Advice for Eliminating the Static from Your Story Signal
Donald Maass suggests an interesting definition for static hiss: any information that detracts from the main signal. In a post for Writer Unboxed, Maass...
Emotions: Dealing with the Committee in Your Character’s Head
In a post on Writers in the Storm, Lisa Wilson-Hall offers her perspective on writing your character's emotions. Interesting, Wilson-Hall says emotions serve three...
8 Bad Ways to Make a Good First Impression
First impressions are important, but especially so in storytelling. You only get one chance to introduce your reader to your protagonist. Unlike the real...
Advice for Putting Sound on the Page
Yesterday, we posted an article about using the sense of smell in your writing. Today, we have another sense: hearing and sound. Other than...
Story-First Worldbuilding
Worldbuilding can make a writer crazy. Especially in F&SF settings, you need to think through multiple aspects of your story world. You want to...
Great Sentences Need a Sense of Timing
Fiction writers can learn a lot from comedians, even if we don't write comic novels. At heart, great comedians are great storytellers - they...
What’s That Smell?
Of all the sensory experiences writers should convey in their stories, the sense of smell can be the most difficult. Most people share similar...
Six Ways to Open Your Story
The Stage 32 blog shares a video from StudioBinder about the art of the opening scene. The video presents six ways to open a...
Making the Most of Your Walk-On Characters
They can't all be stars. Some of your story's characters will warrant only a line or two of dialogue and the barest description. The...
What Are They Thinking?: Showing Emotion for Non-POV Characters
Describing your character's emotions without beating the reader over the head with them is a tough task. Many writers accomplish this by writing in...
