Writing fiction is easy, they say. You can just make things up. How hard is that? What on Earth is world-building and why does it matter? Sound familiar? Yeah, I thought so. We’ve all heard these and it might be tempting to buy into them, focusing on characters and plot instead. Don’t get sucked into… Continue reading The Not-So-Subtle Art of Sci-Fi World-Building
First, sharpen your knives, next ready your line. Wait. That’s fishing. Have I got your attention? Good, I succeeded. You continued to read to find out where I was going with this. That is the purpose of a good hook—to capture your reader’s attention. I know, you get all of this already, but how do… Continue reading Writing a Good Hook
Let’s go back and revisit some dialogue again, this time with a slightly different focus. We’re going to look at how the construction of dialogue works. I’m not talking about things like punctuation. This is more about how we put together sentences when we speak aloud. After all, when we write dialogue, aren’t we trying… Continue reading How Do I Say That Though?
While we are on the subject of dialogue, let’s take a little bit closer look at how males and females communicate because there are some distinct differences. Before going there, though I need to set two ground rules for this discussion. First, about 80% of people will fit the general patterns as described below. About… Continue reading Gender and Communication
Who here has made comments to the effect of “I can’t write good dialogue”? *Counts show of hands*. Yep. Many authors have. There are a few reasons why dialogue can be challenging. Let me give you some pointers using psychology to help develop better dialogue. Speaking Is Not Writing The first piece to understand about… Continue reading Writing Convincing Dialogue
Part author, part artist, all dreamer 