I consider myself an intermediate-level writer, but I’m still getting a lot out of these practical, clear lectures.

Originally shared by Brandon Sanderson

New Writing Lecture + Updates

The third installment of the 2016 Sanderson Lectures, “The Illusionist Writer,” is now live! If you missed last week’s episode, “Cook vs. Chef,” you can catch up on all the videos here. Enjoy!

In this week’s new Writing Excuses episode, The Elemental Thriller, we discuss the difference between the drivers in thrillers, horror stories, and mysteries, and use the elemental genre tools to assist in the differentiation. We also cover the tools we use to develop and maintain the tension that is so critical in a thriller.

Update on the Mistborn: House War board game Kickstarter campaign: It’s now at 530% funded, and is working on the 12th stretch goal.

Last week, in Tor.com’s continuing reread posts for Words of Radiance, Shallan evacuated the armies while Kaladin battled. This week, in Chapter 87, in the aftermath, they face rearrangement of the world as they knew it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ovtiazIzJA&list=PLH3mK1NZn9QqOSj3ObrP3xL8tEJQ12-vL&index=3

A good article from Charlie Jane Anders (in other news, water wet).

I was tinkering with this yesterday, and just posted it publicly in response to a question in the Writers’ Discussion Group about how to develop characters. Thought some of my other writing people might also be interested.

Daily word counts. They vary greatly, and as long as you have momentum, you probably shouldn’t obsess about them. But it’s interesting to see what people say about them.

Putting this in Writing Resources and Craft because writing prompts.

Originally shared by Adafruit Industries

The British Library Has Made Three Centuries of Copyright-Free Images Available for Download

https://blog.adafruit.com/2016/06/25/the-british-library-has-made-three-centuries-of-copyright-free-images-available-for-download/

Via Core77

The thing about books is that they’re not very much good when they’re closed and wedged into a shelf. At the same time, no sensible curator would let you put your grubby little mitts on a 250-year-old treasure. So, starting in 2013, the British Library began scanning thousands of books from the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries, and has now made all of the images contained within them free to download (they’re all well out of copyright).

Read more: https://blog.adafruit.com/2016/06/25/the-british-library-has-made-three-centuries-of-copyright-free-images-available-for-download/

I trust +Gregory Lynn’s recommendations, so I clicked through to this essay and read it, and found myself convinced.

Originally shared by Gregory Lynn

I’ve been reading Kameron Hurley’s Geek Feminist Revolution. If you’re into that sort of thing, you should read it. If you’re not, you should read the attached essay anyway.

It’s about the similarities between writing fiction and writing advertising copy. If you’re a writerly type and you’re looking for ways to make money to buy you time to write the novel that’s going to change the world, well, it turns out that using words to get people to buy stuff is a valuable skill.

Some dares for you, should you be so inclined.

I watched the original set a couple of years ago and found them extremely valuable. Sanderson is a smart guy who knows writing, and has an engaging lecturing style.

Originally shared by Brandon Sanderson

2016 Sanderson Lectures

All,

Several years back, grad student Scott Ashton asked me if he could record my BYU lectures and post them for an online curriculum as part of a project he was doing. I said yes, and it was never supposed to be “a thing,” not really. It was a student doing a project, and using my lectures as a way to explore online education.

Well, since that time, those lectures (which are collected at Scott’s site, which he called Write About Dragons) have been viewed tens of thousands of times, and become one of the big hallmarks of my web presence, at least as far as writing education goes. I’ve been blown away by the reception to them. At the same time, I’ve been keenly aware that the recording was subpar. This isn’t Scott’s fault—he actually did an excellent job, considering his background. But the lectures are at times difficult to hear, and the filming was handled on a single amateur camera.

For years, I’ve been wanting to do something better. And this year I had my chance. My good friend Earl is a semiprofessional filmmaker, and was looking for a new project. I pitched a better-recorded set of lectures, filmed this year in my class, and he jumped at the idea.

I’m extremely pleased with how these turned out. I think the lectures have evolved over time in ways you’ll find useful, and the filming is top-notch. (No promises about the jokes though.) We’ll be releasing these at a pace of around one a week, and it is my hope for them to replace the previous series as the “canonical” version of my writing lectures online.

So, it is with great pleasure that I give you the 2016 Sanderson Lectures, with thanks to Earl Cahill and his assistants for their camera work and editing. (Earl’s company, Camera Panda, gets a shout-out as well.)

I hope you find them useful!

Brandon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4ZDBOc2tX8

A couple of good insights from this article about one of my favourite authors. Watch how he creates a believable character, off the cuff, in just a few sentences.

I was also struck by the “Hemingway device,” in which you remove something from the overt story but let its presence still influence what remains.

I think I’ll be getting the biography.