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Sometimes, the best way to prove that something in your story is dangerous is to throw a character at it. Want to show how threatening a character or situation is? Have them immediately kill someone, because who could deny that evidence? Of course, it’d be a shame to use up a real character just to prove that the villain isn’t messing around, so the next logical step is to create a character …
[Read more...] about How To Avoid Writing A Redshirt Character
Salman Rushdie is well known for his outspoken nature and the deadly fatwa issued in answer to his work. His novel Midnight’s Children won several awards and made it onto Modern Library’s 100 best novels list, but many are also familiar with the book that sent him into hiding, The Satanic Verses, and his riveting, third-person memoir, Joseph Anton. He’s dabbled in children’s literature, published …
[Read more...] about 6 Ways Salman Rushdie Can Improve Your Writing
Sometimes, the thing that makes a story pop isn’t the exact events of the plot or the details of the characterisation, but the context in which the story is presented. Sometimes, it’s setting up a question or expectation with an unusual title, like in A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters and John Dies at the End; sometimes, it’s adopting unusual chronology, recounting events out of sequential …
[Read more...] about Can A Framing Device Improve Your Writing?
Editing your story is, if we’re honest, more than half the battle of completing it. The first draft is a rush of creativity, but it’s in the editing that you turn it into a well-oiled machine that (crucially) is more concerned with entertaining the reader than acting as an outlet for the author. The technical, word-by-word editing is, if not easy, at least approachable. You can break it down …
[Read more...] about How (And When) To Stop Front-Loading Your Story
The human body (along with weapons, martial artists, and horses) is one of the most frequently abused and misunderstood objects in popular media. Hollywood has us nodding sagely as human bodies take obscene amounts of punishment, people slip unconscious just to wake up a couple of hours later totally fine, and swords pass through necks without a hitch. Characters who get shot in the arm shrug off …
[Read more...] about What You Need To Know About Writing Injuries
I love the idea of dream logic – how dreams can go, and how even though they’re very abstract, you can understand them. – David Lynch from Thomas Caldwell’s ‘Living Inside a Dream: The Art and Films of David Lynch’ Despite all the insight modern science has given us, it still hasn’t solved the mystery of dreams. The field of neuroscience is unlocking secrets of the brain every day, but it …
[Read more...] about Your Dreams Can Improve Your Writing
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