We don’t write endless text without pause. At every level, from an entire book to each individual sentence, we break our prose into chunks. Some places in a story require a break, and in other places, breaking is optional. By placing these subjective breaks, we … read more »
I went looking for something to critique that’s not YA, and I hit the jackpot with this #1 New York Times bestseller House of Earth and Blood by Sarah Maas. She’s had plenty of bestsellers previously, and this is the first of her new Crescent … read more »
Behold, a podcast with emotions so deep you can feel them in your bones! No, not deep enough, your marrow! Or maybe your T-cells? That’s right, today we’re talking about melodrama, the thing that happens when authors try to make more emotional scenes by writing … read more »
Metaphors are strongly associated with beautiful prose, so many writers work to include them in their narration. However, not all metaphors are equal. Bad metaphors can detract from prose as much as good metaphors can enhance it. Let’s go over what you should avoid when … read more »
Great description evokes the imagination and establishes the atmosphere you want for your story. However, it takes practice to figure out how to create a strong impression and make every word count. To help you look at your writing critically, I’ve reworked three excerpts of … read more »
The season of Hugos is upon us, and Mythcreants is getting into the award-winning spirit! Not by winning awards of course, but by critiquing each of the six novels nominated for the biggest award in speculative fiction. This week, we’re doing The City in the … read more »
Among the ever-present need to sound natural but not too natural, the logistics of specifying who said what, and the importance on bringing out characters’ personalities, dialogue can be pretty tough to write. Let’s look at some common mistakes writers make and how we can … read more »
In real life, we have our eyeballs to tell us what something looks like. But in prose fiction, we’re not so lucky. Be it novels or short stories, we only have words on a page to communicate visuals, so how do we do it? That’s … read more »
The Witcher book series, written by Andrzej Sapkowski and translated to English by Danusia Stok, started a popular video game franchise and now a popular TV show on Netflix too. I’ve seen the first season of the show, so that gives me some story context … read more »
Exposition is an important tool that will not only reduce confusion but also make your story more gripping. This may seem counterintuitive, since exposition is notorious for being boring. It will indeed be boring if you overuse it, as many writers do. Skilled used of … read more »
