I’m trying to look at books the way a librarian might, in order to help get me better at thinking from a reader’s point of view. Last week I did Jeff Lemire’s Roughneck. Hercule Poirot’s Christmas is a standalone novel in the Agatha Christie Poirot mystery series. She’s most famous for Murder on the Orient Express, in […]
Think Like a Librarian: Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, by Agatha Christie Read More »
The characters have to do the thing. Just one tiny little thing. Uh-oh. Remember the last time we had to do just a tiny little thing? It didn’t go well. The characters have to do the thing, which is usually identified as being super-easy. (Usually, there’s more than one character, although one of them is
Simple Epic Fantasy Plots, Part 2: Scope Creep Read More »
As far as I can tell, there are three main areas of contemporary fantasy that are so separated from each other that it’s pointless to try to lump them together. Epic/high fantasy. Urban fantasy. Everything else. Tropes and fans can and do cross over, but trying to figure out what’s going on seems to require
Simple Epic Fantasy Plots, Part 1: Danger Behind Us Read More »
Here’s the structure of a scene tends to go: Beginning Middle Ending Tell the reader everything they need to know for that scene in the beginning of that scene, unless the information spoils a plot twist or a reveal somewhere in the middle. Do not tell the reader anything they don’t need to know for that scene.
When to Tell the Reader? Read More »
Every writer has at least a couple of rules that they have to break, in order to become their own best writer. You may only break those rules if the reader will get more pleasure/interest/benefit out of those rules being broken than otherwise. Don’t be lazy. Be creative. … It takes writing time to write
I’m not sure how to explain it, but I’m trying to look at the best of the best books that I read and see them as a librarian might–who needs this book? who would love it? I read this one recently and was very impressed. Roughneck is a standalone graphic novel by Jeff Lemire, who does a
Think Like a Librarian: Roughneck, by Jeff Lemire Read More »
A door opened, and an apocalypse stepped in. It wasn’t something that could be helped, really. I mean, it might have escaped from a government lab, but it was a perfect storm, a once in a million years incident of bad luck. Only, something decided to exploit that bad luck. It went beyond chance or an
Simple Horror Plots, Part 5: Here I Stand Read More »
A lot of writers edit their words until they behave themselves properly. Don’t be that writer. Words shouldn’t behave themselves. … It takes writing time to write these posts. If you enjoyed this post, please take a moment to check out my latest book, One Dark Summer Night, or sign up for my newsletter.
Cozies are a subset of the mystery genre in which the author distracts the reader from the PTSD areas of their lives. They’re the gentle hugs of stories, and yet they revolve around some crime, because nothing is as entertaining as gossip. </snark> Cozies actually: Feature a main character you wouldn’t mind going on vacation
The post about word count and subplots was getting long, so I’ll break this out here: I think George R.R. Martin is writing parallel novels inside each of his books. There is a main plot and a main character to each book. You can figure this out by counting which POV character has the most
A Song of Ice and Fire: Structure/Word Count Case Study Read More »
