![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
when to kill her
Oct. 16th, 2013 09:10 pmwhen o when should she die?
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
planning the quest
Sep. 24th, 2013 09:50 pmWell, the slow part's over with. Having given them a good reason not to go through all of the Beyond, I turned around and gave them a really good reason to go.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
Intricate Worlds
Aug. 30th, 2013 08:20 pmHow do you build an intricate fantasy world that holds up to intensive fan interrogation?
The first points I think of are -- what are the stories that let you have such a world? Since, after all, you can make it as intricate as you like without the fans ever getting wind of it.
( Read more... )The first points I think of are -- what are the stories that let you have such a world? Since, after all, you can make it as intricate as you like without the fans ever getting wind of it.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif){kind=small}
finding the stone
Aug. 8th, 2013 10:26 pmMy heroine is useful. She knows that a bloodstone is just the thing to deal with the fell magic they face.
Now they just have to get their hands on one. Whereupon I reject the obvious, and my heroine also knows that none of the noble families about have one -- the virtues of stones in this land being reason enough for people to keep track of them.
( Read more... )
Now they just have to get their hands on one. Whereupon I reject the obvious, and my heroine also knows that none of the noble families about have one -- the virtues of stones in this land being reason enough for people to keep track of them.
( Read more... )
devise incidents
Jul. 23rd, 2013 08:33 pmAh, the muddle in the middle. . . I took up outlining to keep from petering out in the middle of the manuscript. Not because it does not peter out in the middle of the outline, but because it is less frustrating when it does.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
Was thinking about this in Andre Norton's stories -- though it can be seen in others. Like Conan the Barbarian.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
the world is flat, and that is that
Jun. 22nd, 2013 04:51 pmOnce upon a time, at an SF convention panel, a writer talked about the lines she put into her fantasy map to show the curvature of the world, and how a cartographer loved her for it because so many writers have maps like the world is flat.
Whereupon my muse, impish soul, whispered that what a silly goose he was, assuming that the world is not flat.
( Read more... )
Whereupon my muse, impish soul, whispered that what a silly goose he was, assuming that the world is not flat.
( Read more... )
Send the heroine brightly out into an enchanted world, filled with marvels and horrors, and let her wander. . . .and start to wonder yourself how to tie things up.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
philosophizing on frameworks
Dec. 28th, 2012 12:06 amBeing inspired by my third visit to see the Christmas Revels. In which, of course, the story is an excuse to fit together songs, dances, and anything else they chose to throw in. Not unlike, say, The Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy's travels are as much an excuse to move her about Oz and let Baum show off its regions as a way to get home (possibly more). Or, more closely, Arabian Nights, or The Black Thief And The Knight Of The Glen.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
only enchantments
Oct. 20th, 2012 09:35 pmThere's no law saying that your world, replete with magic, has to actually let any character do any of it. Your hero, your villain, your man-on-the-street, may have no more magic than can be snatched on the coattails as it sweeps by. They may have no choice but to stand and stare and not benefit at all at their choice.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
introducing. . . .
Apr. 14th, 2012 05:18 pmFairy tales have one unquestionable advantage: if you bring the prince tripping along in the last scenes, he can save the princess, and if the heroine arrives at the castle, she can find the prince engaged to another woman, and in neither case will you have readers grumbling about deus ex machina.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
round and round in circles
Feb. 4th, 2012 09:22 pmSending characters on a journey has its problems -- the cast is major characters (the travelers) and bit parts (everyone else) -- though it does keep the setting fresh and provide a good excuse for running into new things. Sometimes you can counteract the first effect by having them go about in circles. (Not just one circle -- there and back again -- though in multiple circles they do not all have to return to the same point.)
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
interpolating, and roots
Apr. 18th, 2011 02:27 pmSometimes, while trying to plump up a story to out of the Unpublishable Void, you need to add an event. In fact you probably have to, because stretching out the existing events to fill the required space often deforms them until the aesthetics of the story break down.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
and what are you looking for?
Mar. 19th, 2011 02:33 pmJ. R. R. Tolkien chose a certain quest for his novels. The Hobbit sets out for the Lonely Mountain. The Lord of the Rings sets out for the Crack of Doom. And what both of these quests have in common is that the location is fixed.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
characters of quest
Nov. 14th, 2010 05:14 pmThe quest structure has its advantages -- would have to, to remain a perennial plot -- but it has its requirements too.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
the bright lights of the magical city
Sep. 2nd, 2010 04:09 pmBut down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid -- and quite possibly, not a man, so to speak.
( Read more... )
Part of
.
( Read more... )
Part of
.
