First, you need to realize there are two basic different types of editing. There is line editing and plot editing (also called development editing). Plot Editing Plot editing is the guts of your novel. It’s not only the plot itself, but your characterizations and dialogue, structure and narrative. A lot of it is your style […]
Writing violence in fiction: How much?
Fiction and violence Nearly all fiction writers are going to have violence of one form or another sooner or later in one of their short stories or novels. Fiction is about conflict, and violence is one of the most common forms of conflict. Even romance writers will occasionally have a sword-slinging hero rushing in to […]
Screenwriting Broke My Writer’s Block
Screenwriting saves the day I began writing fiction about thirty years ago, unless you count a couple of short novels I wrote back in fourth and sixth grades; those novels would be called fan fiction today, one being about James Bond and the other about Don Pendleton’s character The Executioner, Mack Bolan. But other than […]
Writers: Coping with negative reviews
Dealing with negative reviews If you are a short story writer or a novelist or even a non-fiction writer, not everyone is going to appreciate your work. In fact, some folks might downright hate it. And a lot of them are very vocal, especially online. They might write reviews on Amazon, or they might write […]
No, I will not write your book for you
Writers hear it all the time, especially fiction writers. “Hey, I’ve got a story idea for you!” Really? How nice. Often the person with the story idea is only trying to be helpful, but other times they have dollar signs in their eyes. For that second type of person, words to this nature usually soon come […]
Should fiction writers join a writing group?
What is a writing group? A writing group is a gathering of people for the purpose of critiquing each other’s writing. This is a fairly common practice among beginning fiction writers, but other writers can learn from it, too. Writing groups can be as small as a few people or they can be as large as […]
Improve Your Writing by Forgetting About It
You’ve just finished writing your book or article or poem or what-have-you. You’re ready to plunge into editing and rewriting. But hold on a second. Unless you’re on a tight deadline, it’s probably best to set aside your recent writing project for a while. Why? So you can come to the words on the page […]
Fantasy writers deserve not to be pigeonholed
Writers of history A while back I was in an online forum filled with fellow writers. The majority of writers and authors on the site were thriller and romance writers … the “acceptable” genres. While there I noticed a posting about historical fiction, asking what are some favorite historical novels and short stories. I started salivating […]
Is fiction writing the last unexplored frontier?
Once upon a time, just about anyone could be an explorer. Little more than a hundred years ago, there were still places on this Earth which had not been reached, or had been reached by very few. In those days, just about any man or woman could set out to trek off into unknown territories. […]
In fiction, ‘darkness’ is in the eye of the beholder
As a fiction writer, I tend to mostly work in the fields of fantasy and horror. I don’t consider my fantasy works especially dark, nor do I consider most of my horror to be overly gory. But readers as individuals have different tastes and wants in their literature. Why, just recently I had a reader […]
Nerdarchy at Balticon 2016 – Panel Synopsis – How To Give and Receive Writing Critiques for Science Fiction and Fantasy
Presenters – Connie Willis Scott Edelman Alex Shvartsman Sarah Pinsker K.M. Szpara Panel Date – May 29, 2016 Attendance – Approximately 40 Science Fiction Writers and Readers Balticon is a large annual Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers convention that occurs in Baltimore in late spring each year. Balticon 2016 featured George […]