Category: The Process of Writing
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Characterization: What shape is your noodle?
Maybe you’ve come across those prompts that have been floating around the internet since 1998 or so: they’re massive lists of things that, supposedly, every writer should know about their character. They start out with some solid information: legal name, nicknames, appearance, where they were born, etc. And then things…
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Happy New Year!
Traditionally, I’ve done a new year’s resolution post on this day. This year, I’m going to not do that– because isn’t making and breaking traditions what today is about? Instead, I give you the first writing prompt of the new year: Your character finds a genie, and they are given…
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Getting from a concept to a story
The amazing thing about being a writer is that you learn to spot the ideas and ‘what if’s that other people would normally pass by. They’re everywhere, and they’re incredible. And they can also be incredibly frustrating. You can get incredibly intricate and detailed ideas in your head, but for…
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The problem with Lawful Good
((image via Know Your Meme)) If you’re a nerd, you know a nerd, or you’ve spent any amount of time on the internet, you’ve probably seen some variation of the above image. It’s a chart of the standard Dungeons & Dragons character alignments, which goes by the theory that any given…
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The case of the mistaken love interest
It’s our protagonist’s first day at a new school. She’s frazzled and distracted, her mind heavy with plot-relevant drama– and BAM! runs headfirst into someone, sending her books flying. She and this stranger look into each other’s eyes, and the readers are given a lavish description of how good-looking he…
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A rose by any other name…
One of the awkward things about writing is that we become acutely aware of some of the words we use, especially the ones we use most often. “Said” can make us physically cringe, even though readers often glaze over it. In the same way, saying the same character’s name over…
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The power of taboo
Worldbuilding is essential to sci-fi and fantasy. Even if your story takes place in modern New York City with some vampires, you still need to build the “world” of those vampires– their culture, their history, their biology, their strengths and weaknesses, their mindsets, and so forth. One way to add…
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A state of being: what you are vs. what you want
There’s a piece of wisdom passed along the writing circles of this day and age: to round up your linking verbs and off ’em like turkeys on the week before Thanksgiving. At first glance it’s good advice– after all, the natural opposite of a static ‘was’ sentence would be an active…
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Your eyes are reading this post (unless they aren’t)
A few days ago I found myself writing “his fingers plucked at the strings” in one of my stories. Well, wait. That doesn’t look right. I’ll get the same kind of weird cringe when I see phrases like “his eyes watched” or “his foot stepped”. Why is that, though? It…
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What type of Creative are you?
I don’t think I can log onto Facebook anymore without seeing one of those personality tests: “Which Hogwarts house do you belong in?” “What Disney Princess are you?” “What city should you live in?” And right alongside them: “50 things only introverts will understand” and “Only nerds will get these…
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