Tag: Writing Tips

How to Run a Writers’ Circle

It’s a bit of a departure from my usual “Ooh Shiny!” swords and whatnot, but ultimately, I am a writer and I do writerly things.  One of those writerly things is providing support to my fellow creative people. For three years, I have run the Bonavista Writers’ Circle in Montreal: a group of writers of various skill levels and interests who come together to brainstorm, edit, critique each other’s work, and provide workshops for skill sharing.  We’ve all learned so much together and come through as stronger, more confident writers.

I’m not able to run the Circle anymore because my wife and I are moving to Finland for work. I’m saddened at having to leave behind this amazing group of people, but I will look back on our time together with pride and a smile. The Circle has taught me a lot, and I’d like to share with you what I’ve learned about running a group like this. Chances are, if there isn’t a Circle in your area, you’ll have to do what we did, and create your own.

Continue reading “How to Run a Writers’ Circle”

These Five Words Are Making Your Writing Weak – Cut Them

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It’s tempting to “soften” our writing with words that weaken its impact. While it’s been said that writing is an act of baring one’s soul to the world and is thus inherently intimidating, we do ourselves no favours by being shy about it.

To that end, here are five words you can chop right now to strengthen your writing. Click to read more.

Realistic Writing: Head Injuries

Your goody two-shoes hero doesn’t want to kill people, so he just knocks them out. Sounds pretty straightforward right? Except it isn’t. Do you have any idea what it takes to render someone unconscious with blunt force trauma? Before I read this article, I didn’t! What’s more, you might not want to. It’s all too easy to die from the after effects of being hit on the head.

A word of warning: this is a frank account of the realities of head injury. If violence makes you squirm, you may not want to click.

Now brace yourself guys, this is gonna hurt.

Continue reading …

10 Misconceptions About Medieval England

A friend of mine stumbled on this gem and I have to say, as a fantasy writer, I totally slipped up on at least two of these. Looks like I had better buy The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century. More reading? Woe is me, what a terrible fate! Hehehe.

It seems a common thing to screw up on these ten details. Have a look-see! Perhaps you’re guilty too?

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10 Tips and Tricks for Creating Memorable Characters

 A friend of mine found this excellent article on developing good, fully-fleshed-out characters. 

Check it out!

Science fiction and fantasy are built on cool ideas and fascinating worlds — but those things are only as good as the people who live around and inside them. How do you create compelling fictional characters? It’s a huge challenge. But here are some tips that might make it easier.

There’s no silver bullet or easy formula for creating characters who live and breathe inside your head (and hopefully other people’s heads, too). If there were, we’d all be using it and it wouldn’t be such a nightmare. I struggle with this all the time — I’ll have a story reach an eighth or ninth draft before I realize that a major character is still basically a scrap of paper, carried along through the story on the wind. And after years of grappling with this issue, I’ve come up with some things can help me to imagine the character as a real, separate individual instead of a function of the plot or story.

Note: this essay is adapted from a mini-lecture I gave at Clarion West a couple weeks ago. Thanks to everyone there who asked questions and gave feedback on it. (And this is a good place to plug Clarion West, which is an amazing writing program that you should all support and apply to. I had such an incredible experience there, and felt privileged to hang out with the next generation of mind-blowing SF writers.) Continue reading “10 Tips and Tricks for Creating Memorable Characters”

How to Write Fight Scenes

How to Write Fight Scenes

A gripping, movie-worthy fight scene is a joy to read but sometimes difficult to write. If you run into trouble when it’s time for your characters to throw down, I have some pointers that may help you get into the proper headspace and articulate what’s going on.

First thing’s first: Location.

Where does the fight take place? Familiarize yourself with the area. Even if you don’t go into painstaking detail in the actual scene, you—the writer—need to know this place inside out, including the area surrounding it.

Get some graph paper and sketch the layout of the location as best you can. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Treat it like you’re trying to describe a rough blueprint of your apartment to someone who’s never been there before. What is this space usually used for? Where is everything? Think about the place from a tactical perspective. Are there any features or objects that someone could take cover behind/under/inside? Is there anything that can be used as an improvised weapon? Are there features that present hazards? (Subway tracks, flights of stairs, a cliff edge…)

 

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  Continue reading “How to Write Fight Scenes”

Fantasy Race Template

I found a neato template for creating fantasy races. I might tweak it a little for personal use, particularly the “alignment” bit. Defining an entire race as good or evil seems a bit problematic to me, after all. And I’d like to expand the physical limitations section beyond simply speed and strength.

In other news, I continue to work on the short story with Casey and Staruff. The going has been a bit slow given that there is noisy construction upstairs that is making it hard for me to concentrate. Bleh.

Stay awesome y’all.

Creating a Fantasy Race

Some more reading I’ve been doing on fantasy world building. So far, I’ve only read the first part of Creating a Fantasy Race but it’s already chock full of useful considerations.

In other news, I finished writing the opening scene for Blood of Midnight: A Hollow Vengeance yesterday. Beginnings are always hardest. I shall have to rely on my Writers’ Circle peers to assist me in purifying it of suckage.

Today: more work on Hollow Vengeance, editing a short story, and possibly writing up a description of the Bonavista Writers’ Circle meeting format given that we’ve had a huge influx of new members. All-around good news.

Done with NaNoWriMo – Now What?

While I wait for the arrival of my printed proof, I’m spending some time in reflection of this past year, determining what I did well and what needs improvement. I stumbled on a writing challenge and felt it was a perfect follow-up to NaNoWriMo. It’s called the Renew and Review Writing Challenge.

Once a day, for all of December, an exercise appears in my inbox and I do it. The exercises are pretty intensive, but they’ve been immensely helpful so far. What the challenge does for the participant is help them take stock of all of 2013 in terms of writing in order to formulate a game-plan for the upcoming year. I highly recommend getting in on the action.

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