Advice for New Writers Archives - Page 31 of 36

Archive for the ‘Advice for New Writers’ Category

Key Conditions for Suspense:
Part 10 – Clarity, the first principle of plot

Character and problem by themselves don’t go anywhere. You still have to build reader tension to a sharp point. So how do you do that?

Guest Post: Writing and Mortality

Writing is a risky career choice and one that doesn’t always yield a lot of concrete reward or social approval. But if one pretends it’s not a choice, then one doesn’t have to worry about those things, or at least not in the same way.

Key Conditions for Suspense:
Part 9 – character draws 9-10

In my last two posts, I identified a number of things that make people and, therefore, characters interesting to us. In this post, I’ll present the last two draws and introduce the next condition for reader suspense.

Ten Terrific Resources for
Writing Space-Based Hard Science Fiction

I would like to share ten resources, more or less, that I think are really terrific when it comes to getting the science right. These will be biased toward my areas of expertise, and will span books, websites, and software. Old-fashioned books first.

Guest Post: Freeing the Statue from the Stone

All life is nurtured by death, and a story is defined not so much by what it is, but by what it is not. Our fiction cannot take on life unless we are willing destroy all of the beautiful possibilities but one: the best one.

Key Conditions for Suspense:
Part 8 – character draws 5-8

We cannot help but be interested in characters who are, do, or have things we want. In fact, this is one of the main draws of fiction–experiencing something wonderful or cool, even if it’s vicariously.

Conditions for Suspense: Part 7 – Character draws 1-4

In my last two posts I discussed the fact that readers are not going to hope and fear for a character unless that character raises their sympathy and sense of deservingness. But is that enough? Do readers stick around if the characters are utterly boring?

Conditions for Suspense:
Part 6–Character deservingness

All of us have an automatic scale of justice inside of us. We can’t turn it off. Nor can we ignore it. It’s very simple. If someone’s bad outweighs their good, then we think they don’t deserve good things. Conversely, if someone’s good outweighs their bad, we think they should be happy.

Key Conditions for Reader Suspense:
Part 5 – Character troubles

Sympathy starts when we see someone in trouble. That’s not the only thing that’s required. Some people who are in terrible trouble only evoke pity or even antipathy. So there’s more to this than trouble, but trouble is where sympathy starts. So what kind of trouble are we talking about?

How to be a Writer and Have a Life: or, Livin’ the Dream

Writing is a rewarding and fun gig, but finding the time to write can be a challenge. The only commodity an author has are her words, and the only way to produce that commodity is to get some quality butt-in-chair action. Contrary to urban legend, stories don’t write themselves or grow on Novel Trees. So how do you find the time to make the magic happen?