Backing into description

Description is usually considered as a part of worldbuilding. This makes sense, because everything in a story is part of the story-world (whether that’s Alpha Centauri Three, modern-day Beijing, or a tiny prehistoric fishing village), and every part of the story-world tells the reader more about what

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Time and Word Count

Time is a tricky thing, especially in writing. Even in real life, time seems to move more slowly for someone who is bored, but flicks past in an eyeblink if someone is absorbed or fascinated. This can leave writers in a bit of a pickle—they want the

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Villains, Part 2

Wow, people in comments have already covered a lot of what I was going to say about villains in this one. I still have a few things to add, though… Starting with: What kind of villain suits your story? If you’re writing The Lord of the Rings,

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Choreographing scenes

Scene choreography or planning is a thing that some writers do up front, some do as a routine part of their process, and some hardly ever bother with even though they’re not pantsers, strictly speaking. What I’m talking about here is a whole class of preparation variously

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Prophecies

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

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