Supplementary Lesson: SubtextWriting General Lesson 1: subtextAh, subtext—one of those oft talked about though rarely addressed issues of writing. If there's no other thing that 'shippers can call for evidence of their 'ship, they'll call subtext.* But subtext has so much more to do with writing than just "But you can see it in the way he moves—he's so into her!"Think about the arguments that people get into—not about shipping, but just regular fighting. The argument is never about what the argument is about. It's never about who's making dinner, or who needs to move out of whose parking spot, or who squeezed the toothpaste from the middle. It's about
Sci-Fi Introduction + Lesson 1Sci-Fi Lesson 1: Introduction and World BuildingOf all the genres I've worked with, Sci-Fi is one that's really close to my heart. Perhaps it's because I was reared on Sci-Fi, or because my family is the kind to pause a show or movie in the middle of a scene to discuss what ideas are being expressed there underneath the plotline of the story, and what it all means. Drives my brother crazy. When you think about Sci-Fi, what really comes to mind, hmm? Aliens? That's a faction. There's also genetic engineering. There's also robots. There's also space travel without aliens. There's time travel. There's also "after the end" stories tha
Lesson 4 - Action and ReactionLesson 4 - Action and ReactionHave you ever watched something where you felt like it was a couple of dead fish in person suits? Watching reviews by The Nostalgia Critic, one becomes sensitive to certain faux pas that occur in the movie industry, and you can see them in other media as well.Action and Reaction are what keeps the plot moving. Getting that stupid plot moving can be both very important and very difficult for the aspiring writer. The need to move the plot forward has even given rise to such tools as the MacGuffin, any item whose sole purpose is to move the plot forward, like the Arc of the Covenant or the Holy Grail in Indiana
Bonus Lesson: Writing RomanceHello my lovelies, and Happy Valentine's Day! (Or Single's Awareness Day or Unattached Drifter's Christmas or Chocolate Discount Day—whatever you find yourself celebrating, have a good one.)Partially due to writer's block on the essay I was supposed to write and partially due to the timing, today's Character Bonus Lesson is on Writing Romance.Something that you may not know about me is that I belong to a writer's organization called Romance Writers of America—what? Is that laughing I hear? Perhaps respect levels dropping? If you don't want to hear the Romance Novel issue and its defense, skip down to the bold print.It's not RW
Lesson 3: BackstoryLesson 3 – BackstoryAh, Backstory. This one should be easier.*When writing a story, unless you're being weird unique and only plan to sell the work as a piece of Literary Fiction, you have a basic scheme of time: past, present, and future. There are many ways of blending these things—say the hero is recounting his rise to greatness, in which we are grounded in the future, but the story is in the present (so to speak). Examples: Gladiator, the anime Baccano (as far as I can tell—it was kind of confusing), and a number of novels written in First Person. Most of the time you'll find works where the present is the focus, but wh
Lesson 2: Show, Don't TellLesson 2: Show, Don't Tell…Oh, what have I gotten myself into?First off, in writing you have two things to focus on: description and interaction. With description you present the scene, characters, and the props, and through interaction that scene and those props become relevant.I, like many, have had my fanfiction.net phase. (And, as far as guilty pleasures go, there are much worse… a number of them also facilitated on fan fiction.net.) But one of the things that ruins fan fiction for me now is the bare, amateur level of writing I find (it's a self-publishing site that accepts anything, so it's no wonder really). Something to
Lesson 1: Identity and MotiveSo, now that we know characters are what makes the story, what makes the character?There's a lot to the execution of a good character. I'm not going to pretend that I know everything about it, but there are two questions that the writer has to answer in order to make a reader care:Who Are You? and What do you want?Bonus points to all those having J. Michael Straczynski flashbacks right now. Let's use his magnificent Space Opera type epic Babylon 5 for an example. He used this technique masterfully, and was clever enough to put the questions right out there for the audience, with the angel placeholders the Vorlons asking the self-definin
Introduction: CharacterFirst lesson about writing: Characters are what makes the story.Think about your favorite story. Ever.Well, I can't think about mine, so I'll go for "Which French anti-hero do I feel like fangirling for today?" Narrowly beating out the story about the tragic relationship between the bohemian sociopath with the amazing set of pipes and unfortunate skin condition (unless he's being played by Gerard Butler) and a Scandinavian soprano is The Count of Monte Cristo. That novel is, in its unabridged printing, thick enough to bludgeon a walrus with. It starts off pretty fast, but gets slow just as quickly. It's not a book for the short of attenti
Drafting Process_esWell, last time I had quite a lot to say on the subject of getting Draft One out of the way so you can move on to Draft Two and making things wonderful. It seems like a good idea to say a few things about drafting in general.I credit a great portion of this lesson and most of my views on drafting to a workshop given by Renee Ryan, writer of historical, inspirational, romantic stories. She's a very, very interesting woman. I'll definitely be mentioning her again. Anywho, her lesson on drafting really challenged and changed a lot of my preconceptions.My preconceptions were these, basically: I'm a pretty good writer. This opening scene reall
Just Do Draft 1One of the most important things for an aspiring writer to accomplish is to just get that stupid first draft done. It really doesn't matter what you're writing—novel, short story, epic poem, screenplay, etc.—it's the writing itself that matters.This always brings me back to my Novel Graveyard. It's a little place that only exists in my head with a bunch of unmarked plots where all the stories I didn't succeed at writing are sleeping off the effort of trying (don't begrudge them that, they did the best they could). Mainly those graves are filled with: (1) the first few chapters, (2) maybe some "call to adventure" if I wasn't still
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