Video Pick of the Week: Steal Like an Artist
We can pick our teachers and we can pick our friends and we can pick the books we read and the music we listen to and the movies we see, et cetera. You are a mash-up of what you let into your life.
Archive for the ‘Tips for Beginners’ Category
Guest Post: Playing with Structure
I’ve been told by highly skilled writers that this is a good exercise–something to do for now, but eventually I’ll grow out of this once I internalize it. I believe them! I really do. The thing is, I keep discovering different structures to try, and I can’t see myself internalizing any of them until I run out of new ones.
Guest Post: Writers and Pellets
Anything I can control, I pay close attention to. Contracts. Personal relationships. The words. Stories I want to tell.
Guest Post: Finding Your Voice
Write a lot. This is almost all I need to say, as nothing else matters without the constant practice of writing a lot. Write blog posts and letters, booklets and diatribes, letters to the editor and book reviews, love poems and short stories, novellas and manifestos. The sheer mass of your writing becomes the raw matter from which to chisel your voice.
Guest Post: 60 Rules for Short SF (and Fantasy)
A “mainstream” short story can be about anything: a mood, a character, a setting, even a flashy writing style. A genre (SF or fantasy) short story is about an idea. The fictional elements (character, plot, setting, etc) are only there to dramatize the idea. Here are the rules for the SF (or Fantasy) short story.
Key Conditions for Suspense:
Part 27 – Patterns for Resolution
Element 4-6 & The Series Wrap Up
Well, folks. This is it. The final post in the series. I’m going to finish identifying basic patterns for the resolution phase, summarize what I’ve presented on structure, and wrap the whole series up.
Key Conditions for Suspense Part 26:
Patterns for Resolution Elements 1-3
Readers want their tension to build to a pitch. Then they want to feel a release. The resolution phase is where you deliver that delicious release.
Key Conditions for Suspense:
Part 25 – Patterns for Struggle Elements 5 & 6
The stories that use insight and decision are usually those where the main obstacle is the character’s internal problem. For example, in stories where love and friendship is on the line and the obstacle is the main character’s values, it may be that the hero has to make a decision to place love above something else.
Key Conditions for Suspense:
Part 24 – Patterns for Struggle Elements 3 – 5
Just as I need to know my hero’s goal, motives, and plan, I also need to know the same things about my antagonist. In fact, in some stories the antagonist’s plans are what drive the story.
Key Conditions for Suspense:
Part 23 – Patterns for the Struggle : Element 2
Taking the readers to the point where it seems their worst fears will be realized and then turning it around only makes the victory sweeter. Giving the reader great hope, just before everything falls apart, makes the loss feel so much more terrible.
