In The Three Uses of the Knife1, pages 73-75, David Mamet explains how, in his view, people reframe every time-sequence they find into a story, integrating each new fact of it by adjusting the story’s whole to fit: he avers
Have you ever gone back to read your old work, the stories you wrote way back when? I have. Let me tell you, that stuff is terrible reading. Oh, I still like some of the core ideas, some of the
Many of us have heard this piece of writing advice: “If you give Frodo a lightsaber, you have to give Sauron the Death Star.” On the surface, this directive sounds plausible. We want to maintain tension, and obviously if you
Welcome back to Part Two (Part One here). These criteria laid out, the six options on the table, five false and one true, can be inspected, checked to see if they live up to their judges’ high bar. Doubtless means
Since the Serpent asked Eve, “Did God actually say…?” in Genesis 3:1, evil has perpetually sought to undermine the interpretation of God’s words, of His Word. From the philosophy of Origen to the vagaries of Higher Criticism, men have assailed
Introduction World War One, from its own perspective, is an odd period of time, full of dramatic irony, tragedy, and dark humor. The three novels I’ll be briefly discussing today are classics of the era and justly so; I have
Pacing- story pacing, not reiterative walking- is a tricky beast. The problem, fundamentally, is that you, the author, have to determine not only how fast the story should move but how fast it does move. The first, honestly, is not
The list of ways to go wrong with a story has been added to and debated endlessly for century upon century upon century. The debate on plot alone is a few libraries of its own, honestly, and I don’t pretend
Magic (with its hundred other pseudonyms) is the staple concept of fantasy. It’s the excuse for a thousand plots and the solution for a million problems. In some people’s minds, magic can do anything, solve any plot hole, fill any
I have an affection for fantasy, born from The Lord of the Rings and fostered through the years, and an affection for historical fiction, born from many thousands of pages (hundreds of books, likely) in my youth. I’m not much