 Misty Massey
read all posts by Misty MasseyLast week Kalayna posted asking our readers for ideas of what they’d want us to post about, and you all responded with lots of great suggestions. Some of those ideas, though, wouldn’t really be substantial enough for a whole blog post, so Carrie had a great idea herself – we’d have a day on which everyone answers the question, and we post all of our answers at once. We’ll do this every now and then when there’s an open day, so we hope you all enjoy it.
The question for today is What was the last “Don’t ever break this rule” rule that you broke and did it work?
Diana Pharaoh Francis
I originally thought I would write my Horngate books from Max’s (the main female protagonist) point of view and I did try at the beginning to use the first person perspective. But it didn’t work for [...]
Continue reading Magical Words Party Talk
 Faith Hunter
read all posts by Faith HunterMorning everyone!It is 12-12-12.How cool is that!
I was asked a question by Nathan Elberg last time I posted about InfoDumps. He asked: >>But what if the info we’re dumping is part of back-story, previous events that need to be known, but don’t warrant a chapter of history? I’ve had trouble with that. Do we do it as memory flashbacks interrupting action? Someone telling a story? How do we introduce the behavior and deeds of characters who were dead before the novel began (protagonist’s father and grandfather)?<<
It was a great question, and it warrants a full and complete answer. Unfortunately, I can’t give one in one day’s posting because it involves a lot of examples. So I am going to start with a very difficult info-dumpish-scene from the first novel in my own Rogue Mage series, BloodRing. Rogue Mage is an alternate reality post-apocalyptic series, sorta like X-Men meets [...]
Continue reading The InfoDump Scene, part 2.
Faith Hunter
read all posts by Faith HunterHi All,
Sorry I am late, I pulled very late-nighter getting a book to my editor.
Info-dumps: the places in a novel where a writer dumps way too much info on to the page, thinking that the reader needs all this stuff to understand what is going on. In the writer’s head, they are paramount to the reactions of the characters and the forward motion of the story.
Info-dumps take place in every genre, most often in these instances:
In a standalone, when a new character enters the action or is brought up. In a series, when a character from a previous series book enters the action, or is brought up. When the writer is trying to do world-building that is crucial to the plot.
We all know not to do info-dumps. But we need the info. Below is an info dump that I have rewritten to show how to [...]
Continue reading The INFO-DUMP Scene
Faith Hunter
read all posts by Faith HunterDahlonega Literary Festival last weekend was a blast! I got to meet Vyton!!!! (waves) It is such fun to meet MW folks and I have to say — we are everywhere!
And Kelly and Amy and Virginia, and I saw Lauren Scribe and Raven and spent some time with AJ and with Aleta. It was a LOV-ER-LY Con all the way around.
This is the last week for the ugly bad piece and the revised piece I put on the site for exercise and critique. See here:
http://www.magicalwords.net/faith-hunter/the-pivotal-scene/#comment-23450
I have thoroughly enjoyed the versions you guys put up and and I’d like to do some more pivotal scene examples and exercises — if you want them. So let me know. And play with the exercise. I am still dropping in and saying hi and making suggestions on it :)
Faith
[...]
Continue reading Reprise Pivotal Scenes
Faith Hunter
read all posts by Faith HunterI am finally finishing up the Top Ten (Eleven) things one should know about one’s own book. It has been fun trying to see my own work in different and fresh ways, and I gotta tell you this. If it were not for MagicalWords, I honestly think I’d have fallen into the trap of writing to formula – all unconsciously, all innocently, but totally out of unconscious and innocent laziness. I see it in other writers’ work often. Something goes well once or twice and so they do that same thing again and again and again. Until they fail and then they have no idea why they failed, because hey, they didn’t change anything, right!?! So … it must be the market. Yeah. The market. And sometimes it is the market. But sometimes it’s us – the writers – who failed.
Because of MW I am forced to look at [...]
Continue reading Top Ten (Okay Eleven) Things You Should Know About Your Own Book, Part LAST!
Faith Hunter
read all posts by Faith HunterThe Beginnings of the Makings of a Project, and How the Networking Began
I talked last month HERE about the Easy Pickings project with CE Murphy (Catie, of course), and my first foray into the world of self-publishing. This month, I want to share the Kickstarter project I am involved in. This post is all about networking, and the way that the relationships we develop in life carry us forward, enriching our plans and experiences in ways we never originally expected.
This project has been a four-and-a-half year networking experience, and I thought it might be interesting to the writers, readers, and gamers out there to see how a project like the Rogue Mage Role-playing Game came to be, from the networking stage to the Kickstarter stage. So, I asked the other members of the project to answer a few questions.
Faith: Mike, give us your 10-second personal bio [...]
Continue reading Kickstarter One
Faith Hunter
read all posts by Faith HunterToday, we welcome David B. Coe, as guest to MW. Yes. I am posting. About David. The paperback edition of TheDark-Eyes’ War the final volume of his Blood of the Southlands trilogy (The Sorcerers’ Plague, volume I; The Horsemen’s Gambit, volume II) was released yesterday by TOR, and if you haven’t read David’s epic fantasy, you are in for a treat.
FH: As this site is geared mostly to writers, let’s start with the writing aspect of the series. David, Tell us how you plotted this book, both to stand alone and to make it fit into the series.
DBC: Okay, first of all, thanks for letting me intrude upon your usual posting day, Faith. It’s nice — albeit strange — to be here as a guest rather than as a regular. The Dark-Eyes’ War was a challenging book to plot for a couple of reasons. First, as you point out [...]
Continue reading David B. Coe and The Dark-Eyes War
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