I recently got back from Saint Petersburg, Russia. After jaw-dropping palaces and vodka shots, we had to buy a few of those little nested Russian dolls, the painted, hollow, wooden figurines that open to reveal smaller dolls within, which open to reveal still smaller ones. Once the vodka fog lifted, this got me to thinking about a largely overlooked writing tactic. Writing well from the point of view of your characters is a vital skill. Once in a while you … Read More »

Let’s geek out for a moment. Marvel Studios’ latest blockbuster, Avengers: Endgame, is neck-and-neck with James Cameron’s Avatar for the title of highest grossing film ever and the “superhero fever” critics claim won’t last long doesn’t seem to be subsiding anytime soon. A question I wanted to examine is what fiction writers can learn from the success of comic book adaptations? The answer has to do with world building and the omniscient point of view. Last month I picked up … Read More »

I have frequently come across a hybrid beast in the historical fiction woods that calls itself a biographical novel. That is, it is essentially the story of a real person’s life, but it has been, to one extent or another, fictionalized. Permit me—not as a history professional but as a reader — to scream aloud in pain. So what’s the problem? Is it historicity? My problem is not the reality-vs-fiction line. Very few authors openly deform a person’s known life. … Read More »

If you write humor you’ll eventually be asked by some well-meaning clod, “Don’t you ever write anything serious?” Ouch. Maybe Jean-Clod is not well-meaning at all. His implication, that humor writing isn’t serious writing, is downright insulting. Writing well in any genre or style demands work. Actors get it. “Dying is easy, comedy is hard,” they tell you, an adage that applies as well to writing. Some people are naturally funny, but even they work at the craft of funny … Read More »

When writing a novel leaning heavily on suspense, nothing is more important than structure. At the most basic level for a reader, tension is developed by the desire to learn something new about a main character or the plot. Good structure can aid the author in releasing details gradually to leave readers satisfied by the end of a story. Think of structure like cropping a photograph. While on vacation you snap a massive landscape shot, but when publishing it on … Read More »

More than once, I’ve read a book that I considered pretty good, but the villain was so cartoonish and two dimensional that it ruined it for me. Disclaimer: books are only as good as their characters for this reader. Nothing, but nothing, can make up for shallow characters. And a cardboard villain is a deal-breaker. The principle is always that fictional characters, no matter how quirky or exceptional, should be true to life. You should be able to recognize them … Read More »