Category Archives: Writing Resources and Craft

Apr 20

I find, as a reviewer, that even some authors who make few other mistakes still make this one.

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I find, as a reviewer, that even some authors who make few other mistakes still make this one.

Originally shared by Karen Conlin

I expect this to become a series, so I’m numbering this post. If I’m wrong, well … I’ll come back later, in a year or two, and edit the title. Aaaaanyway, let’s get to it. This is about commas and adjectives. When you have a string of adjectives before a…

http://grammargeddon.com/2017/04/20/commas-plain-language-explanation-1
Apr 05

It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it.

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It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it.

Originally shared by Melissa Walsh

Do you love stats? Do you love writing advice? Do you love stats about famous authors who don’t follow writing advice?

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/73072-danielle-steel-loves-the-weather-and-elmore-leonard-hates-exclamation-points-literature-by-the-numbers.html?linkId=36142443
Mar 24

This is a thoughtful and helpful response to a good question.

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This is a thoughtful and helpful response to a good question.

Originally shared by Brandon Sanderson

#FAQFriday

I just had a question about writing, specifically regarding your laws on magic. Your first law states that the ability to solve problems using magic is directly proportional to the reader’s knowledge of said magic. My question comes kind of as the opposite. What is your opinion on the ability of the author to create problems using magic? Does the reader need to know a lot about the magic system for you to be able to have the “villain” use it to create problems for the protagonists? Or can you create problems with this magic without the reader knowing a lot about it?

One thing to remember about my laws is that they’re laws I devised for myself–laws I find make my writing stronger. I think they hold very well in general, but there are no “rules” for fiction. There are as many ways to do things as there are people doing them.

However, like most things, I DO have an opinion. 🙂

Magic causing problems in the story is a great thing–as more conflict generally makes for a stronger story. Obviously, this isn’t a 100% correlation, but it’s a good rule of thumb. Using the magic as a kind of “human vs. nature” style plot is a great idea, and I’ve used it to great advantage myself. One could say that in Elantris, the magic (which is broken) is a primary antagonist of the story.

There are a few things to be aware of. First, avoid what my friend and colleague Bryce Moore dubbed “Deus Ex Wrench.” Yes, that doesn’t quite work. But the idea is this: Just like solving problems out of nowhere, with unforeshadowed powers or advantages, can be unsatisfying, sometimes just having problems happen out of nowhere in a story can be unsatisfying.

If a dam breaks, risking flooding the city, it’s much stronger if we know the dam is there–if the characters have walked along it, or if something similar happened somewhere else in the story in parallel. Likewise, having the magic create problems unexpectedly, if handled without some measure of foreshadowing, could be unsatisfying. (For example, if the One Ring suddenly started–three quarters of the way through the series–melting your friends if they crossed their eyes.)

Just as I think you can create a great magic system that doesn’t have explicit rules, I think you can have the magic be a huge problem in the books if the reader/characters don’t understand it. Doing so in this case is probably going to be about making sure that the major conflict is not FIXING the magic, but overcoming it.

For example, if the magic in your world–when used–causes rainfall that floods and kills crops, one story (the explicit rules story) would be about finding out why, and learning to use the magic safely. But another story would be about surviving a terrible flood, and another about hunting down and stopping the people who use the magic. All three can use the magic as a huge conflict, but only one would probably need deep explanation of the magic system in order to have a satisfying resolution.

Mar 17

Via Winchell Chung, a letter from Robert Heinlein to Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle about the book that became The…

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Via Winchell Chung, a letter from Robert Heinlein to Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle about the book that became The Mote in God’s Eye. He takes them to task pretty thoroughly for not starting the story until page 100, for numerous errors of naval protocol, and for even more numerous copy editing errors.

This is what a friend and colleague does.

Originally shared by Dean Calahan

The Mote in God’s Eye is usually within my top five, and always within my top ten, science fiction novels*. In my youth, even as a poor college student, I would often almost resent it** when Heinlein came out with a new novel, because I would enter an algorithm by which as soon as I saw it on the stack at the U bookstore I would walk half a block to the ATM and then half a block back to buy the book, no matter the status of my checking account. Hardback. Sometimes cursing in sort of a reflexive Shadenfreude.

Anyway, suffice it to say I today have a much more nuanced view of Heinlein and others, and have read Patterson’s biography.

All that said, if you have any interest in the above, and haven’t read it yet, you will surely be delighted to follow the supplied link, a letter from Robert to Larry and Jerry after reading a draft of their epic novel.

*I don’t really keep a list, but if one were to ask me off hand, this is probably how it would break down.

**Right, not really.

https://web.archive.org/web/20130701140830/http://www.virginiaedition.com/ve/TheVirginiaEdition-sample.pdf#page=23