I spent last time talking about a manuscript full of stupid mistakes that didn’t work. This time, I’m going to talk about some where it does. Because in real life, people forget critical information, give in to impulses that turn out to be a Really Bad Idea,
Read more →As some of you already know, I’ve been listening to a series of lectures on literature and theory and basically all the college-level English stuff I didn’t take in college. One of the recent lectures examined two books that, in the words of the lecturer, each began
Read more →Theme is one of the most difficult aspects of fiction to discuss. This is partly because there are so many different ways of looking at it…and because there is no one clear, simple definition that everybody agrees on. “The definition of theme” ranges from the simple and
Read more →Some while back, I had a conversation with a reader. It went on for quite a while, but I can sum it up pretty quickly: Him: “That book is terrible. I shouldn’t have been surprised. It has a prophecy in it. Stories with prophecies in them are
Read more →I’m going to be taking Wednesday off, as I have things to do on Christmas other than compose a blog post; therefore here is a slightly-early Christmas present for everybody. Alexandria and the Terrible, Horrible, No-good Very Bad Slush Pile (With apologies to Judith Viorst) I wake
Read more →One of the first things most people realize after they’ve sold their first novel is that, contrary to expectation, they haven’t reached the top of the tree. Instead, they’re now on the bottom rung of a whole new ladder. This comes as a great shock to some
Read more →So for some reason or other I was poking around on the web last week and I ran across somebody’s “character worksheet” – basically a fill-in-the-blanks page that started with “name” “age” and “physical description” and then had half a dozen things like “career goals” and “religion”
Read more →OK, first the news: Sorcery and Cecelia is the Sizzling Book Club pick this month and Caroline and I will be joining their Live Chat on Wednesday, December 19 (that’s Wednesday, one week from today). The live chat starts at 9 pm EST and runs for an hour
Read more →“No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” – Helmuth von Moltke “A writer should always reserve the right to have a better idea.” – Lois McMaster Bujold Prewriting notes – whether they’re about plot, background, or characters – are the writer’s battle plan, and therefore exceedingly
Read more →Plot and characters go together like green eggs and ham; one without the other just isn’t as interesting. Yet a lot of writers consistently have trouble making them work together. Either they’re so focused on their characters that they forget to make the plot work, or they’re
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