opinion piece

Squelching Noises on the Page

As the clock ticks down towards the inevitably tumultuous beginning of the boon and bane to writers known as National Novel Writer’s Month, it helps me to reflect on my work habits; what works, what doesn’t, and, perhaps most importantly, what has worked for others.

No matter how you look at it, a writer is nothing without their influences. This is a simple and inescapable truth, whether you believe that the best way to grow as a writer is to learn from the experienced greats, or learn what not to do from those that have stumbled before us. For me, however, there has been one role model that has stood out among the many others I’ve learned from, and that is the esteemed and astounding Neil Gaiman. Read Full Article

The Mary Sue Concept

There is a fear that many starting writers feel when it comes to crafting the main characters in their epics, that what they create will not feel real enough to their audience. I touched on it briefly in a post from a couple of years ago, titled The Beauty in Flaws, where I talked about how a writer sometimes has to fight against the impulse to create perfection within their characters. In some circles, these kinds of characters are derogatorily referred to as Mary Sues, although in my opinion that term is overused and, in some cases, poorly understood. Read Full Article

The Person Behind the Page

 

Despite all the courses, books, seminars, and schools, the funny thing is no one can really teach you how to write. The best anyone can do is administer to what’s already there. To that effect, there is a lot of advice I’ve been given over the course of my relatively short career as a writer, much of it from people who haven’t written much themselves. However, probably the one I hear the most is, “Write what you know/Write from your life.”

This is singularly the most versatile and useless advice I have ever been given, mainly because it can mean virtually anything, but everyone is sure that their interpretation is the right one. Read Full Article

The Beauty in Flaws

One of the earliest and most difficult lessons I had to learn as a writer was that the idea of perfection is more fun in theory than it is in writing.  Perfect situations, perfect worlds, and especially perfect people can be the death of a good story, because the things you remember about the world, what makes the people and the things around you interesting, are their flaws, because in the end those are the things that distinguish them from everyone else. Read Full Article