Archive for March, 2006
Children and Toilets (a short story)
Last month, I wrote an unusual story, called “Children and Toilets.” At least it’s unusual for me. It has a female protagonist. I wrote it for Mur Lafferty’s I Should Be Writing crit contest. I’ve thought of doing a crit contest here, too. Mur beat me to it. By entering the contest, I had two [...]
Writing about real people
Kiki Opdenberg at The Kissy Bits has a great episode on creating realistic characters and using them to turn fantasy into reality. -TimK
How much uncertainty is too much?
Sometimes writers leave open gaps, unexplained scenes, uncertainty, in order to keep people tuned in. But this tactic won’t get you far, and taken to the extreme, it will make the tension feel contrived and may even make the audience feel cheated. How much uncertainty is too much?
How to Spin a Yarn: Conflict, Resolution, and Story Arc
Conflict is what drives the story arc. It’s what keeps the audience on the edge of its seat. And it’s a fundamental aspect of story structure. If you want to see how a story arc works, just look at just about any novel or movie or story game. Let’s look at Disney’s Snow White.
Spotlight: Ender’s Game (Review)
A review of Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. Andrew Wiggin prefers to be called Ender. He’s a six-year-old genius destined to save the world. He’s also a Third, that is the third child in a world in which it’s against the law to have more than two. The government made an exception with Ender, [...]