BETH HUDSON

If a writer tailors their writing toward a reader, rather than writing something intended to be purely private, they need to keep the...

This is a hard question, because tastes differ a lot from writer to writer and from reader to reader. Between Hemingway and Melville is...

When I was working on “Etched in Fire” and workshopping my chapters, everyone in my workshop seized on a particular scene. Without too...

So you’re writing a fantasy novel. That means anything goes, doesn’t it? Your wizards can teleport, zap the evil guys with lightning,...

Aside from gym courses in archery and fencing when I was in college, I have never studied any form of fighting. The fencing class gave...

Whenever someone writes a story, it’s about something. That may seem self-evident; obviously a story has a plot and characters whose...

Hating the writing I produce: this is one of my biggest stumbling blocks. I’ve only now come to understand that this is a common...

I am the Narrator. It’s my job to create the story and to decide what the characters do and don’t see. I have to decide whose eyes the...

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...

Many years ago, at a science fiction convention, I opened my mouth to ask Poul Anderson an insightful question about his use of mythic...