Patricia C. Wrede's Blog, page 13
August 21, 2023
August 16, 2023
Viewpoint types
There’s a recurring writing argument that revolves around which type(s) of viewpoint are “too easy” or “too hard” or problematic in some other way, such that writers (especially beginners, but when you look a little closer, it sounds a lot like “all writers”) should be discouraged from
August 9, 2023
Time for another Open Mic
It is Open Mic week at the blog! Time to chat…
August 2, 2023
Editors
It’s one month to the official launch of The Dark Lord’s Daughter, and I’m twitchier than usual. The official launch party is at the Red Balloon Bookstore in St. Paul on Tuesday September 5. If you’re going to be in the Twin Cities, check their events page—they
July 26, 2023
Rambling about revisions
Revisions. For some writers, they’re impossible. For other writers, they’re a potentially endless attempt to coerce their story into an impossible perfection. For still others, they’re the easy part (or at least, the easier part, better than coming up with a first draft. Like everything else in
July 19, 2023
Implicit description
So far, I’ve been mostly talking about the standard lump-of-description—the “descriptive paragraph” that many of us got assigned to write in middle school, the sort of thing that Deep Lurker summed up as something that needs cutting back to an amount most people want to read. Today
July 12, 2023
Description how-to tips
I think it was in fifth grade that I learned my first important principle of description, which a number of commenters on last week’s post mentioned—namely, to make use of all five senses, not just sight. Poul Anderson said once that he went over every page to
July 5, 2023
Backing into description
Description is usually considered as a part of worldbuilding. This makes sense, because everything in a story is part of the story-world (whether that’s Alpha Centauri Three, modern-day Beijing, or a tiny prehistoric fishing village), and every part of the story-world tells the reader more about what
June 28, 2023
Open mic for June!
It is time for another open mic!
