Setting Up the Bar

I want to run through an exercise for something I’m not particularly versed in. Though that statement gives me an easy out, as I often sit on the writer scale’s far discovery end I don’t put much thought to new environments when I’m building on the preexisting characters. Locations and places have always been barebones … Continue reading Setting Up the Bar →

Vignettes and the Baton Pass

When my writings turn exploratory or freewheeling, my favorite story structure is the vignette. Unhindered by ongoing plot bloat, naturally disposed to changes in tempo and pacing, the vignette is a neat little tool for when you want to write a varied, shifting story featuring a pantheon of characters and their different perspectives. Every input … Continue reading Vignettes and the Baton Pass →

Sidequests in Fiction

Mainlining the Side Paths Despite how much I hold up the theoretical streamlined story with no filler as an ideal to be strived for at every creative attempt, I’m not adverse to sidequests in principle. Like breaking from a busy day at a pondside bench, sidequests can be a pleasant distraction or moment for rumination. … Continue reading Sidequests in Fiction →

Speeches in Fiction

I could carry on and on towards this subject without break or pause and it would sound like a lot of the reports you’d hear throughout school. Hopefully only the reports you heard and not the ones you gave (I wish everyone started with a firm basis in speechcraft). Yet it’s only too easy an … Continue reading Speeches in Fiction →

Scene Breakdown

Learn from my mistakes.

How to Start a Chapter

I should not give advice on this subject considering my penchant for never using chapters, at least not anymore. I used chapters in my early writings, liked it well enough and got enough experience to share everything mentioned after this but drifted into my own method which makes enough sense for me in my internal … Continue reading How to Start a Chapter →

Writing Characters After a Character Arc

A good character arc is handled with the same deference as nitroglycerine. On paper it’s a simple combination of basic ingredients but in a writer’s unsteady hand they can destroy everything around them. Hopefully you have a plan or sufficient experience to execute a character arc combined with a great deal of effort to craft … Continue reading Writing Characters After a Character Arc →

Motivation for Dialog

A few years ago a fellow writer told me he had difficulty writing dialog saying it was almost foreign compared to narrative prose. I gave myself as an example and advised he try writing pure dialog without any narrative prose only keeping what could be fit inside quotation marks. The suggestion came with the classic … Continue reading Motivation for Dialog →

Skateworld

I remember playing Tony Hawk games as a child and being pleasantly distracted by the gameplay. Now I look back at them, especially T.H.U.G. and T.H.U.G. 2, and it occurs to me how ridiculous that every problem encountered was resolved through skateboarding. Cops need you to track down a bank thief? Grind on the telephone … Continue reading Skateworld →

Vulnerable Characters

It’s difficult in the revelry of making a character whom you love to push them, pull them, and tear them down because we see so much of ourselves in them and a sensible person wouldn’t willingly foment such a grievous challenge to their well-being. But rarely do we examine the lives of those who sat … Continue reading Vulnerable Characters →