The subject matter of a story is seldom what really makes it interesting to a reader. A great idea that can be summed up in one tantalizing sentence may attract attention, but what keeps the reader going past the first page is a combination of the subject
Read more →Points of Departure is now for sale! As you can see, we have made the leap to a new host for the web site. There are still a few problems shaking out, so new posts may suffer from odd timing for a few weeks, but I am
Read more →Everybody is good at something. Nobody is good at everything. At least 98% of the writers I know, faced with those two sentences, nod sort of absently at the first one and immediately start working out exactly how the second one applies to them – that is,
Read more →Climax: any moment of great intensity in a literary work. –Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Everybody knows what the climax of the story is, right? It’s the battle with the monster, the discovery of the cure for the plague, the revelation of the murderer, blowing
Read more →One of the questions I get a lot, especially when a class of students has been asked to come up with three questions each, is “Which one of your books is the best?” It’s not quite up there with “Where do you get your ideas?” but it’s
Read more →As some of you may know, I knit. (My current project is a heavily cabled cape [scroll down a bit for the pattern picture] and it’s my first time doing complex cables. I’m about halfway through and having a blast.) Every so often, I take one of
Read more →A while back, I was talking with a would-be writer who started off with all sorts of sensible questions about writing characters and plotting and so on. Then I looked at some samples of her writing, and realized that the particular writer was trying to get ahead
Read more →Ok, shameless promotional stuff first. The hardcopy paperback version of Wrede on Writing is now available, and as a promotion, the Goodreads site is doing a giveaway – five people, selected at random from those who register, will each get a free copy. For anyone interested the
Read more →Anyone who hangs out with professional writers for very long will eventually hear one of them say “I couldn’t get away with that in a novel” or “If I put that in a story, nobody would believe it,” and they’ll probably hear it sooner rather than later.
Read more →This week, my walking buddy told me about an incident involving a mutual friend, who is a major tech consultant-type. Seems some gentleman who wanted advice on his algorithm offered to pay for two hours of critique/consulting time at a not-unreasonable-but-on-the-low-side rate. So the consultant-type agreed, took a look
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