Recent content by Jamber

There's a moment in Terry Pratchett's Going Postal where schoolmarmish Miss Maccalariat bowls into Moist's office to ask: 'Do we "embrace divertingly"?' She means 'embrace diversity', but Pratchett gently lampoons both ideas. Ultimately telling writers to embrace diversity is like asking a...

Just wanted to add, one of the joys of steampunk is that it's about the moment when industry went from human (or animal) driven/produced to mechanistic and cold. Somehow steam crosses the divide. I love that, and will forgive a lot just because the technological-societal aspects of steampunk...

Hi Raziel, On the first read, my eyes glazed. I didn't think about why; the words just didn't connect for me. On a second read I felt there was a terrific story here, but there was no hook. As soon as I read 'corrupt priest' I switched off. He wasn't someone I could feel anything for, so for me...

Hi Brian, I think rejecting a professional editor's advice is always risky, but so is accepting it. lol Sometimes (just like anyone), editors can get stuck on a tack. They can get so caught up in exploring what they've perceived to be 'wrong' with a work that they get hung up on expecting you...

Great set of quotes! I loved 16: "As for 'too much description,' well, opinions differ. We write the books we want to read. And I want to read books that are richly textured and full of sensory detail [...]" Thanks, Jennie

Joseph Campbell talked of the rise of the hero's journey mythology being tied to the notion of an individual warrior effecting change. This mythological strain replaced an earlier Vedic culture that saw human beings as tools of the gods. Another mythological strain (Greek) was 'the girl's...

I almost think 'show don't tell' shouldn't be called a 'rule' but a 'technique' or 'device'. It's a powerful one, to be sure, and jettisoning it can be risky unless you're extremely effective with other devices, but a lot of colourful writing wouldn't exist if it obeyed rules. Terry Pratchett's...

Hi Jabrosky, why not just use 'tension'? As I see it, 'conflict' is always interrelational and always expressed in the story, whereas 'tension' can be related to suspense, to a character choosing the wrong path, making a mistake, etc. You can have lots of tension building up behind a scene or...

Hi Phil, the worst advice I received was also the best advice. It was to avoid passive phrasing. However the critiquer added the words, 'you should eliminate every instance of "had" or "was"'. One comb-over to make my story more active made all the difference to it as a piece. However being...

So is the mother the moral guardian who haunts his misdeeds? Does she represent guilt? The idea of who he should have been? You could make the mother's character more real simply by working with the idea of guilt in backstory -- a moment when he disappoints her or when he first associates his...

Hi The Unseemly, there's a film industry marketing term for it, isn't there? 'Same but different.' If you want to get a foot in the marketing door, write what sold last year but vary it a bit. (That's the theory anyway -- I doubt it works without a good dose of luck or, as Feo Takahari says...

Hi Trick, generalisations are all very well, but if you want to write a character who stands out (even if she's not a main one), you'll still need to vary the psychology. Scribble's 'When one is young' account doesn't match a lot in my upbringing. That's not to say my upbringing is anything to...

Hi Trick, I feel the comparison is too much of a stretch. You're using a metaphor that's one of nurturing and pleasantness (despite the fictional baddie) to describe a situation of great unpleasantness and drama. As well, there's a sense where using fiction as a metaphor troubles the suspension...

Hi iWantiStrive, I think the problem isn't merely the pronoun, but to do with perspective and scene-setting as well. I'm not sure what the scale is here, and how far apart the two men are (indeed I wasn't sure if 'the soldier' also meant the main character -- it took me a while to work out what...

You have two very different ideas in title and subtitle; as a reader I couldn't easily make sense of the gap in logic. One is a highly personal and warm title (and that's the one I gravitated to -- Mark of a Thief). The other felt too remote, and I wondered if it might work better as: Mark of a...