Don't leave your characters as floating heads in a void. Use these tips and shortcuts to build and make the most of your setting.
If you don't clue us in on where or when we are, you end up with floating heads in a void. Even if the dialogue is engaging and reveals conflict and character, you’re still leaving your reader with nothing but sound in white space. Also, you are missing opportunities for plot and character development.
It can be quite easy to establish a time and place. There are shortcuts you can use.
In this short video I explain how easy it is to be a generalist and how it will improve your writing.
Based on my paper at: STEAM
An open access online academic journal of the sciences and the arts.
Watch the video here!
Harvesting the Heavens
From Magic Swords to Planet Cores
In this video...
... the life of metal,
... how planets form,
... and why some Viking swords were magic
... and why we will soon be mining asteroids and will never mine any planet ever again.
In this video, I talk about planet building…not world building, planets.
Earth is not normal, and mono-climates are not interesting. Sci-Fi and fantasy writers can do better. Before you create another world, let me help you think beyond Earth.
Watch the video and read my guest post Planet Building article at Damien Larkin Books.
Before an editor or agent reads one word of your novel, they will read your cover letter. It is the most important writing that a yet-to-be-published author will do in their writing project.
This document contains the structural mask that I use as guidelines for every plot I develop now. This includes my explanation of each part and a link to a YouTube video where a professor walks you through this same concept. Download the RTF and use it as your outline helper.
VOICE is the general feel of your work relative to other writers. VOICE is what comes out of the choices you make when writing and editing your story. From word choice to plot structure, these decisions happen at every level of your story. Which words do you choose? How do you structure your sentences and paragraphs? Which details do you focus on to tell your story? How do you structure your stories and chapters? Each of these subjects could be a lesson, book, or lifelong study but together they are your writing voice. I will address each question to help you understand what voice is and what it should be.
In my computer science classes, this is how they taught me to take on a daunting task, and how I apply that same approach to never having writer's block.
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