The “Publishing Options” series concluded with the third post I did last week, but I wanted to also talk a bit about some of the other business decisions writers have to make. Specifically, about business plans. The vast majority of writers don’t have even an informal business
Read more →Since it is two weeks until The Dark Lord’s Daughter goes on sale and my brain is entirely full of all the fuss around the book launch, I thought I would talk some about the way the book opens and why and how I made some of
Read more →First, the announcements: The Dark Lord’s Daughter has an official release date of September 5! I got my ARCs (Advanced Reading Copies) last week, and it looks very nice. The cover looks like this: This phase of the publication process was particularly mysterious to me the first
Read more →This is my last blog post for 2022. (I always take the Tuesday between Christmas and New Year’s off, so next week will be an off-schedule Open Mic, and the count to the next one will reset on the first Tuesday of the year.) I asked a
Read more →Edited to reformat for readability, per Deep Lurker’s suggestion. This is my version of how-I-develop-it-into-a-scene when I’m having particular trouble. In this case, I started with a conversation “sketch draft” with minimal movement. There are four characters present: Archie, the 15-year-old POV; Del, aged 10; and Harkawn
Read more →“How did you decide what viewpoint to use for your first novel?” I was more than a little bemused by the question, because that is one of many supposedly vital writing decisions that I don’t remember making, let alone angsting over the way the questioner obviously was.
Read more →A lot of story analysis and critique starts by focusing on macro-level aspects of storytelling: characterization, narrative, worldbuilding, plot, and the ways one develops or reveals these things over the course of a novel. Ultimately, though, how one presents characterization, growth, personality, action, worldbuilding, plot, and everything
Read more →Writing a multiple viewpoint story, novel, or series means that you are will be juggling many different viewpoint characters, each with their own story as well as their contributions to the main plotline. Choosing those characters takes a bit of care and attention, especially for writers who
Read more →If you’ve read the last couple of blog posts about my current WIP, you may have noticed that the end of the story started off as “Kayla confronts the Archmage. Kayla wins. Everybody celebrates.” This is actually more specific than the end of my first-stage outline normally
Read more →One of the things I hate writing the most is what I refer to as “council scenes.” These are the scenes that involve a bunch of characters who are trying to solve a problem (or series of problems) by talking them to death, rather than bashing something
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