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Recent Posts
- Extended time generator
- Try a little name dropping
- Does being well-read help you write?
- Talking yourself into writing
- Chemistry lessons
- Mixing past and present can get tense
- Breathing life into your words
- Playing the writing game
- Idea generator
- Vanilla, Chocolate, or Bananas Foster
- In praise of the passive hero
- Not exactly human
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Category Archives: Literature
Try a little name dropping
Imagine you are discussing a current government situation with a friend. You mention an insight you learned about behind-the-scenes working of government while in our capitol. Perhaps you briefly mention that when George Bush explained this the first time, you … Continue reading
Posted in Characters, Literature, Trends in books, Writer's resource
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Chemistry lessons
Chemistry–a subject in school that requires labs where students mix substances to observe what happens. However, the students spend much more time scribbling down equations on paper to calculate the result of reactions they never observe. Chemicals are often predictable. … Continue reading
Posted in Literature, Manipulation, Writer's resource
Tagged chemistry, relationships, romance
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Mixing past and present can get tense
Authors sometimes play with the parts of a novel, like wooden blocks that can be rearranged. What will happen if the middle of the story is inserted at the beginning, or time moves forward and then backwards? What if exterior … Continue reading
Posted in Literature, Trends in books, Writer's resource, writing trends
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Breathing life into your words
Where does the spark of a story originate? Walking down the street trimmed with frosted pine swags, hearing the distant hum of a children’s choir and a mother berating her teenage son for wanting to spend Christmas day at the … Continue reading
Simmering the main character
Character development is probably the only way to make a protagonist that is someone else than a flat or stock character. However, this takes time and results in a slower pace of writing, like a stew that must simmer for … Continue reading
Posted in Characters, Literature, Writer's resource
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“Crazy” characters
If you want to write fiction involving mentally ill characters in a realistic way, to show how and why they no longer think clearly, you must get to know real people with real psychiatric disorders. There are many places that … Continue reading
Posted in Characters, Literature, mental health
Tagged mental illness, psychotic, Psychoticism
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The nature of an epic
Before “epic” became a name used by companies to suggest their fame, it was a type of poem. A long one describing the exploits of heroes and often involving the rise of a nation. The poetic meter made memorization of … Continue reading
Posted in Characters, Literature, Trends in books, Writer's resource
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Traveling towards the novel
Story tellers usually start small. I did this with little sketches referred to as flash fictions, often under 500 words. I won money in contests and published some of these. I began receiving the response, ‘this intrigues me but I … Continue reading
Posted in Literature, plot, Writer's resource
Tagged hero's journey, novel, Short story
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The secret to naming characters
Writers seek every secret advantage that they can to make characters appealing. Choosing a good name for the character is supposed to confer one of those advantages. The only rules I see for naming a fictional person is to make … Continue reading
Real characters
The difference between being believable and being realistic may not be that different between works of fantasy and novels about “real life.” Books about life as we know it are often not realistic but contain an adrenaline-charged or romanticized version … Continue reading
Posted in Characters, Literature, Writer's resource
Tagged Fantasy, limitations to power, realism, Science fiction
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