We Write!
It's a genre that waxes and wanes in popularity, although dramatizations of kings and queens seems to be very popular at the moment. Historical fiction goes back to the first time someone tried to imagine what it must have been like when . . . In a way, the Illiad is historical fiction, because the... Continue Reading →
There's the brilliant scene in Alice in Wonderland where she is falling, ever so gently, into Wonderland via a rabbit's hole. The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling... Continue Reading →
[--- Karen Myers ---] Worldbuilding is a very large topic -- for this post I'm going to focus on some of the fundamentals of how cities and armies work, since getting that wrong usually includes screwing up basic economics, logistics, or even gravity. If you can't make that stuff seem real, you're in trouble. And... Continue Reading →
Pulling a Book Out of Stubborn Researchers? Author Photo, Swabisch Hall, Germany, June 2018. "Stop when you have what you need." It's the sort of advice that makes writers want to pull out any remaining hair, or to take a large, blunt object and apply it to the head or rump of the oh-so-helpful individual.... Continue Reading →
So, with a reasonably clean first draft of Book of Secrets sent out to the generous souls who volunteered to be beta readers, naturally I needed to start another project - if only to keep me from chewing my nails down to the knuckles while waiting for responses. And very fortunately, one floated into my... Continue Reading →
"Help, I need sources!" Ah, the plea of the desperate student/grad-student/fiction writer in search of material or confirmation of some nugget, or a replacement for something that suddenly won't work any more. Every so often the question arises about how to do research. Fair warning, I do/did this for a living for a while, and... Continue Reading →
So, you have a sci-fi or fantasy world. You know that the atmosphere is more or less like Earth's so you are not going to have to do a lot of research into what sort of xeno-biology would be needed. Your fantasy world has the usual dragons, maybe a unicorn or two, exotic birds (or... Continue Reading →
So, I'm assuming that you are doing science fiction, but this is also true for fantasy. Some worlds grow over time, until readers realize that "Wait, there's more than just this country!" in the world - see Velgarth, where Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon created what seemed to be separate worlds, then over time readers... Continue Reading →
The other day while contemplating what to write for the Mad ones, while shelving the last bits of my library on new (to me) bookshelves, I pulled a book off the shelf and put it on my desk as a reminder to myself. It was joined by friends, because I spent a pleasurable time on... Continue Reading →
This question was posed elsewhere, and responses were quick to make fun of mandatory reading, and of "Reading The Classics". I, on the other hand, propose a different answer. There is no have to. Do I look like your abuela? But here is what you should do, in order to improve: Read widely. Read deeply.... Continue Reading →
Mad Genius Club 