Bryan Young's Blog, page 3

Characterization

I was asked by a fellow writer how to approach characterization in a way that allows one to express their personalities without putting it into plain text. And I think that's a great question. No one likes to read about how a character acts outright. They want to see it.

A lot of this will come down to the classic "show don't tell" advice.

No one wants to read a passage where you say something like, "Jason was a constantly nervous person who liked ice cream when he could get it. He had a short...

The Road to Freelancing

I've been freelancing for a long time now. I've written for websites ranging from my own like Big Shiny Robot! (and this space) to Huffington Post, HowStuffWorks, Fantasy Flight Games, and StarWars.com. I've written for magazines and newspapers. I still have a regular column at Salt Lake City Weekly, which is the alt-weekly here. I had a weekly column before that in IN This Week, a now defunct weekly from the same area.

How did I get to the point where I was getting paid for my writing on a re...

Bravery in Sharing

I was asked to take a crack at explaining to other writers how to deal the vulnerability that comes with sending out your work.

I'm not sure what to do about that.

That's something that comes with every piece of your soul that you bare in writing. There's not much I can say to make you feel comfortable with sharing your work. This is a highly personal process. And all I can do is give you some advice on what to expect and what not to expect.

First, you're going to need to develop a thick skin. P...

Salt Lake Comic Con Schedule

I will be doing a whole pile of panels. I'll be doing a signing and lots of live podcasts and I would love to see you. Stop by. Say hi. Ask questions, etc.

Friday

4:00 pm - Fauxthentic History: The Princess Bride - The History of Florin and Guilder
Room 150G

5:00 pm - Mysteries of the Force
Room 150G

6:00 pm - Carrie Fisher - To Me, She's Royalty
Room 250A

8:00 pm - Adventures in Podcasting
Room 150G

Saturday

11:00 am - Spotlight on Greg Grunberg 
Grand Ballroom

1:00 pm - Author Signing with Bryan Yo...

The Villain's Tool Kit

Over the weekend, I taught a panel at SaltCon, which is a gaming convention held each year in the Salt Lake City area. It's a lot of fun and there's always a lot of interest in the intersection between storytelling and roleplaying games.

The panel I gave was on worldbuilding, but I taught about a concept that makes for really great roleplaying game stories from the perspective of the game master, but it can also be a powerful tool when crafting certain kinds of stories.

If there were a style or...

Writing Discipline

One of the most important skills I think writers need to cultivate is discipline.

For the last 600 plus days I've put my butt in the chair and written. There have been days when I haven't felt like it. There were literally days where I was in the hospital. There were times when I was so distracted by Star Wars that I could only eek out a few hundred words. But I made a commitment to discipline that I would sit down and write every day. 

It was important for me to learn how to sit down and...

Science Fiction: World Building and Technology

Tomorrow, I will be teaching a class to a bunch of high school students about world building, technology, and tropes in science fiction. I've been thinking a lot about what I'll be saying to them and thought it would be a good topic for the blog this week.

Mainly, I'm going to be telling them to ask themselves questions.

When you're building a world in a science fiction story, whether that's a planet, a system of government, or the equilibrium of an entire galaxy, you need to ask yourself a lot...

World Building Without Bogging Down Your Novel

I was asked to talk today about how you build a world without bogging down your novel. And it's something you see all too much of, not just in the work of those working toward becoming professionals, but in professionally published manuscripts as well.

Part of the problem is that writers become so in love with their world that they hit you with as much of it as they can right from the beginning. There are dumps and dumps of exposition that are supposed to paint a vibrant world, but too many co...

Your Writing is More Important Now Than Ever

I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows they're bad. Times are crazy. But what can we as writers do?

Well, write, of course.

Our stories matter.

Look at the stories from the last time our country was in a major crisis, whether that was World War II or the Great Depression. Some of my favorite stories from these eras taught me how to be a better person, or how to feel about things. Look at what Grapes of Wrath did to make people aware of the plight of those suffering the worst in...

Free-Writing

I've been doing a lot of free-writing lately and I didn't quite realize how much it could help my ability to write.

The technique I've been using is to take a random letter of the alphabet and start a word with that letter. And then see where that sentence takes me. And then I see where that paragraph takes me. And as soon as I realize I'm consciously in control of what's coming out, I pull back and start over, using that same random letter. A new word comes out and my imagination takes me awa...