So the topic is epic fantasy and the way so many of them get bogged down in an endless proliferation of characters and branching subplots, as described by Marie Brennan. Having spent last post talking about why authors fall into these traps, I’m going to talk more
Read more →Yesterday, a friend of mine forwarded a link to this post on the pitfalls of writing a long fantasy epic, defined as “four or more books that tell an ongoing story.” It’s a fabulous analysis, and the author, Marie Brennan, hits a bunch of really good points
Read more →When all your friends are bookaholics, one of the things that inevitably happens is that they recommend books to you and to their other friends, frequently in glowing terms. Quite often, other members of your social group will read those books before you do, will also love
Read more →Sooner or later, every writer hits a point where they lose interest in continuing to write a story that isn’t finished yet. This isn’t the same as getting stuck; when a writer is stuck, they want to continue and intend to continue, but can’t seem to do
Read more →I’ve always been fascinated with process and with what it takes to get that initial story-seed-idea developed enough to actually start writing it. One of the things I’ve noticed for years is the differences in what writers say they need in order to actually sit down and
Read more →Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an ending. That seems like a pretty obvious statement, until you start looking at all the different ways of analyzing stories: the three-act structure, the four-act structure, the five-act structure, the four-acts-plus-teaser structure, linear, nonlinear, parallel running scenes, reverse
Read more →Every writer ends up writing about someone who isn’t exactly like them sooner or later – and it’s nearly always sooner, given the number of characters in the average novel. The minor characters, walk-ons, and even the important secondary characters can usually be fudged, but the main
Read more →For years and years, I’ve been pointing out to people that talent is one of the least important things a writer needs – because you don’t actually need very much to go on with, and it’s actually pretty common to have that much. In fact, “talent” is
Read more →I have met a great many people who claim they want to be writers, but who don’t act like it. I have also met more than one professional writer who claims to want to quit his/her day job and go full-time as a writer, but who doesn’t
Read more →(No, this post is not about vampires.) The question “what’s at stake for the characters?” has been much on my mind lately, as it’s been at the root of some of the difficulties I’ve been having developing a plot for my current work-soon-to-be-in-process-I-hope. I have what I
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