Recently in Writing Category

I've given the novel I'm writing for my thesis the working title, Of Fish and Swimming Swords. I don't have names for the second or third novel yet, but ideas are beginning to come together. They'll complete the arc begun in the thesis.

The last two nights, I've woken with farely vivid dreams. Dreams aren't useful in their raw state. If you actually transcribe a dream, it won't make much sense because dream logic isn't sufficiently realistic. But dreams can provide interesting settings and plot pointers. That's what these two dreams have done.

I was talking to a friend recently about writing and mentioned the three things Samuel R. Delany said to put in a story for a well rounded character. "There [are] three types of actions: purposeful, habitual, and gratuitous." ("Characters," Jewel Hinged Jaw p. 157, referring to a passage from Nova.) Of course, I wasn't quite that eloquent on the phone. Here, purposeful actions further the plot, habitual actions can flesh out the context (e.g., society) of the character, and gratuitous actions can provide the leavening—the filling that lets us process the story more easily (e.g., pillow shots in cinema).

When every other fantasy writer seems unable to find a new world to share, Delany has already given us that world with his Nevèrÿon series. More than just entertainment, this series is a study of many things, including story telling. The rest of this entry is a collection of quotes with some light commentary.