Write Now!
On Thursday, I had two young writers thank me for advice I’d given on short stories, which they had just sold. I had two more writers that I had helped discover through the Writers of the Future Contest that won Dragon Awards, so it was a great day. I love days like that. But not […]
Creating a Sense of Wonder in Your Fantasy
There are all kinds of fantasy novels. If you’re a genre writer, the first one that you might think of is Sword and Sorcery, or perhaps High Fantasy. Typically, these are fantasies set in some sort of medieval world, much like Tolkien’s, but the authors may have very distinctive voices. Yet there are lots of […]
What Rejection Really Means
For the last few weeks I’ve been scurrying to finish up judging on a large contest. I’ve had to “reject” thousands of stories. I hate the word “reject,” because it doesn’t really express what I want to say. Very often I will read the opening to a story and it is obviously the first work […]
Do What You Love
Years ago, I had a reporter call and ask, “If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?” The only answer I had was, “I’d just keep on being a writer.” Since it was Career Day, the reporter wrote an article in which he posed that question to dozens of people. As […]
On Comedy
I’ve been a big fan of John Cleese ever since I first saw “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” I don’t like just one of his works, I’ve been a fan of him both as a comic and a critic for more than forty years. So this weekend I listened to a few interviews he […]
You and Your List
Keeping a list is easy. You simply put up a web page and invite people to get on your mailing list. On your web page you can blog about anything that you like—your love of emperor penguins, your Aunt Sophie’s lime pie recipes, or your desire to backpack across Mars before you die. You don’t have to talk much about your writing at all, but you do need to start now.
Making a Good Impression
There is a saying among writers, “The first page of your book, sells your novel. The last page of your book sells your next novel.” In other words, your sales depend upon making a favorable impression. However, sometimes authors get lazy. They quit worrying about impressing readers. If you’ve had a string of hits, you […]
Using the Right Tools for the Right Writing Job
Frequently I see new writers make mistakes in their writing by choosing the wrong writing tools for the job. Now, the writing tools that I’m talking about are narration, dialogue, and description. These are the three main tools that we use in telling a story. In narration, we simply tell the reader information, often without […]
Spectacular Settings
When I’m looking at a story, one of the simple things I look at is setting. There are so many aspects to a setting, so let’s just look at a few: 1) Is your milieu intriguing? Many authors will set a story in the most blasé of places. Often, the story is set “somewhere in […]
Don’t Stress Out!
One form of writer’s block comes from being stressed. This is almost always a temporary condition, and there are ways to work around it, but much depends on the source of your stress. Let’s say for example that you have set aside your Saturday mornings to write, and suddenly you get the news that your […]