using [...]

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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 evidently [...]

By pcwrede | Posted in Writing | Also tagged , | Comments (9)