Steven R. Southard's Blog, page 7

Revive Your Open, Creative Mind

How often do you read a book, watch a TV show, or see a movie, and think, “How clever! I wish I could come up with ideas like that.” You can. I’ll tell you how.

Seeing the World a New Way

Creative people share a trait. Their brain neurons connect in a different manner than those of other people. When you sense the world around you, it is what it is. Creative people sense what the world could be.

Image courtesy of Pixabay

Psychologists talk of ‘trait theory’ and the ‘Big Five’ persona...

Uptime for Writers

You’re a fiction writer who wants to crank out better books faster. Maybe this blogpost will help you do that.

Intro to Uptime

I just read Uptime: A Practical Guide to Personal Productivity and Wellbeing by Laura Mae Martin. The author worked as a productivity expert at Google who helped employees do more work faster, with less stress. Could her techniques work for fiction writers?

She packed her short book with numerous techniques, and many might work for you. I’ll focus on one of t...

Authorial Reticence—Why Writers Hold Back

You’re asking if you read that subject line correctly. Hold back? Aren’t writers supposed to explain things? Aren’t they supposed to…you know…write to be understood?

I’d never heard the term ‘authorial reticence’ until last weekend, when I listened to author Michael Scott Clifton talking about it at a conference.

He spoke on the subject of ‘magical realism’ and dropped ‘authorial reticence’ on his audience. Intrigued by his description, I decided to blog about it.

Definition

Most...

What are Animals up to in Fiction?

Animals don’t read. People do. Why, then, do authors include critters in their fiction? First off, most readers like animals. But what literary purpose do animal serve?

Diogenes from Ripper’s Ring , created using perchance.org

I’ve blogged before about the pets owned by authors. But authors write about animals as well, and my topic today is about how animals make stories better.

The Talking Kind

From ancient times to the present, authors have penned tales about talking animals. Though...

The Inner Drives of Fictional Characters

You should know the motivation of each fictional character you create. What do they desire? What inner need compels them to act the way they do? I’ve blogged about motivation before, and I’ll build on that today.

Motivation versus Goals

Every major character may pursue a goal, too, but that differs from motivation. A goal is the outcome a character seeks, and motivation is why the character wants it.  

Maslow’s Hierarchy

In my earlier post, I mentioned Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of N...

Is it Really About Who You Know?

In the fiction writing business, how much depends on what you know and how much on who you know? (Yes, English teachers, I know that should be ‘whom.’ Sorry.)

In a recent post, poet Damiana Andonova discussed the importance of establishing and maintaining a network of useful contacts to help your writing career. That caused me to wonder about the what-you-know/who-you-know dichotomy as it applies to fiction writing. The age-old conundrum exists for people in all fields, of course, but I’ll li...

Busting 10 Myths About Writing Fiction

You’ve thought about writing fiction. However, the moment you did, your inner critic bashed the notion and rolled out ten reasons you shouldn’t. Your inner critic was wrong. Today, I’ll bust those myths about writing fiction.

10. I don’t have time to write.

In one sense, your inner critic was right about that. You don’t have time to write. Neither do I. No writer does. We all make time for it. We deliberately carve out time out of our day for writing, no matter how brief it may be.

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Write for 2 Audiences

If you write genre fiction, you write for two sectors of the reading public. Problem is, they want opposite things. What do you do?

For any genre—and I’ll use science fiction as my example—you’ll have two types of readers. Let’s call them Experts and Newbies. You’d like both of them to buy and enjoy your books.

Experts

The first type knows the genre well. Scifi experts can quote the Three Laws of Robotics, have a ball lecturing you about Dyson Spheres, reveal the universal question f...

Entwining External and Internal Journeys

Often, the best stories show us two journeys. In one, the protagonist contends with an outside force, possibly another person, to confront and resolve a problem. We call that the plot. The other journey takes place within the protagonist’s mind and involves emotions, beliefs, personality, and, in the end, learning and change.

You’ll find a nice overview of this in editor and writing coach Ley Taylor Johnson’s post here and I encourage you to read it. My post emphasizes different points bu...

Infrequently Asked Questions

Every topnotch website offers a FAQ page. I’d like to add one to this website, but, frankly, you fans haven’t held up your end of the deal. You haven’t asked me enough questions to count any as ‘frequent.’

However, I can ask myself questions, and even answer them. (Hmmm…Do you suppose that’s what’s really going on with most FAQ lists?)

Here’s my list:

Q: Who are you?
A: I’m Steven R. Southard, stirrer of imaginations, weaver of yarns, and your tour guide for grand adventure.

Q: Why...