Recent content by Karlin

Oh No! Don't say such a thing! Here everyone is "Doing What Tolkien Did", and you are suggesting that maybe He Didn't.

I am a huge fan of Farmer Giles. A wonderful story.

"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". Mark Twain. If anyone remembers him.

I've been avoiding it for over a decade, yet I don't don't think there's anything wrong with it. I'm a social media dinosaur, so I doubt Tik Tok has anything to do with my attitude.

A Canticle for Leibowitz. Amazing work, but one that doesn't get much attention these days.

I have read many good books that use "he said", "she said". It doesn't bother me when reading. For some reason, when writing, I try to avoid that. If it's a dialog, then the conversation is bouncing between two people, so it should be clear who is speaking just from the sequence. I find however...

In the meantime, I've struck up an aquaintance with one of the authors on this list

I just bought " tomorrow to be brave". Memoirs of the only woman to ever be in the French Foreign Legion. Amazing story. Here's an article from the BBC: BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | The only woman in the French Foreign Legion BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | The only woman in the French Foreign Legion

Mine was just over 20 years ago, during a spell of unemployment. A short novel, great premise, reasonably written. Self Published, sold a few copies. https://www.amazon.in/Role-Playing-Karlin-ebook/dp/B00WH7I8JO My wife says I should go back and rewrite it. Maybe someday.

story , characters.World building? As I go. I don't really understand these world building discussions. You need a framework for your story, even if it not a fantasy story. But character and plot are teh guts of the story. Who cares what year the seashell bank was founded?

I am constantly getting distracted by ideas for the Next Story. But somehow manage to stick to what I am doing, and eventually finish a book. Even while dreaming of... whatever. I basically don't allow myself to start working on an idea like that while i have one in progress. I think bout it...

I generally don't think consciously about persons and so on. But I can understand the difficulty. Once i wrote a short story in first person, and killed the main character. Now What?! His ghost continued narrating. I gather you need to shift to third person to inform the reader of other...

In normal circumstances, I manage to sit down and write for an hour , sometimes more, 4 or 5 days a week. Now, things are somewhat tense in this neighborhood ( middle east), i find it difficult, well, even more difficult than usual, to concentrate. Have you had similar experiences?

Using whatever technical tools that are available for spelling, grammar and punctuation seems OK to me. when you talk about pacing, however, or concepts that weren't explained, I would be very very careful in using such aids. The best you'd ever get out of such a thing is an averaged smoothed...

I've been thinking about this . I'm coming from a different angle, the characters. Do the characters need a planning session? I wouldn't try to manipulate the reader. If the characters need the planning, then the reader needs it too. Not sure if your characters need a planning session? Ask...