“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
Read more →Writing a novel is a balancing act. It starts with the Big Three (characterization, setting/world-building, plot). Each of those usually has the potential to expand exponentially in several different directions at once. At the start (and sometimes all the way through the middle), it seems as if
Read more →It’s Open Mike day again, and we now have an icon to represent it! And it’s also the vernal equinox (OK, a few hours after the actual equal point, which happened before midnight, so technically the equinox was yesterday, but close enough). Talk amongst yourselves while I
Read more →There are some questions that all writers get, over and over and over. Anything that is repeated that many times gets very old, very fast. One of the most irritatingly common questions is the perennial “Where do you get your ideas?” But even more irritating are the
Read more →Taxes occupy an interesting position in the human psyche: for most of us, they are both boring and scary, as well as inevitable and deeply annoying. Mostly, they are scary because people don’t know how to fill out the horrible, overcomplicated tax forms, and/or don’t have the
Read more →It is ironic that in these days of instant messaging so many plots still depend on two or more central characters not communicating effectively with each other. OK, a lot of pre-Internet stories depend on someone missing a phone call or a messenger, but at least someone
Read more →Thanks for all your good wishes! I’m feeling much better this week. This week, I wanted to talk about setting. Setting is one of the “big three” things that scenes can contribute to (the other two being characterization and plot), but most writing advice focuses more intensely
Read more →
