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Saturday, December 29, 2012

This Is True

The great thing about writing fiction is that you can give free reign to your inner ass, idiot, moron, bad guy and inner optimist.

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Thursday, December 20, 2012

So...Plot.

Anyone who ever has to hear me whinge about plotting knows that it's the one aspect of writing I like least. There's a good reason for that. I suck at it.

Because I'm a character-driven writer, plot is always the last thing on my mind. My characters have issues, and as such, they spend a lot of their time in their own heads as opposed to the outside world. Though that makes sense, if you're going to tell an entertaining story, you still need an external something to play off the emotions of your characters. Emotions often lead to action, and action, in the narrative sense of it, takes place outside rather than inside.

So, because I have this huge chunk of novel that I feel is unstructured, I have made myself type out a ten page document with which to structure the whole thing. This might seem logical to some writers, but it's not usually the way I ever write things. This also may explain why some people find my writing obtuse, but in most cases, I will disagree with that. I'm usually obtuse on purpose.

I'm actually excited by doing this whole structuring thing. I feel it's the final step I need to get this book onto paper. Everything is basically there, except a few key links in the chain. which, you know, is important.

Any tips for plotting that has made things easy for you in the past? Sharing is caring. In return, I offer these from other writers. Quite a few I subscribe to myself, such as the "said" thing for dialogue, as well as use of the word "suddenly".

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Weird Bodies, Weird Language of "Angels in Love"

My essay on the weirdness of our bodies and of language is now up at Weird Fiction Review. The essay is part of an ongoing series of essays featuring the 101 writers featured in The Weird, the ground breaking World Fantasy Award winning anthology edited by Jeff and Ann Vandermeer.

I had the opportunity to look at a short story that has stuck with me since I first read it - Kathe Koja's "Angels in Love."