Fanfic can be very different from and very similar to published fiction. One major similarity is the importance of titles and descriptions. There is a lot of equivalency between a back-of-the-book blurb and a fanfiction’s summary.

Your title and description are what hook your readers. They are (in most circumstances) what convinces your audience to devote time to your story. They require brevity and a dash of wit, while still being informative.

Read More

So I recently finished playing Tales of Berseria. Like many games in its genre, it was a dense experience, both in terms of gameplay and story. This density has many expressions, but one that I noticed in particular was its use of invented terms and technobabble. Here’s a partial list of some of the world-specific terms it uses;

* Malevolence – Evil energy. Related to the next item.
* Demonblight – A disease that turns people into demons.

Read More

Before we get into today’s blog topic, I just want to quickly revisit some of the political stuff from my second-to-last blog post.

Bad news: there’s still feds running around kidnapping people. They've retreated from Portland, but are explicitly being sent to other cities.

Read More

Delete, cut, backspace, empty recycle bin. However it happens, deleting things is one of the most important and difficult parts of writing. Choosing to throw away a piece of work can often be like ripping off a band-aid, or in the worst cases, like putting down a pet. One of the most dangerous things an author can do is to never delete anything. This applies to everything from individual words to entire ideas and concepts.

Read More

One of the strange things about fanfiction is that its characters are premade. There is often no need to create original characters, because the show provides so many for authors to utilize. But all characters use the same building blocks. Writing a character in fanfiction is not that different from making characters of your own. For today’s post about writing, I’d like to discuss one of the fundamental building blocks of character: the archetype.

Read More

Last week, after many false starts and discards, I finished the first chapter of my novel. Or more accurately, I finished the first chapter of a novel after discarding three others this year, and this is the first one I'm mildly confident might possibly be finish-able. To celebrate this ephemeral milestone, I would like to revisit a piece of writing advice that I learned long ago, yet I still often forget; don’t force it—but don’t procrastinate either.

Read More

Titles are one of the most important parts of any work, in any medium. Titles are the first impression your story gives. When someone recommends a new book or movie to a friend, the title is the only universal part. The title requires conciseness, but must also hint at a lot of ideas and information.

Read More

In the past, I’ve advocated learning from cinema, trying to use and translate the same techniques into prose. I use terms like “blocking” and “off-screen” to refer to things in prose.

Today, however, I’d like to discuss one of the major differences between visual media and prose. It also happens to be one of prose fiction's greatest weaknesses: scenes and stories with a large number of characters.

Read More

I know what you’re thinking, Jimmy (do you mind if I call you "Jimmy"?). “cleverpun, this subject has been covered a hundred times before, by authors who are way better at writing than you. What could you possibly tell me that I don’t already know?”

To that I say: this topic is so important, that it is worth having as many perspectives as possible. Hopefully this longer-than-average blog post either provides some new insight into the topic, or at least reinforces its import.

Read More