Questions 238: Transparent Worldbuilding
Subscribe Here! Vega asks: “What is transparent worldbuilding, and how does it work?” Resources mentioned: Dune by Frank Herbert The Menace From Earth by Robert A. Heinlein Stories From The …
Tag: narration
Special episode: More Terrifying Feedback!
Subscribe Here! Today, Ed points out that I missed a good technique for opening stories when discussing first stentences, while Cheyenne reveals an ingenious method for cataloging notes, ideas, and …
Questions 233: Unreliable Narrators
Subscribe Here! Vega asks: “What kinds of unreliable narrators are there?” Resources mentioned: The Usual Suspects How to Cheat at Everything by Simon Lovell Social Engineering: The Art of Human …
Questions 217: Underused Techniques (Writing Instruction Series 11)
Subscribe Here! In this eleventh installment in our miniseries on teaching students how to write, Rob asks: “What storytelling techniques (such as hyperbole) are, in your opinion, tragically underused?” This …
Questions 209: Effective Vocabulary Building (Writing Instruction Series 3)
Subscribe Here! In this third installment in our miniseries on teaching students how to write, Rob asks: “How can I respect subculture grammar while teaching best practices in word choice …
Questions 198: Staff Notation for Fiction
Subscribe Here! Dan asks: “What’s the deal with semicolons and em-dashes?”
Questions 197: Narrative Technique Terminology
Subscribe Here! Cain asks: “What do you call it when a scene starts in the middle of the action, and backfilling happens along the way?”
Questions 182: That Feeling of Completeness in Short Fiction
Subscribe Here! Charles asks: “What’s a good short story length for F/SF? How do you I make my short stories feel complete?”
Questions 167: Epic Scope and Bigness
Subscribe Here! Joseph Asks: “Following up Questions 152 about epics: How do you create the BIG feel of epics, and how do granularity and scope play into it?”
Questions 154: Film Studies for Novelists
Subscribe Here! Tim asks: “In what ways is studying film useful for prose writers?” Referenced: Five Brilliant Moments of Action