Previous | Next Modifiers! They're a lark! The more, the better, right? I'm well and truly known to be overwhelmingly, overpoweringly for every and all types of sentence modifiers, be they adverbs, clauses, or phrases--nothing's as crunchy, as meaningful as a bad guy in a book described as "evilly chewing his lip", say, or a... Continue Reading →
Previous || Next There is a difference between "Someone stole the priest's thing!" and "The abbot's lover absconded with his most prized Bible!" and that difference is owed to word choice. The more exact the words you make use of, the better. Words are the writer's tools; you'll want to avoid those with a blunted... Continue Reading →
Previous || Next Few elements of style can harm your work the way an overbusy, cluttered sentence can. But reading about cluttered sentences from a theoretical standpoint is one thing -- seeing one such sentence is entirely different. Let's construct a glorious Example: My ratonnastick, being a perfectly good fellow at heart who always knew... Continue Reading →
Previous|| Next This series of posts owes a lot to, and borrows from, June Casagrande’s book on sentence style, It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences. Today, we shall delve in the deepest recesses of the earth, and talk about the abusive step-father of all writers, Grammar Proper. And what's more... Continue Reading →
If you missed Part one of this chapter, click here. CREATING YOUR HERO ...is a complex process that requires a number of steps. The most important outlook you need to have is that you must build the character in layers. Step 1: Meeting the Requirements of a Great Hero Make sure that your hero meets... Continue Reading →
There are many ways to start the writing process. Some writers prefer to do it by breaking the story in its seven primary steps--to be explored in Chapter 3. Most begin with the shortest expression of the story as a whole, the premise line. The premise is your story stated in one sentence. As soon... Continue Reading →
I've been thinking about today's blog post--quite a bit, in fact. I decided that instead of offering you some of my own hard-earned wisdom(insane laughter), I would take you on my exploration of John Truby's well-regarded, well-known book, "The Anatomy of Story."Â The plan is simple: Make a post about each chapter (sometimes the posts... Continue Reading →
Early on, when I first started sharing my writing, a number of people gave me the following advice: Show, don't tell. That's good advice, I thought; it helped me in identifying a particular weakness my writing had at the time. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that this particular piece of... Continue Reading →
How do we create memorable characters? Well, you'd need a dozen eggs, a bit of vanilla and seventeen cups of sugar to make your average Mary Sue; or you could whip yourself good old-fashioned one-dimensional characters by doing the same thing you'd do to get stale bread -- don't spend any time cooking them up... Continue Reading →
World-building is a tricky subject. Too much of it, and it ends up clogging the story. Too little, and the setting ends up feeling too far removed from reality. There are many different aspects of world-building we can touch upon, but the most important thing you have to remember is... If you like it and it's... Continue Reading →
The Grimoire Reliquary 