The third (and final) chunk of my primary WIP is in critique, the reader finished and is consolidating her notes. I expect the feedback in the next few days. Based on past experience, it’ll sting, I’ll let it marinate, then come back and respond with “Yeah, that’s fair” to pretty much everything. Life’s interfered, and the first novella (of the three) is this close to final. I just bounce off it every time I try to do any work.
A friend recommended The Emotional Craft of Fiction (by Donald Maass), and I’m only a little way in but agree with the central argument: readers respond primarily to the way a book makes them feel. It reminds me of an episode of Writing Excuses (I forget which one), which pointed out that if the book ends on an emotional and satisfying high, the reader walks away happy with the book — even if the middle was a muddle. I look forward to reading the rest of it.
Marie Brennan (who I mentioned before for her book on combat scenes) has an excellent series of essays on world-building (collected annually in her book series New Worlds), many of which are available on the web at the Book View Cafe.
I will note I’ve never explored the overall site before, I found the essays through her blog after hearing her talking about the combat book on… Writing Excuses. In looking for that page, I saw some recognizable authorial names as contributors to the site. I think I need to spend some time there.
SFWA, the Science Fiction Writers of America, have been doing video chats with authors for Narrative Worlds. (I’d consider this intermediate, that is for authors looking for deeper insights into craft, rather than introductory “so you want to be a writer” stuff.) Season One and Season Two have playlists on youtube. (I’ve previously built a Write On installment around Tade Thompson’s video from season one.)
Now I’ll throw the floor open to other contributions. Have you run across a book, podcast, video, or anything else about writing that you’d like to share? Have you had any recent triumphs? Frustrations? Do you have questions about writing you’d like to discuss with others?
Happy writing!
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2022-08-26 00:00:00Z
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