(Minimal spoilers — I’ll be describing the basic plot premise, the characters, and a scene that occurs about a third of the way through the movie without giving the particulars.) Every genre of writing is tough in its own special ways, and mystery writing is no exception. I’ve discussed some…
AKA, I wrote the first version of this before the final season of Game of Thrones*, but I guess it’s even more ~*~relevant~*~ now? If there’s one thing I’ve learned from teaching a course on professional presentations, it’s that sticking the landing is the hardest part. New speakers — heck,…
C’mon, now, don’t pretend you don’t know what it means to be a Perfect Writer. We’ve all read the six gazillion books… and articles… and listicles of 15 Tweets Only Real Writers Will Get… We know what Perfect Writers do and don’t do. So why is it so hard to…
Four episodes I watched all at once after returning from our honeymoon, four thoughts.
I mean, everyone who likes epic, dark, steampunk-y fantasy should watch the anime Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. But for a deeper understanding of writing better, white, Western writers in particular should watch it. Why? Because we often try to write characters from other cultures from a place of privilege, and many…
One of the things that limits me as a writer is how much I enjoy stasis as an audience member. Because many stories in the genres I read and write and watch thrive on epic-scale plots driven by set-piece actions, skilled writers in those genres have to be able to…
I love good twist endings. You know, the ones that reveal a whole new layer to the story, that make you care about the characters even more and marvel at the solution to the puzzle you’ve been wrestling with all this while. Heck, I’ll even settle for bad twist endings,…
Happy 2018! Every year, I set out to learn a few things. But I also inevitably learn a bunch of stuff I didn’t anticipate, which is why I am grateful to be living the life I do. Here are the top ten from 2017:
For a lot of my life, I was fortunate enough to be one of those kids who got praised for ability. I sailed through academics from kindergarten to high school, and it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t get into any university I applied to. Even through undergrad, I…
I realized during revision this summer that I actually hate writing action scenes. And it requires very little introspection to figure out why: I never read them.