Patricia C. Wrede's Blog, page 3

The Dreaded Writer’s Block

Everyone agrees that writer’s block has something to do with not writing, but exactly what counts as writer’s block varies wildly. Some think writer’s block is anything at all that results in not-writing (including having a hangover or deciding they’d rather go to the beach today than

Writing forsoothly

“Writing forsoothly” is a term that has floated around the publishing industry for decades, resurfacing every time a novel that uses elevated or pseudo-historical language becomes popular, and a zillion people decide to imitate it. It’s easiest to see in dialog, when the author clearly has no

Open Mike for April

It’s open mike day! Suggest topics, ask questions, complain about your work, brag about your latest accomplishment, talk about what interests or excites you, make suggestions…whatever.

Description through characterization

For many readers, one of the more effective ways of describing a scene is through the viewpoint character. The technique is a sub-category of “description as seasoning,” which I talked about last post, but it’s hard to describe in a brief paragraph. Hence this post. The first

Description in General

Last post, I was talking mainly about description in general, and various changes in what’s been considered “good description” over time. This time, I’m going to go for talking about current considerations for description itself, and things that affect what works and what doesn’t. Like most things

Fashions in Description

Writing, like everything else human beings do, has fads and fashions that shift and change over time. One of the most obvious has to do with how description is handled in fiction. A lot of really early works don’t spend a lot of time describing mead-halls, hostelries,

Letting the Cat out of the Bag

Some years back, I had a writer friend who’d switched from being a journalist to writing fiction. She told me once that for her, the hardest part of writing fiction was learning not to automatically apply the basic journalism tenet: “Tell them what you’re gonna tell them,

The Basic Tools for the Toolbox

A lot of things get referred to as “the tools of the writing trade.” When writers use that phrase, they’re usually talking about one of two things: either things to put words on paper or pixels (pen/pencil, paper, typewriter, computer, word processing/organizing programs, etc.), or else writing

March Open Mike!

It’s once again time for an open mike day! Talk about what you’re doing, continue discussion you started earlier, ask questions, complain… whatever.

“Weak” verbs aren’t

I thought the nonsense about “weak verbs” in fiction died some time during the pandemic. Apparently, I was wrong; somebody helpfully forwarded a list of “weak verbs you should never use in your writing” recently. Which inspired this post. The first problem with talking about “weak verbs”