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How Do I…? Dashes
This time, I’ll be discussing a particular piece of punctuation — dashes. (Yes, grammarians, I understand that there are multiple types of dashes, but I’m only referring to em dashes here.) This bit of punctuation has become my go-to whenever I’m building complex sentences and I’m not sure if commas would work. They’re a handy…
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Write As Your Antagonist
All writers have heard some variation of the phrase “A story is only as good as its villain.” Yet writers, especially beginners, rarely write from the villain’s perspective. Why? Because in order to do so, we must tap into our own villainous potential. We must foster compassion, even empathy, for the traits we deny, repress,…
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Three Ways to Start Your Story
Many times, the hardest part of turning your new idea into a reality is figuring out where the story should begin. This month, I’ll present you with three possibilities as well as my thoughts on each: pros, cons, and what kinds of stories best fit them.
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Writing the Middle
Some stories take a while to get started. Others suffer from a rushed or poorly thought out ending. Yet the place where a lot of stories I’ve read stumble is in the middle. The middle is also where a lot of beginning writers start to run into problems, lose steam and confidence, and are tempted…
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Grammar in Creative Writing
You can think of this post as a precursor to my “How Do I” series. Those posts are all about grammar and structure. Not as in-depth as someplace like Grammarly’s blog, but they’re still among my longest posts. So I’d like to take a step back and talk about the role of grammar in creative…
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Method Writing: The Making of “Bael-Sur”
In December 2017, the YouTube channel Tale Foundry released a video about H.P. Lovecraft and his Cthulhu mythos. I’ve never been a fan of horror, but Tale Foundry’s video inspired me to take a stab at writing a weird and creepy story. As I was brainstorming the plot of my short story, I found Cryo…
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The Writer’s Responsibility: A Manifesto
I’ve tried to write this post for months. At times, I was too scared to write it. Other times, I was more scared of what would happen if I didn’t. I’m going to touch on topics that are often discussed when talking about media — be it books, movies, TV, video games, etc. But honestly,…
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Building Characters Organically
In one of my earliest posts, “Stop Trying to be Unique”, I encouraged writers to use archetypes, to not reinvent the story if they didn’t need to. In another, I gave an example of how adding conflict to an archetypal character can turn her into an interesting individual. Yeah, both of those posts were cool.…
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Character vs. Conflict, and Does it Really Matter?
I’m part of a writers’ Facebook group, and a recent discussion centered on the question of which was more important to the story — the characters or the conflict. Many people answered that character is more important. I answered that conflict is more essential. Maybe it’s because I enjoy playing devil’s advocate, but it’s mostly…
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Eight Points of View: Second Person
Throughout this series, I’ve described the relationship the writer has with the story — the roles he assumes to write it. The reader’s relationship to the story has been irrelevant. That’s not the case with our final two points of view: second person and second person observer-narrator. You can even say these points of view…