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Making your protagonist a relatable underdog is a great way to encourage your audience to bond with them. Unfortunately, it’s easy for this effort to go wrong. Instead of feeling sympathy for your hero, the audience might think your character is whiny and unpleasant. The narration … read more »
If you want your words to sound captivating, borrow tricks from a poet. Most fiction writers are familiar with literary devices like metaphor and personification, but it’s less common for storytellers to focus on auditory effects. Working with sound and rhythm can help you convey … read more »
Gather round, ye speculative fiction fans. It is time for another critique post. Last time, I reached into spec fic’s distant past and dredged up A Spell for Chameleon, but today I take on a more modern offering: The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. I … read more »
On the cover of Tiger’s Curse is a white tiger giving me an intense blue stare. I think it knows I’m about to critique its book, and it does not approve. Still, I can’t help but appreciate the tasteful graphic design and gentle pattern overlay … read more »
What do Discworld, Alice in Wonderland, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Lord of the Rings have in common? If you guessed “omniscient narration,” then you’re right, but you also cheated by reading my title. No matter – I will still share the secrets of this powerful but challenging … read more »
Sometimes a sentence is very long, and it keeps going and going with commas in places that a period could be and extra clauses that don’t necessarily need to be there. Other times a sentence is short. Which is better? As is so often the … read more »
Some writers start every sentence with “there are,” others can’t stop italicizing, and still others write sentences that never end. We’ve all got bad habits in our writing, and this week Ariel returns to discuss them with Chris and Wes. Our hosts are all editors, … read more »
What’s this? Ariel has returned from the wilderness of freelance editing to grace our podcast yet again. She joins Chris and Wes for an in-depth discussion of emphasis in writing. How should writers make key passages stand out? How much is too much? Is bolding … read more »
Fiction is made of people doing things, and the standard “protagonist verb object” is a strong way to write that. But if you structure all your sentences that way, you’ll have a monotonous mess on your hands. When that happens, it can be a struggle to inject some life into stale phrasing. To keep your head from hitting the desk, I have some quick ideas you can use. Read more »
Speculative fiction calls for a vast array of narrative personalities. A spec fic writer could be called on to write in the voice of a clockwork golem, a garter snake, or an otherworldly alien. But instead of flavoring your wordcraft with these perspectives, it’s all too … read more »