Larry Niven and Ringworld Time

Last month, I had the great pleasure of interviewing Larry Niven for Mythaxis Review. The transcript has just been published on their website. Larry Niven is perhaps best known for Ringworld and The Mote in God’s Eye (co-authored with Jerry Pournelle). Winner of multiple Hugo Awards (for both novels and short stories), the Nebula Award, …

Ask the Authors, ed. Kaye Lynne Booth

Booth and the contributors blend personal details with more general advice, creating a book that is halfway between biography and craft guide. The book is compiled from a series of communal interviews that the editor carried out with a pool of eighteen authors on writing- and publishing-related topics. Booth has gathered the questions into ten …

Theme Tune to My Un-Life

Many authors name music as a major inspiration for their work: they have a theme song for their lead character, they create a specific playlist for drafting each book, they have go-to songs for particular types of scene. I am the other kind of author. Rebecca Linam's forthcoming article on music influencing writing in Issue …

UnOccult Secrets

Matt Larkin (author of some rather spiffing riffs on Nordic mythology) posted an article recently suggesting fantasy novels can benefit from the lack of systematized magic. While I find his arguments engaging, for me the best answer lies in what is revealed rather than what is systematized. Larkin's thesis is that magic—at least magic that …

Writing as a Team Sport by Kevin J. Anderson

Anderson mixes his thoughts on why collaborations work, or don’t, with anecdotes from the many collaborations he has undertaken, creating a book that shows the reader the potential complexities of partnering with other authors without becoming dry or depressing. This book provides advice and insight on co-authoring fiction, covering reasons to consider collaborating, choosing a …

Hurting Your Characters by Michael J. Carlson

Carlson combines an accessible overview of the human body and the damage it suffers from various traumas with insight into how that might feel to a character. This creates a useful framework for adding plausible and emotive descriptions of injury that can be tailored to a character’s knowledge. This book provides an simplified description of …

Reviewing The 2017 NaNoWriMo Writing Tools Bundle

I've been sent a free copy of Kevin J Anderson's 2017 NaNoWriMo Writing Tools Bundle with a request that I share my honest opinion of a few of the titles. Apart from the guide to Vellum (I already have a good eformating program and don't have a Mac) they all seem worth a read. However, …

Improving Drab By Drab

I don't often blend my YouTube appearances with my blog: however, last Saturday's Nitty Gritty Writing Podcast was taken over by my drabbles. https://youtu.be/dyorFadw9A8 Do you focus on improving a specific writing trait? Which writing exercises do you find most efficient? Is the only way to learn to write, to write?

Time Isn’t On My Side

Time is. Time was. Time will be again. However, describing the process in fiction can be tricky; especially if the story is set prior to the invention of the watch. Seven Stones is gritty swords-and-sorcery. It opens in a dense forest in the rain, and continues with bad weather, ancient ruins, and other grimy backdrops. …

Some Nitty, Some Gritty

The Nitty Gritty Writing Podcast now has a third co-host, Edward Sullivan (who publishes under David Ulnar-Slew). And, in clear evidence of the universe being more than random, he joined on a week I couldn't make the broadcast: so you lucky mooks didn't have to miss out. https://youtu.be/N_ru8Kfoses Of course, I am now jealous that …