Why I don’t think highly of creative writing courses
“You can’t learn to write in college. It’s a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do — and they don’t. They have prejudices.” — Ray Bradbury I stumbled upon that quote today, and it made me realize that I had never written about my horrid experience […]
Using Your Senses, Or Not
This is something I’ve thought about before but never figured out how to articulate. It’s a nice contrast to the advice I keep seeing that says you have to use every sense in every scene. No, really, you don’t. Do you always notice what all five senses are experiencing at every moment? I only do […]
In defense of fun
(I’m listening to a song featuring the lead singer of Nickelback as I start writing this, appropriately. If you don’t get the connection, just say the name “Nickelback” to the nearest music geek and watch their head explode. And now I’m listening to Taylor Swift. I swear I wasn’t planning this!) The blog post I linked to […]
Where do these writing rules come from?!
I decided to try to “workshop” the first paragraph of No More Lies, mostly out of curiosity, and because I was a little uncertain about one line. The last time I did something like this, all I got was something about how I didn’t need to italicize the character’s direct thoughts. This time though . . […]
The author is not your bitch
The fans are all upset. They’re always going to be upset. Why did he do it like this? And why didn’t he do it like this? They write their own movie, and then, if you don’t do their movie, they get upset about it. George Lucas On Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal […]
Diversity in SF
For those of you reading this who may not know it, there’s been a big deal made in the past few years over diversity in science fiction and fantasy, both in the authors and in the characters. It confuses the fuck out of me that this needs to be an issue. SF is about possibilities, […]
The purpose of character deaths
I was just, against my better judgement, perusing the forum of a webcomic I’ve been reading for years that’s presently got a really dramatic thing going on. I stumbled on a phrase that pisses me off beyond all reason: “if he’s willing to kill a character.” Why does this piss me off so much? It’s, […]
Does it matter who I am?
I keep seeing people saying things like “I just can’t watch The Cosby Show any more now that I know Bill Cosby sexually assaulted all those women!”* and “I can’t watch Firefly any more now that I know that Adam Baldwin is so ((insert various terms here, as he is not shy about stating his opinions regardless […]
Can we quit saving the universe all the time, please?
In an interesting bit of serendipity, I read a wonderful short story recently, “Freedom, Spiced and Drunk” by M.C.A. Hogarth, that provides a wonderful example of what I was planning to talk about today. Today’s topic is: Not every sf/f story needs to be about saving the world/galaxy/universe. I know this should be bloody obvious, but […]
Characters, how to make them, and how not to
This is one of those posts that’s probably not going to be very interesting to non-authors. Sorry about that. What’s your character’s favorite color? His favorite song? His favorite piece of clothing? Describe his first kiss. Describe his first sexual experience. Who is his hero? These questions look familiar to any other authors reading this? […]