Discussion

I’m suffering from a serious case of Writer’s Wait. It’s not quite the same thing as writer’s block. I could write any number of things. But the project I want to write doesn’t feel quite ready to be written. Sure, I could explain this in a number of ways. I just lost my Grandma Hazel, my last connection to that generation in my family – and that has taken an emotional toll. There’s also the time toll – preparing the slide show and the eulogy for the ceremony, the actual time spent flying to Tucson and spent with family. Then … Read more

A few weeks ago, one of our members, Gus Li, posted an article on some of the biggest tropes in Fantasy – including my personal favorite, the Weapon Too Big To Carry. It got me thinking. We all have those things that really bug us as readers – you know, where you just roll your eyes at the writer and say “Really?” And as writers, many of us have our own nervous tics – little things we go back to again and again although we know we shouldn’t. I know one of mine – the mirror trick, when you want … Read more

We’ll be announcing our flash-fiction contest winners in the next few days. I know, we originally planned to give ourselves a month. But we got through them more quickly than expected, and I gotta say, we were quite pleased with the quality of the submissions. Anyhow, the whole thing got me wondering about story length. Flash fiction (or micro fiction, as it is also called), is a particular beast, because it requires the author to edit out all but the barest details, and yet to provide a complete picture with those few words. One of my favorite micro fiction pieces … Read more

Today’s topic comes from QSFer Beth Brock: “How do you write your characters? Do you talk to them? Do they come through you? Or…?” When I write, I usually start with a story idea. Then I sit down to write it, and the character starts to form in my mind, I usually layer in details and history as I go, and over time, I end up with a three-dimensional, unique character. I know that some other writers work differently, planning out the minuscule details of a character before ever putting a pen to paper. Some people write the characters themselves … Read more

Google defines “anti hero” as: “a central character in a story, movie, or drama who lacks conventional heroic attributes.” In practice, this often means a character who is the purported “hero” of the story – the protagonist who carries the arc of the plot – but is often deeply flawed or does bad things. My classic go-to for this one is Thomas Covenant from Stephen Donaldson’s The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever – a man with leprosy from our world who is transported to a fantasy world where he is suddenly healed, and, because he doesn’t believe it can … Read more

Today’s topic comes from QSFer Hank T. Cannon: “What does one do when everyone is evil? How to handle narratives when “good” is solely defined through POV”. I’m gonna tackle a particular piece of this, and Hank can jump in and steer things his own way too. The best “evil” characters, IMHO, are often the ones who don’t know they are bad, who truly believe in the (usually tragically wrong) cause they are supporting. This allows the writer to create a more complex villain – see Disney’s retelling of the Sleeping beauty tale in Maleficent, a character who did terrible … Read more

I just finished the third (and final) draft of my latest work – a 24k novella that mixes Faery elements with post-global warming San Francisco. It was fun to write – as I’ve mentioned before, it’s the first time I’ve sat down and plotted out – from start to finish – an entire work. And then (pretty much) followed my outline. But now I’m at the end. As I look it over, I’m fairly satisfied. But then I think… is the language ok? Do I need to research the mythology a little more? Is the dialogue good? All these little … Read more