In my weekly Story Design Tips column in Gamasutra, I wrote three articles giving advice on how to write beautiful endings.
The first article talked about how to get the most of closure.
The second article talked about how to give readers a feeling of beauty in your beautiful ending.
The third article covered the emotional core of a beautiful ending.
Enjoy.
In my weekly column/blog at Gamasutra, Story Design Tips, I’ve published a series of seven articles about writing comedy. Here they are:
In Writing Comedy, Part I I introduced my comedy bona fides and gave us a shortcut to writing comedy.
In Writing Comedy, Part II we tackled the first basic element of comedy: Over-exaggeration.
In Writing Comedy, Part III we tackled the second basic element of comedy: Under-exaggeration.
In Writing Comedy, Part IV we tackled the third basic element of comedy: Comic Distress. The difference between dramatic distress and comic distress is the fine line between drama and comedy.
In Writing Comedy, Part V we tackled the fourth basic element of comedy: The comic problem.
In Writing Comedy, Part VI we tackled the fifth basic element of comedy: Distance. The fifth element of comedy, surprisingly enough, isn’t funny.
In Writing Comedy, Part VII we explored the most basic structure of comedy, both in micro and in macro, and the large role logic has comedy.
Enjoy.
Apexology Science Fiction & Fantasy is a collection of short stories by authors who are currently being published by the Apex Book Company and includes a reprint of my short story, The Imagination Hospital. It’s about a small kid with a rich imagination and his close-minded teachers.
Apexology Science Fiction and Fantasy
The website Scribbler to Scribe has a review of Secret Thoughts.
From the review:
SECRET THOUGHTS is beautifully crafted with a straight-forward writing style and well-honed plot. Each story exposes a darkness (and beauty) to humanity. The pacing is slower at points than I would like, and some introspection could have been cut. But I urge readers to stay the course! SECRET THOUGHTS will entertain and enlighten you.
Secret Thoughts is available in various formats here.
In my weekly column/blog at Gamasutra, Story Design Tips, I’ve published a series of five articles about the art of dialogue.
Article #1: The Art of Dialogue
Dialogue isn’t words. It’s actions. Words are only shadows of the actions.
Article #2: Dialogue as Vectors
Once you know what actions are, you can look at them as vectors: what we do is the result of opposing needs.
Article #3: What To Do With Characters When They Talk?
Dialogue in a visual medium means you need to solve what the characters physically do.
Article #4: How To Save Bad Dialogue
Sometimes bad dialogue can’t be changed. How do you save the scene? Here are a few tips.
Article #5: 10 Dialogue Don’ts
Here are ten often-repeated dialogue mistakes that you want to avoid.
Then there was another article, not about dialogue, but about consistency. Consistency in storytelling is a virtue. But is there a loophole that allows us to be inconsistent? The article wHen iS iT oKay tO bE InconsistenT shows you that loophole.
| Consistency in story design is a virtue. But is there a loophole that allows us to be inconsistent? |
The short story Generation E: The Emoticon Generation has just been reprinted in Inter Nova. It’s a science fiction story about two minutes from now. It takes our current emoticon generation and goes with it as far as one can.
Meshuggener Smiley by Oscar Wolf
Two of my books are slated to be translated into Hebrew and appear in Israel. The first is Secret Thoughts, which is already out in the US by Apex Books. Buy it here. The second is the fantasy novel for young adults, Tickling Butterflies. Secret Thoughts will be out at the end of this year. Tickling Butterflies will be out at the end of next year.
Secret Thoughts
In my weekly column/blog at Gamasutra, Story Design Tips, I’ve just published five articles about world-building.
Article #1: World-Building Needs Closed Doors.
World-building 101. This time: The world you’re building needs doors that will never open.
Article #2: 2 Fallacies in World-Building.
Creating new worlds means there are things you need to avoid doing.
Article #3: The 3 Building-Block Principles of World Design.
The building-blocks every new world needs.
Article #4: Basing World Design on a World That Works.
The real world is your best resource for creating imaginary worlds.
Article #5: New Worlds Need Dust and Rust.
If you’re designing a new world, don’t make the mistake of making it shiny and perfect.
Hub Magazine published an article of mine, called How to Give Really Bad Interviews. Download the PDF file to read the article. Here’s an excerpt:
So you’re an author and your newest book just came out. It’s time to give interviews to try and sell the book. You want to be proper, respected, serious, inspiring, and to give an air of authority. But why? Why would you want to give a good interview when you can give a truly horrible one? Isn’t it so much more fun?
I didn’t start out as a bad interviewee on purpose. I stumbled onto it. It was destiny, I suppose. And now I’m ready to take it to the next level. I’m ready to turn it into an art. I am here to share my vast and shocking knowledge in giving bad interviews with any potential authors out there who would like to glean a bit of the technique from an old master.
But first thing’s first: Let’s see how it all began.
Read the rest of the article here.
The online magazine Flames Rising has a new article of mine called Why I Write About Women.
I started my career as a playwright, not as an author.
A long time ago, when I was twenty-four, I wrote an intimate one-woman play. The actress needed to play four women characters in extremely unstable emotional situations. I gave it to a few actresses, to see if they would do it (I sent the manuscript one at a time, of course). One famous actress invited me to her home to talk about the play. It’s not that she wanted to take it, she said when I came, the play was too dark for her; it’s that she needed to see with her own eyes that a man wrote it and not a woman. When I was twenty-four I looked fifteen, so that no doubt made it even more jarring for her. She kept saying how she couldn’t believe a man wrote that play, that a man would know so many things about women.
I’ve been getting that reaction to my plays – and to my stories and books – ever since. I like writing about women characters. I like putting them as lead characters. I prefer it that way, in fact.
Read the rest of the article.
