I heard a podcast recently where the guest talked about the Magical Realist novel he was working on. The host asked, "is that just a fantasy novel but you don't want to admit you like geek stuff?" The guest laughed and admitted that was pretty much accurate. Similarly, you hear a lot of people go …
From Twee to Grime: Tone Gone Bad
Tone is the psychological setting of your story. It establishes the ethos of your world, that is to say the prevailing philosophy. It is one of the key elements in giving weight and gravity to your story. It's also very easy to get wrong. Wild tone shifts are a problem, of course, though if handled …
The Shocking: Notes Toward a Theory
We're often told that comedy appeals to our intellectual side--our appreciation of wit and timing--while drama appeals to our emotions. Appealing to one or the other is the way to reach an audience, to create a significant effect in the reader's/viewer's brain that will cause them to be entertained. Either we need to laugh at …
Theme: The Unintended Parable
I want to share a story about one of my failures as a writer. I intended, once, to write a short story about a woman working in an organ farm. A place where brainless clone bodies are grown in vats, so that their organs can be harvested to save the lives of people waiting for …
Setting: Don’t Get Lost
Creating a rich and fascinating setting for your story is fun. It's so much fun. And it can be rewarding, too. The more work you put into your setting, the more detail and depth, the more your book will come alive--if the backdrop seethes and breathes, your characters will feel more real, more anchored, and …
Pacing: Good News and Bad
Pacing might be the most important skill a writer can develop. Pacing is the tempo of your story, the sense of time passing, the sense of things happening in a smooth, organic order. Pacing is everything. Pacing is crucial to plot. It's how you build suspense--how you make your reader care about what happens, and …
Writing: Character Motivations
Every character in your story should have a clear motivation. They need a reason to enter the scene, and something they want to accomplish before the scene is over. This goes for a walk-on character who only has one line just as much as it goes for your protagonist and antagonist. If a character has …
Writing: The Power of Broad Characters
Everyone claims to like deep, nuanced characters. People who feel real and rich and alive. There's only one problem. They're wrong. If you think of your favorite characters--frankly, any characters you can remember off the top of your head--you'll think of broad, two-dimensional, larger than life heroes and villains and grotesques. Darth Vader. Tarzan. Wily …
Writing: Little, Big
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