When I was in grade school, we had a regular “show and tell day.” Kids would bring in an object they thought was interesting, show it to everyone, and then explain what it was, how to use it, why they thought it was interesting, or whatever. It
Read more →“Your first idea is rarely the best one.” –Peter Attia That gets said a lot about writing, for good reason. One of the standard recommendations for developing a character, plot, or scene is to write a list of 20 things that could happen next, and then pick
Read more →Most of the time, people analyze story structure as a chain of actions and the consequences of those actions, leading to an eventual climax. While that’s true for a lot of writing, it ignores a critical factor that is so obvious and necessary that I, like many
Read more →Every so often, I run into someone who is…a bit confused about the way magic works in fantasies. They generally fall into one of two categories—either they have read that “a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” and interpreted it to mean “all magic is/should-be just
Read more →Words can mean more than they actually say. In real life, people commonly provide an indirect, implied answer to a question, instead of a direct one—“How do you like your hamburgers?” “I’m a vegetarian.” (implying “…so I don’t eat hamburgers, which means I don’t have a way
Read more →Once again, it’s open mike time! Who’s working on what, how’s it going, what else are you all up to…whatever you want.
Read more →“For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all
Read more →It’s been a long time since I wrote a short story. I think my grand lifetime total of short stories is about twenty, of which perhaps twelve were publishable. This is because I’m a natural novelist, which is also why I don’t tend to talk about writing
Read more →After doing this for as long as I have, I’ve come to the conclusion that nearly all writers have a point in their process where their story is fragile. It’s a different point for every writer, and sometimes different stories become brittle at different points, unexpectedly. A
Read more →Last Open Mike day, Emily mentioned in the comments that she was having trouble figuring out a subplot. I started an answer, then realized I had a lot to say and that some of it would probably be of interest to other people, too. So I decided
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