My writing odyssey with my first novel is finally nearing its end! Last July, I explained why I decided to independently publish the novel, and how I intended to do it the right way. After numerous rounds of self-editing to tighten the story and polish my writing, I hired a professional editor who was wonderful…
A year ago today I published my first blog post titled What is Fresh-scraped Vellum? It analogized the medieval art of bookmaking to the task of writing a publishable novel in today’s world. It also promised book reviews and commentary on both classic and recent fiction in the historical and fantasy genres, along with posts…
In the final installment of my series on Narrative Viewpoint: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly, I’d like to talk about the “viewpoint” that annoys me the most. In fact, I question whether it’s even a legitimate narrative point-of-view at all. It’s what I call “third-person ugly”—not quite third-person limited or third-person omniscient, but…
In the third post in my series on Narrative Viewpoint: the Good, the Bad & the Ugly, I’m focusing on the good for a change, the viewpoint that I think works best for most stories: third-person limited. A great example of this viewpoint is George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. Each…
Lately I’ve been reading a mix of vintage and more recent novels in the historical and fantasy fiction genres, and I’ve come to realize I can get quite annoyed with narrative viewpoint. Even damn near curmudgeonly about it. Although there are several different types of narrative points-of-view, there are only two I really like, and…
For the past ten weeks since I started my “Beginning” of the Week series, I’ve been asking this question in one form or another. So this week, I thought I’d discuss in a little more detail what makes a good beginning to a novel. Author Nancy Kress in her book Beginnings, Middles & Ends argues…
According to Wikipedia, “an antihero … is generally considered to be a protagonist whose character is at least in some regards conspicuously contrary to that of the archetypal hero.” This character is usually the antithesis of the “knight in shining armor.” But what makes him work? In my view, the antihero has to be someone…
Of all the blogs I frequent, my favorite for quick and amusing reads is Evil Editor. Evil Editor (or EE for short) provides critiques of query letters — those partial summaries of a novel that are supposed to entice literary agents to want to read your book. While a lot of EE’s points are helpful to…
A few days ago, I started work on the sixth draft of my novel. This is something I’ve been avoiding, because frankly it feels a little insane. Why after four drafts, or even five, isn’t it finished? I have no idea. But this has become my Odyssey, and if I don’t get to Ithaca soon,…
Ann C. Crispin of Writer Beware posted a fantastic article today titled “How to Satisfy Your Reader Without Being Predictable.” It’s about the need for unpredictable endings in genre fiction while still satisfying the reader’s expectations. She uses The Return of the King as an example of genre fiction which could have had a perfectly predictable and satisfying…
The first sentence may be the most important sentence in a novel. A great first line can set the tone for the story or convey the essence of a character in just a few words. So for today’s post, I thought I’d highlight some of my favorite first lines from historical and fantasy fiction: In a hole…