Key Conditions for Reader Suspense:
Part 4 – Uncertainty
Surprise is one of the vital elements in story making precisely because it makes things unpredictable. It makes hope, fear, worry, and curiosity possible.
Archive for the ‘Advice for New Writers’ Category
Key Conditions for Reader Suspense:
Guest Post: Advice for Teen Writers
There’s nothing like writing during adolescence. The intensity, focus, and emotional strength that such a writer brings to her/his work is, like a map frozen in time, sharply delineated and can’t be captured except as a memory of once walking in those lands.
Guest Post: 10 Books for Writers Focusing on Craft
When I’m teaching, I do bring some books to class in order to point students toward them. I don’t think books are a substitute for the act of writing, but they can help focus and direct your practice and give you a list of things to work on that might not otherwise occur to you. Here’s a list of my top ten for speculative fiction writers focusing on their craft. I was sad to find some not available on the Kindle, but where possible, I’ve pointed to the e-version.
Key Conditions for Reader Suspense:
Part 3 – It’s gotta be difficult
It’s one thing to say that something bad is going to happen. It’s quite another to know that kidnappers are going to cut your finger off with a pair of wire cutters. It’s one thing to have someone say something good will happen (Chinese fortune cookie) and quite another to say your uncle just died and left you a million dollars, but you have to fight your three cousins for it.
Key Conditions for Reader Suspense:
Part 2 – The Three Problem Types
With this post we begin looking at the key conditions that build reader suspense. Stories are made up of four main ingredients: character, setting, problem, and plot. All of these are important, but problem is the engine that makes suspense go.
Key Conditions for Reader Suspense:
Part 1 – It’s All About the Reader
Sometimes it feels like there are a thousand things to remember when writing a story. New writers who make lists of these things soon begin to drown in them. But I’ve come to realize that many of these “rules” don’t matter.
Key Conditions for Suspense: Table of Contents
Key PROBLEM conditions for reader suspense Part 1 – It’s all about the reader Part 2 – The 3 Problem Types Part 3 – It’s gotta be difficult Part 4 – Uncertainty Key CHARACTER conditions for reader suspense Part 5 – Character troubles Part 6 – Character deservingness Part 7 – Character draws 1-4 Part […]
Guest Post: Write What You Know… or Don’t Know…
Or Want to Know… Know What I Mean?
A week or so ago, I asked a bunch of writers to share some of the best advice they’ve received and how they’ve used it. At the same time I asked them to share some of the worst, the weirdest, or the least helpful advice they’ve encountered over the years.
Guest Post–A Writer’s Guide to Social Media
People once learned from one another what was worth knowing and doing, and the best of these memes worked their way through the population like a unending game of telephone. It was only with the advent of mass communication technology like printing, radio, and TV that a select few became able to easily influence great numbers of people. But with social media those select few are now finding themselves increasingly drowned out.
Getting Published is Not a Crap Shoot
Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware
Many of the writers who contact me with Writer Beware-type questions seem to be convinced that the process of getting published is equivalent to a crap shoot. There are enormous numbers of people trying to …
