Due to moving and convention, I will not be putting up a real post this week. In lieu, I have a question I'm looking for various answers on. What sort of visual or idea does 'steampunk romantic fantasy' conjure up in your mind? ... Read more »
Blog
A note on schedules
Barring any actual news, I intend to update this blog once a week, usually on Friday, with thoughts on some aspect of writing that have caught my thought processes over the course of the week. ... Read more »
Surroundings and description
When I first started writing, I wrote in a way one of my editors (one of my first year university english teachers) described as 'writing like an engineer.' I described actions, persons, thoughts and conversations, but I wrote very tersely and often missed vital description. It is a habit I have tried to break myself of, while also being careful to avoid the pitfall of too much description. Little things around your characters and events are important. What time of day is it? What time ... Read more »
Consequence of Conflict – Combat
Last week, I wrote on conflict, and how its necessary to drive a story. Now, you can write amazing stories where conflict is resolved in the courtroom, in conversations and arguments, or even in the operating room. Sadly, I am not a lawyer, I'm a merely decent debator and I can write what I know about surgery on the back of a postage stamp. In most stories, however, especially in speculative and adventure fiction, many of not most conflicts are going to come down to one method of ... Read more »
Goals update
ONSET 2 has not changed. I've been focusing on Shadows of the Grey Tower for the last couple of weeks. Shadows of the Grey Tower is now at 22,853 words. Thats roughly 2500 and a bit last week and this week. Third project, Vigilante, has just been remembered and I haven't actually looked at it recently. The project there is taking one book with a too-large time lapse in the middle and turning it into a duology with a much smaller time lapse between books. ... Read more »
Conflict
Today's post is about two different kinds of conflict. One is the conflict between a writers goals and the realities of life (calling back to last weeks post), and the other is on conflict in your story. First, on goals. Like I said last week, goals are awesome. Set them. Small ones are good until you know you can meet them. I thought 500 words a day was great. I'm still going to try to hold to it, even though Ive failed miserable this last week *grin* Inevitably, life is going to ... Read more »