We’ve all experienced a high school teacher or college professor expounding on a given story’s “theme.” Those with a sense of the bigger picture can more easily parse a novel-length story into its theme(s) than the rest of us. Occasionally debates break out regarding the central theme of a novel or whether a novel is “literary” only if there’s a clear and well-supported theme on which all elements of the story hang. I subscribe to the theory that while a … Read More »

Among all the problems of authenticity the conscientious writer of historical fiction must face is the one I call the Problem of the Plucky Heroine. By this, I mean a character who is out of character for his or (more frequently) her times. Whose values are strangely modern. Who is, in short, an anachronism, probably designed to attract the modern reader. Is this really a problem, or is it a legitimate way to engage readers who want to read about … Read More »

Netflix just launched its latest series, The Haunting of Hill House, an atmospheric, timely addition to its October fare. So it seems like a good time to resurrect that show’s source material as we set out the pumpkins, coat the door with ectoplasm, and cob the webs for All Hallows Eve. In an earlier column, I talked about setting as a literary character in itself, something inseparable from the story. I used Manderley, in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938), to … Read More »

No matter what the genre, a bit of sexual tension can perk up your storytelling. Years ago I wrote romance novels. This is what that experience taught me. Love is a lot more interesting when it’s all about the conflict. Readers are surprised when I tell them that a romance is a love story. But not all love stories are romances. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a love story. The conflict in that classic play is not between the lovers. … Read More »

If you write science fiction or fantasy, or aspire to, you’ve probably heard of worldbuilding. In a nutshell, worldbuilding means constructing an imaginary setting. If you do and it’s consistent and logical within its own parameters, however outlandish they may be, you’ve won readers. Build a world without really thinking it through and veteran readers of the genre will abandon it in droves. And what better teacher to start with than one who pioneered worldbuilding? H.G. Wells was a thinker … Read More »

Good historical fiction is doubly hard to write. Not only are there the usual problems of writing good “fiction”: well plotted, richly detailed, stuffed with fascinating characters. But “historical” demands that whole additional burden of research, so that the end result is a convincing representation of a past time and often distant place. Why should we even bother? Now Feels Pretty Good In the first place, we and our readers find it entertaining, like a good History Channel program. It’s … Read More »