 Misty Massey
read all posts by Misty MasseyLast week we talked about ethical situations in speculative fiction, and how they appear even when we might not be intending to write about them. Everything our characters do is dependent on their ethical beliefs, and when they make a move that conflicts with those beliefs, it needs to be hard for them and important to the story, or it just won’t feel valid.
Have you ever read a book review in which the reviewer complains that the protagonist behaved stupidly? It’s annoying to read something and know that the character we’re most connected to isn’t being smart. Sometimes it’s not that the character was actually stupid, but that he has done something that didn’t fit with his behavior up to that point. It generally means the author needed something specific to happen in her story and couldn’t think of a better way to drive things forward. If you’re [...]
Continue reading Turning the Ethical Upside-Down
 DavidBCoe
read all posts by DavidBCoeRecent discussions here at the site have focused on the need to write fast, to put butt in chair and get the work done. Catie mentioned it the other day in the context of NaNoWriMo. Edmund and James Maxey took the idea to the extreme on Friday. And, of course, A.J. has been telling us to write fast for some time now. All of them are right. I think that putting our internal editor at arm’s length and delving into a project in a way that forces us to write at a swift, steady pace so that we get the thing done, is all to the good. Our goal, of course, has to be completing that first draft so that we can then move to revising and polishing, and that’s the important thing to remember: James Maxey might have written his book in a week, but I guarantee you he [...]
Continue reading On Writing: Writing on Demand, and a Story Assignment!
Misty Massey
read all posts by Misty MasseyLast week we talked about how no two writers will come up with the exact same story, even given the identical prompt. I was thrilled at everyone’s ideas, and even more tickled that with all the great ideas, not one person copied another, nor did any of you go in the direction I had in mind myself. When you worry that some other writer has already written your wonderful idea, remember what we did last week, and keep charging ahead with your story. Today we’re going to talk about the magic of objects.
Not long ago I posted about boxes, and the fascination I have for them. But it’s not just boxes that end up catching my eye. All sorts of objects have a strange way of getting my attention, almost as if they have a magic of their own. Many years ago, there was a store here in town [...]
Continue reading Magical Items
DavidBCoe
read all posts by DavidBCoeAs I mentioned in last week’s post, I’m teaching a short writing course at my daughters’ school. We had our second session this past Friday night, and, once again, I had my “students” do a couple of writing exercises in class. As I did last week, I did the exercises myself, right along with them, and found to my surprise that I loved the passages I wrote.
There was nothing terribly creative about the exercises I had the class do. Last week we worked on character development; this week we discussed point of view and voice. For the first exercise, I had the class write a scene in which the character they created during last week’s class meets the student him or herself (so when I wrote mine, I had the character I worked on the week before encounter me at a bus stop). I told them to write the [...]
Continue reading More Writing Exercises!
DavidBCoe
read all posts by DavidBCoeThis past weekend, Nancy and I threw our annual Australian Christmas party. Every year we invite over a bunch of people (dozens upon dozens — it’s a big party) for an evening of food and wine and laughter. Christmas is a summer holiday in Australia (where we lived for a year) and so we have a fire in the fireplace and allow the crowd of people in the house to raise the ambient temperature until it’s pretty hot. Some years (without the heat on) we get the temperature in the house up to about 78 or 80 degrees. People come dressed in shorts and sun dresses, we eat shrimp and Thai chicken, kiwi (Yeah, I know — that’s from New Zealand; but we went there, too) and Tim Tams and Mint Slices (Australian cookies — sweet biscuits — that are to die for), and we drink a lot of plonk [...]
Continue reading A Literary Holiday Party
DavidBCoe
read all posts by DavidBCoeFall has reached southern Tennessee. I spent yesterday raking leaves, and today the Cumberland Plateau is shrouded in a cold, shifting mist. In other words, it’s the perfect weather for curling up beside a fire and writing. In that spirit, I thought I’d do a post about writing exercises. Some of these I have used quite a bit; others I have merely heard about or seen others do. But I believe all of them have value. You might find that one of them (or several) are exactly what you need to get you past a rough spot in your current project.
1. An Exercise to Help with Descriptive work: This one comes by way of my older daughter’s English teacher. He has the kids in his class doing several of these a week, and my daughter has been enjoying them immensely. The basic idea is that you observe someone as [...]
Continue reading Writing Exercises for a Chilly Autumn Day
DavidBCoe
read all posts by DavidBCoeA few years ago I took a photo of a Southern Red Trillium, a beautiful and somewhat unusual flower native to this part of Tennessee. The lighting and composition of the photo worked out perfectly — the light was bright enough to bring out the color, but not so direct as to be harsh. The background was free of distracting shapes or colors and blurred beautifully. I’ve sold framed copies of the photo, and I’ve had it published in local magazines.
The thing is, the photo was taken on my old camera. It looks fine in relatively small format, but if I were to enlarge the photo too much, the limitations of the equipment I used would become obvious. The photo would look grainy, pixilated. So in the last two years, since I bought my new camera, I’ve been trying to replicate the photo, so that I can print larger [...]
Continue reading Tunnel Vision
|
How To Write Magical Words
|
