A few years back (oh, 2009 or so) I started making novel playlists. These are songs that, somehow, evoke a character, a scene, or the overall story for me. A lot of times it’s related to lyrics, and I find
With Great Technology Comes Great Responsibility
Good day, Squiders. I am out of town this week, and originally I was just going to abandon you to your own devices, but then a friend offered to guest post for me. So aside from this, you will actually
Troublesome Characters
Last week I was flailing around, trying to figure out what I should write about, and a friend on Twitter suggested I write about troublesome characters. Here’s the thing, though. Writing is a highly complex art, with many necessary skill
The Differences Between Urban and Contemporary Fantasy
As we touched on just barely during the Subgenre Study, while many people consider urban and contemporary fantasy to be synonymous, they’re not actually. Examples! Story 1 takes place in modern times in a major city. The story is both
Creating New Worlds
I was out with some of the guys from my speculative fiction writing group the other night (and let me tell you how lovely it is to belong to a group where everyone writes science fiction and fantasy, though the
The Importance of Antagonists
Someone on Twitter the other day was asking the Twitterverse at large whether or not their protagonists had antagonists. Well, I certainly hope so. What drives story? Conflict. And what causes conflict? Having obstacles that your main character/protagonist needs to
Visualizing Characters
You know how you go to watch the movie-version of a book and you’re like, “This character doesn’t look anything like what I thought they would?” That rarely ever happens to me. I don’t know why, but when reading, I
The Potential of Things
I was out with my writing group tonight, and after the official discussion was over we were chatting about things, and the conversation somehow turned to M. Night Shyamalan. And there were, of course, the haters, but I actually really