Posts by Standback
It's really important to understand that "diversity" isn't something you should be scoring along a single axis. It would certainly simplify things if you could tally up Diversity Points in your sto...
My top recommendation is this: Identify what the story is attempting to do. Different stories are different creatures. "I'm pretty sure I know how this ends!" can be a harsh indictment for a myst...
Kindall tackled the legal aspect. As for reception/perception considerations, here's the rule of thumb I'd use: If you're using the same word in the same way for the same thing, and your story is ...
One of the joys in fiction is learning new things. For many readers of historical fiction, learning new details -- even contrary to their own expectation -- is a lot of the fun. So you can definit...
First thing first: Avoiding said-bookisms is a guideline, not a rule. Writers use said-bookisms all the time, precisely for the reasons you note. They're useful. Sometimes, they're the simplest, c...
This isn't a binary choice. You don't need to view this as a "take it or leave it" decision - this is something you can talk to your editor about. And you don't need to choose between your ending ...
I haven't done actual editing, but I've done a fair bit of critique and review. I think the issues are pretty much the same. Standard proviso: everybody has their own system. Of writing, of readin...
I highly recommend Orson Scott Card's Characters and Viewpoint. It's an excellent book (probably the best book on writing that I've read), and he discusses a lot of important issues in building cha...
I haven't read it myself, but I think this book, The 3 A.M. Epiphany by Brian Kitely, sounds like exactly what you're looking for. It's got very nice reviews - both in terms of score, and the actua...
Short answer: online writing workshops can be helpful, if you're careful to chose a good one, and if your level of writing and professionalism is in the same rough vicinity as the course. Additiona...
The ideal recourse, at this phase, is finding some good beta-readers. Beta-readers are fantastic because they give you a sense of how your novel is working; what's good and what isn't. Beta-reader...
Alas, no. As an unpublished writer, you absolutely should not submit anything less than a complete novel. A few quotes to this effect: You have to have a finished novel. There are no except...
It'll depend pretty heavily on what type of story you're telling and what type of readership you're aiming for. Generic sex appeal does different things in different context: In a romance, they c...
It's complicated. An indie writer who mostly does their own marketing winds up taking on two jobs -- writing new books, and marketing them. Although these can feel related, they're very, very dif...
It depends on the specific organization. The one I know best is the SFWA -- the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. They're pretty amazing; so they're a great example of what benefits a...
I'd recommend against an overview. Short stories are short, and figuring out what they are and what they're doing is often a lot of the story's bulk. You want them coming in like a real reader woul...
The components of a really effective payoff, in my mind, are these: The reader knows something is coming But: they don't know what is coming. They have open questions; they have doubts. They're i...
I'd suggest giving some thought to how the magic actually works -- because figuring out a concrete magical effect will get you a long way towards answering the question "how does this escape the ch...
I don't want to make it too obvious before the reveal. OK, question: why not? Consider the fundamental structure of a plot twist, or a reveal. It's usually either: Reader is expecting A; ha...
Separate concerns. If you think of editing as "fixing everything in my novel," it's going to be a huge and unmanageable chore, and there's nowhere to begin it that will give you even a sense of pr...
A lot of current science-fiction and fantasy magazines have online submission systems, accepting Word documents. And where I remember, way-back-when, submission guidelines noting that (printed) man...
A story should finish what it starts. You control what, exactly, you choose to start. If you're not going to be finishing a murder mystery with a solution, you need to be careful not to set the st...
I'm advising a translation project, translating some short stories from a foreign language to English. What I'm advising about isn't the translations themselves -- but seeing the translated stories...
At extremes: yes, relying on "chance" as a plot device can be very unsatisfying. The reader knows that "chance" isn't really a matter of luck; instead, it's the author manipulating events. The re...
To decide how many points of view (POVs) you can handle, you need to take into account the demands a new POV makes on you. Each POV needs character and voice. When you have more than one or two PO...
