When was the last time you had to make a big decision in your life? Was it easy? Was there one specific reason why you made the decision you did, or were you conflicted, with several factors pulling you in different directions? Typically real human beings are under the constant sway of multiple urges, desires, …
The Changing Face of the Antihero
WARNING: Lots of spoilers in this one, especially if you're not up to date on Westworld. Words, like knives, grow dull with extended use. Language changes over time with the push and pull of invisible social forces--terms of art and technical jargon, once adopted into the zeitgeist, transforms like metamorphic rock. Think of the meme--once …
Bad Advice: Flawed Characters
We are told, over and over again, that only flawed characters are interesting. That characters who are simply heroic, or competent, are boring--they make the right decisions, they figure out the mystery, but they fail to grow as people. Even worse, readers can't relate to them and will find them dull. This ignores the fact …
Subjectivity and Time in Prose
I want to talk about the way time functions inside a story--specifically within prose fiction. It's all about subjectivity. This may be the crucial difference between books and movies, actually. Time is a director's medium--in a movie time can be measured in footage, in actual minutes of runtime. You know how long it will take …
Backstory and Front-Loading
Your characters didn't appear out of the ether, newly created on page one of your book. At least, they shouldn't feel like they did. They had lives before the story starts, families, jobs, religious affiliations, pets. If you're going to make them feel real to the reader, you need to know their backstories. You need …
Love Stories
For Valentine's day, I thought I'd write down a few thoughts on one of the hardest things in fiction--writing effective love stories. This is one of those things that's so much easier to do in a screenplay. Of course Trinity falls in love with Neo--have you seen him? He looks just like Keanu Reeves! In …
Bad Advice: Static Protagonists
Everyone knows that your characters need to go through arcs. They need to change, or grow, or learn a lesson, or discover something about themselves before the story's over. Don't believe it. Plenty of great stories are led by static characters. Most writing guides will insist that every character you create needs to be dynamic …
Flatness and Feeling: Three Recent Works
Note: The following post contains minor spoilers for the plots of All Systems Red, Ancillary Justice, and Blade Runner 2049. Probably the major theme of recent science fiction has been the way technology distances us from our own emotions. One of the devices authors and directors use to explore this distancing effect is intentionally flattening …
Plot: The Melodrama Pile-Up
What's the difference between a soap opera and a Greek tragedy? Both are fictional stories about the suffering of likeable, or at least attractive, heroes. There is an inevitability to their plots--they're not necessarily formulaic, but everyone can pretty much see where things are headed. Neither of them promises nor delivers a happy ending. Yet …
DAVID WELLINGTON 
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