Pretzels and Möbius Strips: On the Question of Plot Twists
When I was in junior high, I read Asimov’s “Foundation Trilogy.” I absolutely loved it. I re-read it multiple times throughout the years,...
Reassembled: Dr. Frankenstein Just Called
It was the middle of 2019. I had a major event in September, and I’d been really hoping to finish my book and get it out in print by...
Keeping Characters Dynamic
One of the more frustrating things I encounter in television are characters who don’t learn from their mistakes, who don’t grow and...
Bland or Beautiful: Standing Out from the Crowd
Recently I’ve been entering some Goodreads giveaways, because, free books. Since ideally I’d like to get books I want to read, I check...
Guns-on-the-Wall
If a writer tailors their writing toward a reader, rather than writing something intended to be purely private, they need to keep the...
Precise or Purple: How Much Detail Is Too Much?
This is a hard question, because tastes differ a lot from writer to writer and from reader to reader. Between Hemingway and Melville is...
Making Magic Real Part II: What Is It Like?
Once you’ve hammered out your consistent rules for magic, you need to write it so the reader believes in it. And that means...
Making Magic Real, Part I: Consistency
So you’re writing a fantasy novel. That means anything goes, doesn’t it? Your wizards can teleport, zap the evil guys with lightning,...
Themes: What Are They, Really?
Whenever someone writes a story, it’s about something. That may seem self-evident; obviously a story has a plot and characters whose...
Workshopping: The Sound and the Fury
I’m a big fan of workshopping, even though my experiences doing so have been decidedly mixed. Starting at age fourteen, and for close to...
