This is a companion post to Writing is a War of Attrition, but it’s also a cornerstone post for ALL fiction writers. Non-fiction writers, you guys are in a slightly different boat. Writing needs to be fun. Not should be fun or can be fun. Not writing is fun sometimes. Writing needs to be fun. […]
If you’ve been following this blog, then you might’ve seen earlier posts where I compared writing and publishing to running a marathon. That metaphor still stands, but I want to explore this one. Why use multiple metaphors when one would do? When I coached swimming, it was common to explain the same drill multiple ways […]
Now that you have a little background on how to write, how do you get started? How do we go from a blank page to figuring out what to write about? Rather than talking about inspiration, I want to show you a few ways to get started. Today we’re going to talk about two shortcuts […]
How can a writer keep readers interested? Have a compelling main character with goals and flaws? Have a cunning villain who opposes the hero at every turn? Create a fleshed out world that changes and reacts to the characters’ decisions? All of those are good starts! How about killing a main character? Gasp! That’s too […]
Last time on part Part 2, we talked about how Character and Setting give birth to Conflict, which is the “push” for our Character to move through the story. Now that we have our characters and our setting, and have a sense of what direction/goal they have (via Conflict), how do we move the characters […]
During Part 1 of this series, we touched briefly on how choosing a viewpoint character and setting can drastically change the type of story or genre that we’re telling. Also, now might be a good time to brush up on Genre Expectations, if you haven’t read that one. We’re going to continue this tangent today […]
Today’s tropes are brought to you by… well, everything. Both of them apply to books, tv shows, games, and even music–pretty much anything that tells a story. Have you ever read something so crazy that it pulled you out of the story? Sure, you may be reading a story about pirates, but the movie isn’t […]
What makes a story? I propose that you can boil it all down to a couple things: Character, setting, conflict, scenes/action. A story is nothing more than a Character in a Setting. Conflict arises because that Character wants something that they don’t have (yet). Each Scene of your story has Action of some kind (be […]
So my wife got me thinking (as she often does): Why don’t I teach writing? My replies were: I would rather write than teach writing. I’m not a successful writer by my standards (i.e. I am not making a full-time living from my writing and as of this post I am only making beer money). […]
“In any martial arts fight, there is only a finite amount of ninjutsu available to each side in a given encounter. As a result, one Ninja is a deadly threat, but an army of them are cannon fodder.” From the TvTropes page. This is one of those tropes that I think is as well known […]
Samuel Fleming Books 