Non-Humans as Round Characters

Speculative fiction writers often cast non-human characters in their stories. Those aliens, elves, fairies, and pointy-eared Vulcans are among a large number of possible strange creatures. As they write, spec-fic authors must live with their creations for many months and readers must read about them for many hours. Neither group …

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Dots and Dashes for Fiction Writers

In a recent critique session, the subject of punctuation arose. Should a fiction writer use exclamation points, colons, and parenthesis? What is the right way to use the hyphen (-), dash (—), and ellipsis(…)? Experienced fiction writers rarely use exclamation points. It has the same problematic effect as typing in …

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Writing and Critiquing Fantasy

During the pandemic of 2020, fantasy writing experienced an astounding increase in popularity, perhaps a form of escape, with a massive increase in stories written for adults. The statistics compiled by WordsRated.com show fantasy book sales in 2021 increased 45%, compared to 2020. This was the largest increase among all …

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A Computer Wrote My Story

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming an increasingly powerful tool for authors, providing new opportunities to generate creative fiction. With the ability to analyze vast amounts of data and understand natural language, AI can help authors generate new ideas, develop characters, and even write entire stories. In this article, we’ll explore …

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Writing Lessons, Wrong Books

For writers, literature is an ultimatum. Are you going to enjoy it? Or are you going to learn something? It’s a false dichotomy, really. Doing both isn’t so hard. Growing in your skills and superpower has a certain satisfaction in itself. And sometimes understanding the fiddly background bits in stories …

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Your Character’s Thoughts

At a glance, it used to be easy to identify what a character was thinking, hearing, seeing, or saying BECAUSE the author would write: he thought, she heard, he saw or she said… The current trend is to remove such markers or filters to reduce the “narrative distance” between the …

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Filter Out Filter Words

The most common stylistic problem I find while editing early drafts (both my own and those of critique partners) is excessive filtering and filter words. Filter words are terms and phrases that filter action or insight through a character’s point of view (POV). Overusing them is like asking your reader …

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Pacing and Paragraphs

Having spent the last three years as a member of a robust online critique group and the last year as judge in a novel contest, I’ve learned several things about what makes writing effective. I’ve found many people have a story to tell, but only a small minority have the …

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