Happy 2023, everybody! It’s a new year, and this is when nearly everybody (including me) takes at least a few minutes to think about what they want to get done in the coming year. “Write a book” is a perennial favorite. So I thought I’d try to
Read more →It has recently occurred to me that the real problem with writing a novel—or with giving advice about writing a novel—is that writing a novel is a lot like inventing cold fusion. No one in the world has ever invented cold fusion. People have invented a lot
Read more →Understanding how stories work improves one’s ability to put them together better. What many people don’t get is that “understanding” can be intuitive as well as—or instead of—analytical/intellectual. Both ways of understanding are subject to error. The “gut feel” that X is the right thing to do
Read more →I’ve been plot-noodling with a couple of primarily character-centered writers lately, and I’ve noticed that they both have a similar problem. Most of the time, they don’t even see the places where they are dropping plot-hints…and when they do see them, they don’t immediately recognize them. One
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 →Suggestion box: Could we have a post on moving characters around in a scene?…I struggle with how much detail to include on movement and on background. I don’t remember who described a scene as having naked characters sitting on clouds, but that’s about where many of mine
Read more →Human beings are hardwired to notice what’s wrong. Historically, it was a lot more important to spot the tiger hiding in the bushes than it was to pick out the antelope grazing down the hill, because the tiger was a more immediate threat. Missing the antelope meant
Read more →I spent last weekend at a steampunk convention as one of their author guests (I was supposed to be there in 2020, but…). It was the first time I’ve gone to a con since 2019, and it was refreshing, in spite of my various travel glitches (I
Read more →Twenty-some years ago, I was observing a break-out session at a writer’s conference (there were four scheduled during the day, following the keynote speaker; those of us who’d been brought in to do the break-out sessions were asked to do three, and had the option to sit
Read more →Every time a writer sits down to write a story, they face a bunch of different demands and expectations from several different directions. A writer who is aware of these demands and where they’re coming from can usually make better conscious adjustments when the various demands and
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