“I want to hear it in your own words”
Another writing trope that bugs me, this time one I've seen as often in published fiction (and on TV shows)...
Archive for Writing
As a famous ancient human once wrote
Back in 2003, I noted that when future-setting sf characters refer to “an ancient Terran word,” they nearly always mean...
On leave
My company doesn't have sabbaticals per se any more, but they do allow people to take extended unpaid leave, with...
Randomized Dystopias
Want to write a dystopia, but you're tired of dystopias that abrogate the same old rights that dystopias always abrogate?...
Good weekend
This weekend went surprisingly well in various ways: I completed something like a dozen to-do items that I had been...
Horror, joy, and other non-genres
I've seen various horror writers note that, in the words of author Douglas Winter, “Horror is not a genre, like...
How to write a first act the Pixar way
On the Toy Story 3 extras disc, there's a segment called “Beginnings: Setting a Story in Motion,” in which the...
First-person plural, indeterminate
I've now encountered this interesting and unusual PoV in multiple works of fiction: The narration is in first-person plural. It...
Techno-renewal and other life updates
Last week was fairly difficult for a variety of reasons, but it ended pretty well. After difficult-family-anniversary stress on Tuesday,...
State of the Jed
I meant to write a bunch of long-delayed blog entries while on vacation last week, but it somehow never happened,...
Writing update
In late July, I started working on a pass through my novel to clean up what I called the “mood...
The “I want” song and the operational theme
I recently encountered, in two very different contexts, the idea that near the beginning of most or all Disney animated...