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Category Archives: Writer’s resource
Talking yourself into writing
I was rather amused by a study about learning foreign languages which concluded that extroverts learned to speak a foreign language more rapidly while introverts mastered writing in it quicker. The finding didn’t require rocket science, just a definition of … Continue reading
Posted in Creativity, Style and voice, Writer's resource
Tagged extroverts, introverts
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Lessons in Chemistry
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
Playing the writing game
The debate continues between those who have a flash of inspiration that propels them to write and keep writing and those who think about their ideas and outline before they start. For those who prefer the less planned routine, the … Continue reading
In praise of the passive hero
Don’t create a main character who just is passive, watching the other characters without taking charge or getting things done. Also, don’t read books by two of the most famous American authors Herman Melville and F. Scott Fitzgerald because they … Continue reading
Posted in Characters, Literary devices, Writer's resource
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Not exactly human
While embarking on a new type of writing, creating alternate world fantasy, I rebelled against copying what I already knew. Instead I insisted on creating my own species and giving them my own names. However creative I attempted to be, … 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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Nonlinear, when does it work?
At one point when watching a Benedict Cumberbatch movie, my friend commented that this actor must have the requirement that all of his movies or series be nonlinear. At one moment Cumberbatch would be studiously studying a problem in the … Continue reading
“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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