Inevitably I’ll get to a point in my story where things are boring me, the events aren’t logical in the greater context of the story, or something seemed like a good idea at the time but is no longer working (or all three!). Or I’ll be doing a read-through of my latest draft and there […]
Brainstorm Like No One’s Watching Read Post »
[tweetmeme source=”jjdanz” only_single=false service=ht.ly] Spelling is a tool many fantasy writers use to lend originality to their writing. Sometimes it works and sometimes it distracts the reader from the story. I find myself getting caught up in this device, wondering if I should spell a word as it is commonly spelled or give it a
Magic, Magick, Magyck – Striving for Originality in Fantasy Read Post »
I’d like to blame the heat for my malaise, but I know that’s not really it. After approaching the halfway mark, I stalled out. I hadn’t expected it since I have a pretty good idea where everything is going, but there it was. I was having a hard time pressing forward. Some of it could
Beating the Middle of the Novel Slog Read Post »
Way back in the beginning of the new decade (Jan. 15 to be precise), I was reading Albert Zuckerman’s Writing the Blockbuster Novel. Although there were some useful bits in there, it was Ken Follett”s successive outlines for The Man From St. Petersburg that caught my eye. When people talked about outlines and writing I
Writing from an Outline (or summary, if you will. And I know you will.) Read Post »
[tweetmeme source=”jjdanz” only_single=false service=ow.ly] Have you ever come away from a conversation discombobulated, wondering what happened? Listen to how people talk and you’ll know why that happens. You’ll find this advice in so many books about writing. But what happens when you actually do that? What happens when you listen in on your own coversations?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsAFdZRRAFk] [tweetmeme source=”jjdanz” only_single=false service=ow.ly] Yet more brilliant writing from Cormac McCarthy in cinematic form. McCarthy originally wrote No Country for Old Men as a screenplay, so the dialogue you’ve seen here is pretty much directly from the book. And it’s solid. Beats sit neatly between the lines. Subtext simmers under the spoken words. The
Writing Dialogue That Does Heavy Lifting Read Post »
[tweetmeme source=”jjdanz” only_single=false service=ow.ly] I’m in the process of wrapping up the second of two short stories that I’ve written in between drafts of Shadow of the Black City. With each short story I write, my awareness of things grows and my writing improves. Things blurred in the murk of my peripheral awareness are coming
Writing Short Fiction with an Eye on Long Fiction Read Post »
[tweetmeme source=”jjdanz” only_single=false service=ow.ly] My earlier post about nuance in story, about delving into subtext and abstraction, did little more than scratch the surface. However, it brought me back to the the idea of showing rather than telling. Why? As writers, we hear this edict all the time. Sometimes I have a hard time determining
Finding the Show in Your Writing Read Post »
[tweetmeme source=”jjdanz” only_single=false service=ow.ly] I’ve been enjoying exploring the nuances of story telling, ideas that build on fundamental concepts such as story structure, word and punctuation usage, and writing discipline. Over at Tribal Writer, novelist Justine Musk has offers two great posts (among many, really) on microtension and theme. Both posts underscored my goal for
The Nuance of a Story Read Post »