Posts by Matthew Brown aka Lord Matt
As has been pointed out, there are no "rules" stopping you from having a sequel starting within the time frame of another book in the series. "The Horse and His Boy" takes place wholly within the l...
I am a big fan of the four-stage thought process. In my writing group, we call it the story cycle. We start with an event (an inciting incident for the current moment) Emotion (reaction) Reason...
It should go without saying that some of these other answers have very valuable advice that is definitely worth reading. When people "debate" it is rarely calm and cool headed. It rarely stays on ...
Putting "The End" at the end is a trope that played out in early cinema and, for no reason, I can decern, children's stories (usually as a variant of "they lived happily ever after, the end.") The...
Recently, I've been seeing a lot of discussions about works that subvert a given trope. I think I have an understanding of what this means (from context) but can someone offer a clear definition or...
There is only one thing you need to grow a blog. It must be remarkable. By that I mean it must be worth remarking upon. This can be because it is great, solves a problem, is notably bad, or anythin...
It sounds like you are grappling with the finer points of opening In Medias Res - right slap bang in the action. This is a tried and tested opening move. What you will be looking to establish righ...
This looks like another job for our friend Stanislavski. Stanislavski had this idea that an actor should observe themselves through reflection at the end of the day to see what they were doing with...
As a dyslexic, I understand the general aversion to reading. As someone who loves storytelling, I nevertheless want to be exposed to stories. There are some life-hacks for the reading adverse that...
This sounds a little like, how do I subvert or avoid some common fantasy tropes? (This question, I asked, deals with subverting a trope). The reason I do not think this is a duplicate question is ...
I am working on a long form fiction item. In this one of the characters will quote the first stanza from a poem. Normally with speech, one opens quotes, adds the text, and closes quotes. However I ...
I am drafting a novel outline. The interesting part (and thus the part I should be writing) would come with several characters with preexisting romantic relationships. The choices they make will ha...
