The Five C’s Of Creating A Likeable Protagonist
Think of your favorite book. Chances are one of the reasons you love it so much is that the main character (s) are people you like and want to spend time with. There are exceptions to this rule, I’d still read a book starring Darth Vader even though I wouldn’t want to have coffee [...]
Panic Stations
Panic stations, much like battle stations except instead of ending up locked and loaded and ready to fight you end up under your bed with a teddy bear and your undies on your head. That last one’s optional, but for my money you haven’t really freaked out until you’ve managed to screw up putting on [...]
How To Fill Out Flat Secondary Characters
This is another writing lesson I had to learn the hard way. While in any given story we spend the most time with the protagonist (and sometimes the villain) as far as the overall story is concerned the secondary characters are just as important to the finished product. You wouldn’t know it to [...]
Five Ways To Threaten Your Protagonist
Heroes are funny creatures. Almost without exception, they’re not going to lose. No matter just how much dirt they have to eat, they’ll prevail in the end, even when they fail they fail fighting the good fight. At least they do in genre fiction. So it can be hard to convince your [...]
What To Do When You’re Sick
I’m sick. Again. This does seem to happen a lot. Despite years of investigations no-one’s been able to pin down why I get sick quite so often, although the gluten free thing was paying dividends before I caught this latest bout of death lurgie. I do not enjoy the death lurgie. That said it has [...]
Writing Every Day?
“What you do everyday is what you do every day.” It doesn’t sound right does it? It’s a tautology for one, and it doesn’t solve any problems for anyone trying to get out a novel. But there are some merits to this almost Zen like sentence. For me, I either do things [...]
A Side Order of Stupid
“Don’t go in there!” It’s a commonly heard phrase amongst horror fans (along with “I need more popcorn”), as the intrepid victim protagonist creeps towards the dark woodshed in their underwear wielding nothing more potent than a squeegee bat. “Why would they do that? I would have just shot him!” is also commonly [...]
A Wretched Hive Of Scum and Villainy
Sooner or later your protagonist is going to end up here, not Mos Eisley Cantina necessarily (unless you’re George Lucas) but sooner or later most characters in genre fiction end up in a place much like it. A dark, dingy place where people go to drink, fight and move plot lines along. [...]
I ATE’NT DEAD
So, some of you may be wondering what happened to me. I got really sick, and I was cleaning up after the earthquake and generally running my life. Sorry about that. There is a big family event happening this weekend, but I’ll be back to a regular posting schedule next week. [...]
Writers and The Fear Of Failure
I was reading Mur Lafferty’s site I Should Be Writing and noticed Mur had put up a post about procrastination being a by-product of fear. I put in a comment there in support of Mur (for she is Mighty) but I figured that same advice might do everyone some good. Like most of the [...]
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