The Lord of the Rings is famous for taking ‘too long’ to end. The Ring is destroyed in chapter 3 of Book 6 of the story, followed by the final battle with Sauron in chapter 4. The next five chapters
Bilbo called himself, “thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread,” and our stories can be the same. A story can be stuffed with plot, bursting with characters, burdened down to the water by themes, and still
At various points in the writing process, it behooves all of us to sit down and ask some pointed questions about what we’re doing, where the story’s been, and where it’s going. Indeed, these questions are vital not just to
About a decade ago, I found a book in a used bookstore about ‘literary foils’. As I didn’t know what a literary foil was, all I got from skimming the textbook (I didn’t buy it) was that some short stories
(Part One) Think of the last really good novel you read. For me, I’m nearing the end of my third or fourth read-through of That Hideous Strength. Think about how different characters are introduced and described. It varies, does it
Describing characters seems really easy until you actually try to do it well. On the one hand, we can put the entire description (three paragraphs, each slightly under a page long) at the front, which would get everything on the
If you have brushed with YouTube media criticism recently, at least in more right-wing or culturally disaffected circles, you’ve inevitably encountered a certain complaint: ‘The women in these new movies just aren’t hot enough.’ It’s touted as a reason for
Swords are the iconic melee weapon, but they have rivals on the battlefield. On the medieval European battlefield, in fact, swords were made less and less effective by armor’s advances. Some heavier or stabbier swords still had viability against plate
Last week I ran through knife-v-unarmed and knive-v-knife combat, giving a basic overview of how those fights go. Like any fight with a knife, they’re close, fast, and always on the edge of death. These are also two of the
We’ve taken a good long look at why knives are so dangerous and where they’re dangerous; it’s time now to consider how characters can respond to a knife attack when they’re on the receiving end. Due to the vastness of