I’ve been mulling over green_knight and accio_aqualung’s request for something on plotting multi-volume stories for a few days now. It’s not easy, because on this question, I’m working mainly from observation. The closest I’ve come to writing a multi-volume story myself are 1) the Lyra books, which
Read more →Worldbuilding in some sense is a requirement for all writers. The people and places in fiction may have analogs in real life, but a writer in the U.S. cannot depend on every reader (or even most readers) being familiar with the Lincoln Park area of Chicago or the
Read more →One of the problems with talking about writing is that the terminology isn’t standardized. Even when everybody agrees what something is called, the same word gets used to mean other things, which can lead to confusion. Take the term “viewpoint.” It can mean either the person through
Read more →If people would ask writers where they get their titles, instead of where they get their ideas, they’d probably get a lot more interesting answers much of the time. In my experience, it’s really difficult for most writers to articulate exactly where they got the idea for
Read more →Where do you start when you write a story? With characters, setting, conflict…? It depends on the story. Sometimes, it starts with characters; sometimes, with setting; sometimes, with plot; sometimes with a situation or an idea; sometimes with a theme… It really doesn’t matter where the story
Read more →I asked Caroline to do a guest post on her view of writing Kate and Cecy, particularly The Mislaid Magician. And this is what she says: — Pat said, “You’re going to kill me.” That’s the way I remember my first encounter with THE MISLAID MAGICIAN. Pat
Read more →Alex asked “how you felt about the stand alone getting a sequel with the Kate and Cecelia books. I think you did an amazing job with escalation with these books, but did you have a hard time creating the right level of escalation?” Well, for starters, “getting
Read more →Every so often, I have an encounter with readers (usually academics, but sometimes not) who are happy to tell me, in detail and at great length, all the reasons why I wrote something, or wrote it in this or that particular way. (Usually because they object to
Read more →
