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
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
The term ‘Mary Sue’ has gained some fame recently. Anybody who follows online discourse regarding stories has seen it. Everybody who participates in online discourse, seemingly, has their own definition. Unfortunately, these definitions tend to differ, in details at least;
People despise ‘preachy’ stories. ‘Christian’ books (the genre, including its endemic heresy and superficiality) get a bad rap for putting the message so far ahead of the story that the story might as well not be there, for writing bad
Ever since metaphorical pen was first set to metaphorical paper, a debate has raged: which is better, the happy ending or the sad one? The sides are many and varied, each side disagreeing with itself about why it’s right and