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If you're going to write genre, with rich world-building and complicated future technology and deep magic systems, it's going to happen sooner or later: you'll need to explain what a Florznap is. Whether it's describing why your hero's sword is different from what the reader thinks of when they imagine a sword, or the details …
Continue reading "Stumbling Through The Minefield: Expository Depth"
The premise of your story is fantastic, and the characters are well-defined. Yet something seems missing. Your plot is just going through the motions, or maybe the central challenge of the story just seems too easy for the characters to overcome. It's not... bad, it's just not exciting. Or funny. Or stirring. It's too straightforward …
Continue reading "Trouble Your Darlings: Bringing Life to Pallid Plots"
Because, of course, then you'll be liberated from the fear of offending them. Or you can write about them, even better, right? You can write about how crazy they were or how they treated you or what they did to keep you from writing. Right? It's true that writers need to be a little fearless …
Continue reading "Bad Advice: Write Like Your Parents Are Already Dead"
There are days when you just can't write. You can have the world's best idea, be sitting in the world's best writing chair... and nothing comes. When it feels like every sentence you put down just takes you farther from what you wanted to say. And you know what? Sometimes there is no solution, except …
So you've sold your book to a publisher. Maybe your agent went toe-to-toe with a greedy editor and convinced them to give you your damn money. Maybe you had to do the negotiations yourself--either way, you've experienced the horror of professional writing now. You've come face to face with the most existentially terrifying fact of …
DAVID WELLINGTON 