Suggestion-box requests: (1) Dialog, in particular mixing stage business with dialog. It’s been a while since I’ve done a post on dialog, and I have a request for one, so here ‘tis. So-called “stage business” in fiction follows the theater definition; it’s “an incidental action, such as
Read more →I am sorry to have to let everyone know that Dorothy Heydt, a good friend and one of our regular author-contributors in the comments, has passed away. I don’t have much in the way of details, but Seanan McGuire, who is a close friend of the family,
Read more →I got quite a few requests in the last Open Mic, and I’m going to start working through them, beginning with this: Note the problem is not character story lacking, but putting together a single coherent plot that doesn’t consist of a character’s entire life story. I
Read more →Most writers get something “for free” – some part of writing that they don’t have to work at to get it to an acceptable level. Sometimes it’s something general: plot development, emotionally complex characterization, solid background, an intuitive grasp of story structure. Sometimes it’s something more narrowly
Read more →Human beings are hardwired to notice what’s wrong. Historically, it was a lot more important to spot the tiger hiding in the bushes than it was to pick out the antelope grazing down the hill, because the tiger was a more immediate threat. Missing the antelope meant
Read more →When Dorothy asked about reposting my Hat Lecture, I realized that I hadn’t done an updated version since 2011. So here is a revised version (or you can just go read the original one, if you’d rather). The original Hat Lecture focused on the fact that a
Read more →Time for another Open Mic! My news: I have a new roof! Which is great for not having water leak into my library, but not so great for pounding on the roof, also hard on the bank account. How is everyone else?
Read more →Alternate history is one of my favorite things, both for reading and writing. There’s something about taking real-life history/culture/politics/etc. and twisting it in a different direction that I find enormously appealing and interesting. The thing is, I keep running across people who define “alternate history” a lot
Read more →Once a writer knows who’s fighting, where and when they’re fighting, why they’re fighting, and all of the resources each side has, they can get to choreographing the scene itself. How much choreographing needs to be done depends, again, on the size of the fight, and the
Read more →Action scenes are the bane of many writers. Fight scenes are often considered the quintessential action scenes, but a “fight scene” can mean anything from two guys slugging each other to an epic battle between massive armies or space armadas. There are several key points for making
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