The Plot-Device Machine – Motive
A story is its people. We all know that, and that’s why Motive is different from the other Plot Device points. We’ve seen how Movement and especially Knowledge can organize the plot around the...
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Deals, Decoys, and Dirty Tricks for your Characters
Your hero’s trapped by his enemies, no way to run or fight—unless he can take what those goons really want and use it against them. Your villain needs to slip past the police lines to work his sinister...
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The Prologue Checklist
“What’s past is prologue.” –William Shakespeare, The Tempest It’s only natural—you’ve got a powerful story to write, so you open with a prologue. It’s your chance to show off a clever idea, it...
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Does your villain need more evil?
Is your story good enough? In fact… you’ve probably been exploring and sweating to make your protagonist more real, more dynamic, and the supporting cast just as compelling as you need. But, could it...
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How to be a Writer (a modest theory)
Do I really want to be a writer? (The Unified Writing Field Theory — searchings and findings on what makes stories work) Everyone who ever glanced at a pen must have asked that, and many of us keep...
View ArticleThe Two Laws of Backstory (and why Superman breaks both)
It’s one of the hardest moments in writing—knowing that even though you’ve picked a perfect character or an ideal plot complication, you have to write in so much more to justify it. But with so many...
View ArticleInterview with Ciara Ballintyne
What drives a writer, and what drives a story? I’ve been interviewing Ciara Ballintyne— How do I describe Ciara? She’s the creator of three different fantasy worlds and counting (Seven Circles of Hell,...
View ArticleDark Fantasy – or Just Dark Enough
For me, every hour could be Halloween. My mind never goes far from what makes the stories I love work, and for me the ultimate sweet spot of genre is a kind of dark fantasy adventure. I’ll live and die...
View ArticleDark Fantasy and Darker Horror – Common Webs
If dark fantasy and some of the other delightfully edgy shades of storytelling draw on horror (like I said last time), just how many variations does horror have? What kind of sinister heart does it...
View ArticleBook Covers – Build or Buy and How and Why
Here’s a tasty bit of irony: deciding on a book cover for The High Road has been making me dig past my own surface, and ask some hard questions about what kind of writer I’m trying to be. Both about...
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The High Road cover reveal
Getting a cover for a book I’ve written is well beyond feeling like a “kid in a candy store.” For The High Road it was closer to Christmas morning… if you’d spent months and months living the creation...
View ArticleA Choice of Power
It’s a harmless, playful question: “What superpower would you want?” Or magic talisman, ultimate gadget, or any other way to phrase the one thing you know you won’t be getting for Christmas… so what...
View ArticleShapechanger Dreams
There’s nothing like prepping for a Christmas visit with the family to keep us busy… and then there’s all the editing I’ve been doing on The High Road and planning the books to follow. So with all of...
View ArticleStar Wars: Is there a Fast Lane to the Force?
It’s New Year’s Eve tonight. I could lay out my thoughts about what I’ve done and what I haven’t done this year, and my vows to be more of the kind of writer I need to be. Or I could talk about Star...
View ArticleMagic In Common – interview with J S Moran
What’s the best thing magic can add to a story? How many different meanings does the paranormal have for writers, and readers? This week I’m launching an ongoing exploration into what might be my...
View ArticleMagic In Common – Interview with Maurice Broaddus and more
Prepare yourself for a unique treat—a Magic In Common interview with the author who says my approach for it was that magic would stand in as a metaphor for homelessness: both are all around us if we...
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Masquerade or Unmasqued? Hiding Urban Fantasy’s Magic
It’s one of the longest shadows cast over any story that places the fantastic in our own world: how much can it still be “our” world if the man on the street believes in magic? And the answer always...
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Magic In Common interviews
Here are the collected Magic In Common interviews, where I talk with different authors about their understanding of magic, the paranormal, or other fantastic element in their storytelling. Maurice...
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Review: Brandon Sanderson’s The Reckoners trilogy
When one of the short-list Best Fantasy Authors Out There writes a superhero series, pay attention. But since that author is Brandon Sanderson, the concept for the Reckoners books is “a world where...
View ArticleThe High Road sample from Chapter Three
One of the pleasures of having a book on its final draft… yes, in spite of delays The High Road should be out this fall, and no, I didn’t schedule that to be one of my flying puns. Sometimes I don’t...
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