Sometimes, no matter your best efforts, you’ll find yourself stuck in a rut, bored with your work and yourself. At such times, here are a few techniques that may nudge or jolt you out of that mood.
A frequent question, especially among self- and small press-published authors, is how books get into libraries, and what authors can do to help. Today, guest blogger and public librarian Abigail Goben explains how libraries choose the books they purchase–and what authors should (and shouldn’t) do to play a part in that process.
Dr. Grasshopper explains the medical improbabilities and impossibilities in Dollhouse. The concern isn’t just bad science, it’s also that real people might become afraid of medical procedures due to the misinformation.
I’m happy to announce a new feature on the SFWA blog, “How to Kill Your Imaginary Friends: A writer’s guide to diseases and injuries, and how to use them effectively in fiction” written by Dr. Grasshopper.
Literature is all about metaphors–analogies. One thing is like another. Much of literature works by saying, “This thing is like this other thing.” In secondary world stories, how do you handle metaphors?
Interstellar space travel. We dream about it. We write about it. Science fiction writers have come up with all manners of interstellar travel, ranging from multigenerational arks, to wormhole generating warp drives that can spit you across the galaxy in a blink of an eye. As wondrous and amazing as all these approaches may be, most suffer from a very fundamental problem.
When writing there will come a moment when you have to deal with furniture. If it’s historical fantasy, steampunk or timetravel you’ll face the question of finding something that is period correct. What did people sit on in 1650? How long have drop-leaf tables been around? What was the most expensive wood?
If you want to go beyond the level of just assigning different skin tones and heritages to random characters, you’re going to have to do some research. Because yes, all people are the same, but they’re also quite different. For now, we’ll set aside the argument that race is an artificial construct, and concentrate on how someone outside a minority group can gain enough knowledge of the group’s common traits to realistically represent one of its members.
So what is Pragmatics? Basically, it deals with those areas of meaning which aren’t really meaning. What does that mean? It deals with implications (in the lingo, “implicature”), and with presuppositions, and with using language to do things rather than just send messages.
As part of her continuing series on How Linguistics Can Help You, Juliette Wad discusses that ubiquitous genre activity making up words.
Whether you’ve used your word processor for years, or have just begun to learn a new program, it’s easy to grow complacent with your skills. In this book, I’ll teach you how to use your software effectively whether you write fiction or non-fiction.
Randee Dawn is an author and journalist based in Brooklyn. Her first novel, the humorous pop-culture fantasy “Tune in Tomorrow,” will be published in 2022 (Solaris).
