![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"Of simple plots and actions the episodic are the worst. I call a plot episodic when there is neither probability nor necessity in the sequence of episodes." -- Aristotle
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
Tell, Don't Show
Mar. 29th, 2012 07:44 pm"Show don't tell" is one of those rules you hear early in the writing life. And it has its points. It's a very odd story that can be told well without any showing, and a scene shown is almost always more dramatic than a scene told.
Still, there are places.
( Read more... )
Still, there are places.
( Read more... )
between the scenes
Jan. 9th, 2012 10:43 pmYou want to keep the story hopping with liveliness and activity, or at least filled with quiet drama, all the time. Cut out the dull parts rather than summarize them, to keep the reader engaged.
Well, usually.
( Read more... )
Well, usually.
( Read more... )
intentional
Jan. 4th, 2012 09:22 pmSometimes you don't want to maunder about what your character's motives are. Having heard that her mother's ring is vitally important, she goes back home and empties out drawers on the floor, and leaves it there while she opens closets and hunts through the shelves. . .
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
narrative drive and series
Sep. 18th, 2011 02:00 amNarrative drive, the forward motion of the story, is a great thing to keep people reading onward (to long after they should have been in bed, often enough). But one curious thing I've noticed, reading series that were long established but not complete when I stumbled on them. . . .
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
the world and the work
Jun. 2nd, 2011 11:01 pmThere's one real disadvantage of really weird, wonderful, wacky world-building.
You've still got to move the story along.
( Read more... )
You've still got to move the story along.
( Read more... )
The Dungeon Master vs the Writer
May. 27th, 2011 08:41 pmBack in the days when I was a gamer, some people expressed surprise that I was always the PC and never the DM. Because I was, after all, a writer.
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
a man's gotta a plan
Mar. 29th, 2011 03:25 pmAnd he's not gonna tell you what it is.
I used to find the scene cut at the point where the hero stands up and says, "Now this is what we are going to do." very, very, very annoying. Cut straight to the people running about doing stuff and you get to see what the plan is when it unfolds.
( Read more... )
I used to find the scene cut at the point where the hero stands up and says, "Now this is what we are going to do." very, very, very annoying. Cut straight to the people running about doing stuff and you get to see what the plan is when it unfolds.
( Read more... )
