Pacing is one of those things that most writers have to learn by doing. You need a feel for what’s working and what isn’t, the same way a marathon runner needs a feel for how much their body can do and still finish the race. Except that
Read more →So last time we met, I mentioned the two basic ways of turning a single short story into a novel: adding complications, subplots, characters and conflicts within the confines of the original story, or continuing on from the end of the short story (and letting the extra
Read more →So I got a little confused about dates last week, and forgot that this week is an Open Mic. That means that next week is when I will be talking about turning a single short story into a novel, and this week everybody else gets to talk about
Read more →The “fix-up” novel has a long and honorable history in genre fiction. The term refers to the practice of turning short stories into a novel, and the “fixing” is what has to be added, subtracted, or altered in order to make the stories work as a novel.
Read more →I never had any formal academic training in writing novels. I barely have any training in analyzing and interpreting literature—my last English course was my senior year in high school. When it comes to writing, I’m pretty much self-taught. I do have some small experience with workshops,
Read more →A while back, I got asked about rearranging plot points. It was a difficult question to answer, because the usual definition of plot points seems to have hardened around the growing number of carefully described linear story structures. If that’s your definition of plot points, the answer
Read more →Let’s talk about setting for a minute. For purposes of this post, the setting is not just the physical location (geography, buildings, flora/fauna) of the story. It encompasses all that, plus things like the history, politics, culture, and customs of the people who live there. This can
Read more →One of the things I’m currently struggling with in my WIP is the pace and timing of various revelations—about the world, about various characters, about the past, about secrets deliberately kept by characters and secrets deliberately withheld by the author (me). When is the right time to
Read more →One of the writing terms that I’ve been hearing a lot lately is “the inciting incident,” which has become steadily more common over the past thirty years or so. Like a lot of the analytical approaches to writing, I think it is much to easy to get
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