Recent content by mpkirby

How about the hook being that she remembers, not as a third person viewing the murder, but as the actual murderer. Her visions could come in 3's. She remembers an event the day before the murder, the act itself, and then a day after (perhaps guilt, satisfaction, whatever). To further...

Do others have practice techniques they use to hone the craft? I'm thinking of something like a Kata (Kata - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). In martial arts, it is an exercise to master basic forms. Certainly we can practice by just writing, whatever comes to mind. But I wonder if I...

When I first started getting into photography, I was enamored with the photographic workflow. What could I do with the raw image file, photoshop, cropping, color and tone adjustments, custom filters, image editing... But as I got into it more, I realized that taking pictures was simply too...

It's not exactly fantasy, but Anatham by Neal Stephenson is quite good. I'd skip his Baroque series because it's rather long-winded (although he addresses many of the issues I talk about below). Cryptonomicon is excellent as well (although even farther from fantasy than Anathem). I really...

I use backblaze (Easiest Online Backup Service - Backblaze). It runs in the background and backs up to a datacenter. Took 6 months to make the first backup (I do a lot of photography), but it is pretty good. Costs about 60 a year. Mike

I look for three attributes: 1) The world should be internally consistent. If you make flying rocks, there should be a reason for it (or for the rocks flying and nothing else). 2) The characters in the world should behave consistently as compared to the rules of their world. For example RR...

When I read the paragraph I had the vision of a business meeting. It is likely that while interesting to the participants, observers would find it tedious and boring. Also, lieutenants that are trained in the art of war are going to understand the rational behind particular directions...

Try this. Take a novella or longer work from an author that you like. Then go through and outline it just like you might if you were going to write the work from scratch. Outline the plot flow, characterizations, key scenes, etc. Then take your work and do the same. Compare the two. What...

One thought is to look at peerage and inheritance in your world as an extension of the economic system. In Britain, inheritance tended to be handed in its entirety to the oldest son. Younger sons might have some form of title, but were dirt poor. This created two interesting economic...

So I'll ask a different question. What makes a "classic"? LoTR -- It was one of the first epic fantasy books -- incredibly detailed. RR Martin's -- Song of fire and Ice -- I think this will be a classic because of how he deals with power and the relationship between women and men...

If authors took the "its been done before" advice there'd be no new books. Truly innovative fiction is likely a rare element these days. If you like Fantasy, Lord of the Rings, Whatever, then write something in that style. Try to pick an element that's unique. Readers have the sense of...

I think the ultimate of show don't tell is the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brien. The ultimate in never telling your reader anything, but show, show, show. In particular his use of naval dialogue and descriptive texts is sometimes overwhelming. Sometimes he uses "tell" to get into the...

One of the things I look for is pacing. Most writing has a natural rhythm to it. Great writing usually has perfect pacing. The dialog and description move in harmony with each other and there is a sense of steady progress. Sometimes when I edit my own work, I spend a lot of time trying to...