![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deciding not to decide
May. 28th, 2018 02:38 pmThe inconstant muse is cheerfully providing oodles of fictional history for backstory -- not so much for front story.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
human, not
Aug. 10th, 2016 10:22 pmWe have werewolves and other shapeshifters, and the heroine -- I know her -- is going to contemplate the others. The dragons, the trolls -- if I put 'em in, the mermaids --
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
metaphysical reflections
Jan. 12th, 2016 10:23 pmIt's often a mistake to get down into the metaphysical principles of a fictional world.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
Writing Advice: The Next Level
Feb. 19th, 2013 07:42 pmFor people who've gotten beyond "Don't quit the day job."
The irony is that one piece of advice that was cited as basic was "Read widely," but two panelists had a long session of discussing how many aspiring writers need to read widely, Read outside the genre you want to get more ideas and notions.
( Read more... )
The irony is that one piece of advice that was cited as basic was "Read widely," but two panelists had a long session of discussing how many aspiring writers need to read widely, Read outside the genre you want to get more ideas and notions.
( Read more... )
Ciaphas Cain, Defender of the Imperium
Jul. 23rd, 2011 10:16 pmThis is an omnibus of Death And Glory, Duty Calls, and Cain's Last Stand by Sandy Mitchell, with two additional short stories. The second omnibus. I seem to be reviewing him backwards, which is, perhaps, entirely fitting, given his own haphazard way of writing them. They feature an adventure early in his career, one in the middle of it, and one after he had left active duty for teaching at a schola in retirement. Though there is a thread pulling them together, it's not the main plot line.
Cain is himself throughout. Whatever you conclude him to be: a self-absorbed dirty coward with fantastical luck, good and bad, and an exceedingly enlightened self-interest, or a hero with a perverse streak of modesty.
( Read more... )
Cain is himself throughout. Whatever you conclude him to be: a self-absorbed dirty coward with fantastical luck, good and bad, and an exceedingly enlightened self-interest, or a hero with a perverse streak of modesty.
( Read more... )
The Girl Who Chased The Moon
Jun. 13th, 2011 10:45 pmThe Girl Who Chased The Moon by Sarah Addison Allen
This is not an urban fantasy. It's not an epic fantasy either. It's magic realism, where magic is odd and quirky and not always to be relied on -- or even to be clearly there. There's a giant in the story, and he's well within the normal bounds of giantism.
( Read more... )
This is not an urban fantasy. It's not an epic fantasy either. It's magic realism, where magic is odd and quirky and not always to be relied on -- or even to be clearly there. There's a giant in the story, and he's well within the normal bounds of giantism.
( Read more... )
sword & steam
Jul. 27th, 2010 07:51 pmI was pondering sword and sorcery and definitions. (Blame ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jonathanmoeller) and. . . .
( Read more... )
jonathanmoeller) and. . . .( Read more... )
I don't know about that
Jul. 9th, 2010 03:17 pmWhy did the villain tear apart the city in pursuit of the MacGuffin?
( Read more... )Part of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif){kind=small}
bittercon philosophy on faction
Feb. 4th, 2010 11:54 pmLong ago I discovered the charm of the character sheet, which made looking up the name of the red-haired and catty gossip three chapters ago a lot easier.
Recently I have started to discover the charms of a faction sheet, which is rather more distilled. It has a list of the factions in the story and therefore excludes all the bit characters and lumps together all who want the same objective and are working together. Rather handy when I'm stumped in the outline. I look at the list and pick someone who could be doing something now. Preferably something that demonstrated bone-headed inability to understand the character I just dropped. (Dramatic irony is the great tool of a multi-POV story.)
( Read more... )
Recently I have started to discover the charms of a faction sheet, which is rather more distilled. It has a list of the factions in the story and therefore excludes all the bit characters and lumps together all who want the same objective and are working together. Rather handy when I'm stumped in the outline. I look at the list and pick someone who could be doing something now. Preferably something that demonstrated bone-headed inability to understand the character I just dropped. (Dramatic irony is the great tool of a multi-POV story.)
( Read more... )
philosophy, metaphor, and fantasy
Feb. 2nd, 2010 09:04 pmAesthetics decrees that there's one real and necessary stylistic difference between speculative and mundane fiction: speculative fiction requires you to keep a lid on the metaphors.
It's always wise to avoid metaphors that can be interpreted literally. The problem is, in speculative fiction, that there's no such thing as a metaphor that can't be interpreted literally. Fiery hair really can start to strew sparks and smoke over the air. A growl can be the warning sign that your character is a werewolf (fantasy) or had a good chunk of wolf DNA engineered in (SF). Indeed, once or twice, I've grabbed a metaphor in a work and ran off to outline a story where it's literally true, and great fun it is.
On the other hand, you can work in associations that you can't get away with in mundane fiction. Your Dark Lord really can track death and destruction wherever he goes. Your wise old mentor really can live inside a tree. Or you can just suggest and hint these things are really in a manner that would be instantly dismissed as metaphorically in a mundane work.
So, you take what you like and you pay for it.
Metaphorically, that is.
It's always wise to avoid metaphors that can be interpreted literally. The problem is, in speculative fiction, that there's no such thing as a metaphor that can't be interpreted literally. Fiery hair really can start to strew sparks and smoke over the air. A growl can be the warning sign that your character is a werewolf (fantasy) or had a good chunk of wolf DNA engineered in (SF). Indeed, once or twice, I've grabbed a metaphor in a work and ran off to outline a story where it's literally true, and great fun it is.
On the other hand, you can work in associations that you can't get away with in mundane fiction. Your Dark Lord really can track death and destruction wherever he goes. Your wise old mentor really can live inside a tree. Or you can just suggest and hint these things are really in a manner that would be instantly dismissed as metaphorically in a mundane work.
So, you take what you like and you pay for it.
Metaphorically, that is.
Updated: Hmmm -- I should have mentioned this: You think that you can set up your world-building and then use the metaphors, as the reader will know by then?
The problem there is that you then have the style shifting in the book. Like changing genre or character, this can be very hard to do. Mostly, it causes a jolt to the reader.
Bittercon: ambiguity
Nov. 1st, 2009 11:02 amIs the house really haunted? Does she really work magic? Is he really an old janitor who's worked here for many a year -- and if so, how does he vanish so abruptly after giving good advice? Does that ring really grant wishes -- eventually?
( Read more... )
Part of
.
( Read more... )
Part of
.
'nother problem with prequels
Sep. 15th, 2009 08:36 pmSometimes, of course, you're not boxed in. Because you deliberately left a mystery about what happened. Did the hero escape the tower's fall? (And is that gray-bearded man him?) Who really murdered the man that Jack was executed for killing? Which prince really had been named the king's heir?
And those are exactly the ones where prequels are most intensely craved among the fans -- and which bring the greater danger. Leaving aside disappointing fans who wanted it to go the other way, there is the aesthetic problem of stripping the mystery away. There was, after all, the reason why you put in there in the first place. (Or so I hope.) It can add a tragic doubt and uncertainty to the characters' surroundings, and so make all their choices that much more difficult.
The first problem is making the resolution of the mystery as dramatic -- no, more dramatic, than the mystery itself. A common problem with books, but here, the mystery has had more time to build and take on significance.
And the resolution at the end of the book doesn't have quite the potential to cast a retrospective light on the events of the books that came chronologically after. If Prince John really was the heir, it makes Princess Jane's followers' noble attempts to put her on the throne look less noble, that you know they were suckered by a con.
And those are exactly the ones where prequels are most intensely craved among the fans -- and which bring the greater danger. Leaving aside disappointing fans who wanted it to go the other way, there is the aesthetic problem of stripping the mystery away. There was, after all, the reason why you put in there in the first place. (Or so I hope.) It can add a tragic doubt and uncertainty to the characters' surroundings, and so make all their choices that much more difficult.
The first problem is making the resolution of the mystery as dramatic -- no, more dramatic, than the mystery itself. A common problem with books, but here, the mystery has had more time to build and take on significance.
And the resolution at the end of the book doesn't have quite the potential to cast a retrospective light on the events of the books that came chronologically after. If Prince John really was the heir, it makes Princess Jane's followers' noble attempts to put her on the throne look less noble, that you know they were suckered by a con.
why can't you both lose?
May. 24th, 2009 03:07 pmNothing puts me off a book faster than contemplating the conflict, eying the characters in it, and saying, "Why can't you both lose?"
And the commonest way to do it is to make the characters too morally equivalent.
( Read more... )
And the commonest way to do it is to make the characters too morally equivalent.
( Read more... )
kinda chosen
Apr. 14th, 2009 08:17 pmThe Chosen One can be a real annoyance. Especially when everyone knows exactly what it is that he's got to do. The prophecy says so!
Can help if you twist the prophecy. And I always liked The Horse and His Boy approach, in which Shasta/Cor didn't learn about the prophecy until after the fact.
But another technique is to have the choosing be ambiguous. You have signs and portents that could mean something special, but could, without being nonsense, just be coincidences. You have to put the interpretation in the mouths of people who will be taken seriously, but not too seriously. Sole survivor of a catastrophe works well. Or a remarkably convenient meeting with someone who knows something the hero needs to know. Or a vision that hints without laying out the details. Gets the effect in. If done well, it smooths over the rough edges of coincidence without dragging Destiny on stage. (Or the gods. I don't approve of dragging the gods onto the stage even for this.)
The other advantage of this technique is that you don't get to lay out the prophecy so that the Chosen One can (dully) carry it out as detailed. Yes, you survived the fire, and are obviously cut out for Some Purpose -- but what purpose? The apparition of the Golden Stag shows that you have divine favor, but what will that let you do? etc.
Can help if you twist the prophecy. And I always liked The Horse and His Boy approach, in which Shasta/Cor didn't learn about the prophecy until after the fact.
But another technique is to have the choosing be ambiguous. You have signs and portents that could mean something special, but could, without being nonsense, just be coincidences. You have to put the interpretation in the mouths of people who will be taken seriously, but not too seriously. Sole survivor of a catastrophe works well. Or a remarkably convenient meeting with someone who knows something the hero needs to know. Or a vision that hints without laying out the details. Gets the effect in. If done well, it smooths over the rough edges of coincidence without dragging Destiny on stage. (Or the gods. I don't approve of dragging the gods onto the stage even for this.)
The other advantage of this technique is that you don't get to lay out the prophecy so that the Chosen One can (dully) carry it out as detailed. Yes, you survived the fire, and are obviously cut out for Some Purpose -- but what purpose? The apparition of the Golden Stag shows that you have divine favor, but what will that let you do? etc.
