Patricia C. Wrede's Blog, page 18

Description I – What and Why

Description is one of those writing tools that doesn’t get a lot of love. It’s hard to find plain old “how to describe things” advice – no, it’s always about how to write “adjective descriptions” – vivid descriptions, evocative descriptions, physical descriptions, interesting descriptions, and, of course, good descriptions. The underlying assumption seems to be that everybody knows how to do a basic description, so there’s no reason to go into that part and they can skip ahead to whatever improv...

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The Value of Space

All writers are pantsers at some point, because we’re all making stuff up. Even planners – planning is just making stuff up ahead of using it in a first draft, instead of making it up in the draft and then revising it. Everybody starts with a huge empty space, and has to fill it.

Creativity needs that space.

But empty space is … invisible. Empty. This makes it really easy to overlook, especially when trying to explain to someone else How To Do This. “Begin by making a list of characters.” “Start...

Open Mic

Welcome to the second periodic open mic week! I do screen first-time comments to avoid being swamped by spam, and there is sometimes a delay in approving them depending on my schedule, but I will get to them, I promise. Topics are not limited to writing, but I reserve the right to cut people off if things get nasty.

Characters vs. Plot

I am always surprised that I get more questions about plot than I do about characters. Plot is about what happens – the events and incidents that the characters go through in the process of getting from Situation A at the start of the story to Situation Q at the end of the story. Yes, they can look like a nest of snakes when you’re looking at the main plot and a bunch of subplots, but it’s like untangling five lengths of yarn that the cat has been playing with. Once you separate them, they’re fi...

What’s a Turning Point?

Turning points confuse me.

Turning points confuse me.

Or perhaps it’s the way people talk about them that confuses me. I’m used to the fact that writing terminology isn’t standardized, and often can mean more than one thing. (“What’s the viewpoint?” can, for instance, mean “Which character’s eyes do we see the action through?” or it can mean “Is this story written in first-, second-, or third-person?”)

Back in elementary school, I was taught that the “turning point” was the mid-point of...

Beginnings

“Every saga has a beginning.” – Star Wars

Deciding on a beginning is a problem for a lot of authors. Many don’t recognize that there’s a difference between “where the story/plot starts” and “where the book starts,” and therefore don’t realize that the two things aren’t firmly tied together.  

Stories about happy people happily being happy, or miserable people miserably being miserable, are not very interesting to most people because nothing much happens. Stories start when something in the mai...

Production vs. Product

First off, an announcement: my sometime writing partner, Caroline Stevermer, has a new title just out, The Glass Magician. She did a live interview on Monday about it, which is now on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLBMsbrjzq0. Its set in a very-alternate-universe New York City in 1905, and she talks a bit about the worldbuilding and the difficulties faced by her vaudeville-magician protagonist when she discovers that she is magic, for real. I recommend both the interview and the...

Tracking and Rhythms

It looks as if the open mic week was a resounding success, so well repeat it again in about six weeks. Meanwhile, Ive spent some of the last week or so listening to writing podcasts while I do some much-needed spring cleaning. And naturally, one of them annoyed me.

This one, like many of them, began with a series of recommendations that sounded quite reasonable on the surface: know what youre trying to do, make it specific, and then break it down so you know what you need to do in order to...

Open Mic

Welcome to the open mic post! Instead of me blathering on, its your turn! Got some good news? Just starting something? Need to complain about your characters? Let us know.

I plan on keeping this fairly loose, meaning that I dont intend to limit the conversation to books and writing as long as it stays civil. If all goes well, I expect to do this about every six weeks. It is a bit of an experiment, so suggestions and ideas for improvement are welcome. (And does anybody know whether it should...