Published authors give lots of advice to aspiring writers, but universal among that advice is this: You have to read a lot, and you have to read widely. Reading Within Genre My initial response to this advice was…immature at best. I was working on the first draft of my novel, back in high school, when I decided that all the classic literature I had been assigned would fit the bill, and that I would stop reading sci-fi and fantasy altogether so that no one would ever accuse me of stealing my ideas from other genre authors. That meant, in 1999, I gave up Sword of Shannara, from which I had been learning the rules of world-building. I stopped reading Harry Potter, which had been teaching me which reader expectations could be broken, and which could be reinvented. I abandoned my beloved Star Trek serial novels and The Wheel of Time, which were teaching me how characters can develop over a
world building
Character design/rendering: an example
While I’ve posted before about the benefits of visual character design upon writing–even quick sketches and color palettes can help
“The Hole in the Sky” – a prologue/concept piece
I recently heard back from the Writers of the Future contest, and, alas, I did not place. Looking at my
Ann Leckie gives one hell of a talk
Ann Leckie might look docile, but her ideas are anything but. She made this abundantly clear yesterday during a Q&A
Magic, meet everyone; Everyone, meet magic
Over the past two months, I conceptualized, planned, researched, and wrote a dime novel. It’s about 40,000 words, or at
Storyboarding
I am by nature a descriptive writer. I like to think about conversations between characters, world building exercises, moments of
Theme and imagery in novel writing
I am writing this post in response to an excellent question from my Uncle Raul. He wondered… “When an author
Prismacolor pencils and the progression of my picture (p)drawing
Round about 1998 or so, my brothers and I started playing Chrono Trigger. If you haven’t played this RPG, I
read more Prismacolor pencils and the progression of my picture (p)drawing
The chemistry of energist magic
When I was in high school, I loathed chemistry. This had nothing to do with the instructor. In fact, Mrs.
Flipping the B.I.R.D.
(Ha HAH…multiple entendre…) So, I wanted to wait to post again until I had the official results from my exams.
