If you want to make a living in the arts, there are always two things you have to worry about: how to create the best art you can (whether it’s a physical product like a book or painting, or something more ephemeral like a live performance), and
Read more →Some years back, I had a writer friend who’d switched from being a journalist to writing fiction. She told me once that for her, the hardest part of writing fiction was learning not to automatically apply the basic journalism tenet: “Tell them what you’re gonna tell them,
Read more →Back when I still had a day job, I was a financial analyst. It is therefore really unsurprising that I enjoy looking at writing systems that are very structured and involve analyzing stories to pick out what works or doesn’t work. There are, however, a couple of
Read more →Look at any book or blog of fiction-writing advice, and you will most likely find a bunch of statements about the desirability of complex, well-rounded characters. Some give you twenty-page questionnaires to fill out in advance of writing, as if listing a character’s flaws and childhood traumas
Read more →I recently read a book that I found deeply frustrating because nearly all of the action-adventure part of the plot happened offstage. The viewpoint – who was consistently presented as the protagonist – only found out about the action later, when someone came back bloody and beaten
Read more →Analysis paralysis stems from the same fear that’s at the root of choice paralysis: the fear that the writer will make a “wrong” choice and the work will be less – less good, less deserving, less saleable, less whatever – than it could/should be. And it’s based
Read more →Years ago, I had a chance to talk to a bunch of high school English teachers about writing, and one of the first things they asked was what my high school teachers had done to inspire me to write. I had to honestly tell them “Nothing,” because
Read more →“A writer should always reserve the right to have a better idea.” – Lois McMaster Bujold This is an excellent philosophy and makes a great one-line quote, but the other day I ran across a story that showed the perils of applying even such an excellent piece
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