Dan Wells's Blog, page 24

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

I've been surprised and kind of impressed with how much of a response I've gotten from my recent posts that dealt with politics and disillusionment and dystopias. These are big concerns for me, and I'm glad that they seem to be big concerns for you, too. I am not an especially political person, so don't expect this to turn into a political blog—I can't really discuss candidates or policies or anything like that, so I don't try. What I can discuss, though, and what I believe in very strongly, ...

The One Who Walk Away From Omelas

I've been surprised and kind of impressed with how much of a response I've gotten from my recent posts that dealt with politics and disillusionment and dystopias. These are big concerns for me, and I'm glad that they seem to be big concerns for you, too. I am not an especially political person, so don't expect this to turn into a political blog—I can't really discuss candidates or policies or anything like that, so I don't try. What I can discuss, though, and what I believe in very strongly, ...

We always get the fiction we need

When the first Battlestar: Galactica came out back in the day, the good guys were dashing heroes and the bad guys were nameless, faceless robots. It was a perfect Cold War metaphor, with two nations (one good and one evil) locked in war; it reflected the concerns and challenges of our time.

Today we live in a different age, when the cold war was over and we were faced, instead, with subtler enemies we couldn't always identify: the man who wants to kill you isn't a Russian general with his...

Notes on the 7-Point System

Lots of people are asking about the 7-Point System, especially about variations to it, so I figured a post on the subject was a good idea (also: easier than answering lots of different emails).

Here's the simple answer to every question people have asked me: yes. Here's the answer that actually makes sense: story structure systems in general, and this system in particular, don't force stories to be a certain way, they describe the way stories already are. Take any story you want, study...

Writing a short story, part 2

Yesterday I explained the premise of a short story I intend to write; today I'm going to turn that idea into an outline. You might want to read yesterday's post if you haven't already. You might also want to read my 7-Point Structure article, or watch the videos on YouTube, because I'll be using that system extensively.

The first thing we need is a resolution, and I already talked a little about what I wanted that to be: my hero, who I've decided to call Silas, will come to terms with his...

Writing a short story

I'm writing a short story for an anthology called Mormons and Monsters, focusing on classic pulp-style horror stories that happen to have Mormons in them. Since I'm a professional horror writer and a Mormon, it seems like a good fit. But as I was putting together an outline last night, it occurred to me that I've been looking for a project for a while now that I could record in full on my blog—not just give you hints about what I'm doing, like I did with my previous books, but actually get...

Writers Block: Blah

I am on record as believing in writers block: despite what many authors will unhelpfully tell you, it is a real thing that you will occasionally face. What it is not, however, and what those aforementioned authors actually mean when they try to debunk it, is that writers block is not a supernatural force impeding you from writing, it's just an umbrella term for any number of factors that make it difficult for you to do your job. Hunger, for example, is a common source of writer's block, and y...

Accountability Update

I still need to finish Extreme Makeover: Apocalypse Edition, but I also have three new projects I have to work on: we will label them Project X, Project Y, and Project Z. I can't tell you anything about them, except that Project X is about a chain-smoking monkey in a flight simulator. It's about freedom.

I need to work on all of these projects this week, but I can't afford to lose any more time on EM:AE. Here's my plan:

1) Write a solid 2000 words of EM:AE every day.
2) On Monday, write 2000...

I Screwed Up

Hi, Eric the IT Lemur Here. During routine clean up I did something not so routine

Which is why everything looks whack. I apologize. I hope to have it fixed very soon, at which point I will remove this post. Everything still works, I just have to un-restore some files.

Dystopia

Dystopia is huge right now, especially in YA. This is probably due to the fact that we live in one–or, more correctly, this is due to the fact that YA readers are finally paying close enough attention to realize that we live in one. The last time American teens were politically savvy enough to care about the condition of our country was in the 60s, with the Vietnam war, and I think that has a lot of parallels to today: regardless of how the war may actually be going (and you can find the...