I wrote an earlier post about starting a story off, and today (via Lynn Viehl’s blog) I discovered the One Sentence website that “is about telling your story, briefly. Insignificant stories, everyday stories, or turning-point-in-your-life stories, boiled down to their bare essentials.” In other words, one sentence long short stories. Read more…
Well, I might be behind the curve here, but I didn’t realize how deeply Google had been stepping up to contribute to ultimate universal omniscience. Last I paid attention to their “street view” feature it was still in beta, then today I was playing around with it and noticed they Read more…
Just saw an interesting post on The Feminist SF Blog that draws attention to one of those little cultural blind spots that are really useful in worldbuilding. You know, the kind of thing everyone takes for granted, so when they read about another culture (real or fictional) that does it Read more…
Well, since I finished up the Wolfbreed rewrite, I haven’t done much writing. I guess I just needed to rest the old story muscle for a bit. Also, the next thing I’m working on is Heretic, the second book in the Apotheosis Trilogy. This means going straight from a rewrite Read more…
Well, I’ve gotten through most of the editorial rewrite of Wolfbreed #1 (Yeah, I know, but I just e-mailed Anne a bunch of title ideas) and I’m going to go over copy-editing type stuff this weekend and hopefully send out the final draft to her and Eleanor by Monday. Most Read more…
Now that I finished the unscheduled spec novel (the first draft anyway) I am now in the throes of doing an editorial rewrite on Wolfbreed #1 (did I mention I need titles?) which will probably take me through mid-April (tax day, wheee). After that’s done the plan is now to Read more…
The first line is always a bitch. Every story needs a hook to draw the reader into it, and your primary tool is those first few words on the first page. Intimidating to think that the entire weight of thousands and thousands of words can be sitting on the shoulders Read more…
A couple of woo-hoos: First off, Anne at Bantam has given the ok to the outline I submitted for Wolfbreed #2 (titles, I need titles.) which means that I can go ahead with it as soon as I get the next DAW book out of the way. Second off, we Read more…
Well, the annoying spam-meisters who’ve been peppering me with ads for self-published books have ended up on the radar of Writer Beware. I should point out that if your publicist spammer includes in their subscriber list harvested emails someone who works to publicize nasty scams that target neophyte authors (i.e. Read more…
A thread on the Agony Booth got me thinking of this movie again (see, they don’t just talk about crappy film there) and like Lost, it is unconventionally structured which in some ways highlights some of the storytelling mechanics. So I thought I’d come up with another list (which may Read more…