articles on writing
Laws and policing aren’t only about damage to property or personal safety. There’s a whole subset of the enterprise which is devoted to safeguarding — or perhaps it would be better to say enforcing — the morals of society.
During interviews I’ve given—both live and digital—interviewers sometimes expressed interest in how I treated issues of faith in my work, up to and including the Star Wars novels I wrote with the late, truly great Michael Reaves (Patterns of Force, Shadow Games and The Last Jedi.) I’m a Bahá’í, by faith, so my worldview informs …
Art Imitates Life 2: What Faith Brings to the Table Read More »
When you think of all the things people might get addicted to, war isn’t the first thing that springs to mind. But as one of my Vietnam War vet classmates back in the mid-1970s put it: There it is. Consider the reality of being in that particular war zone. Most of the time in most …
Although much of speculative fiction likes to concern itself with continent-spanning empires and colonies orbiting far-distant stars, I want to drag our focus back down to a smaller scale. Because for many characters — and heck, for many of us in our daily lives — the government that affects us the most is actually the …
Having raised the specter of imperialism last week, it’s time to talk about the common counterpart to the empire: the colony.
After I’d written several Star Wars novels and a short story with the late, wonderful Michael Reaves, I was asked to give a number of interviews. These included radio shows and online interviews on the official Star Wars site and fan sites, as well. Several of the interviewers were interested in the way I treated …
Art Imitates Life 1: Science Fiction, Fantasy & Faith Read More »
When I was a child, I told my mother that it was my ambition to meet my favorite authors someday. She told me I couldn’t—they were all dead. (She meant, of course, that her favorite authors were all dead. In her mind we were one person, she and I, and I could have no likes …
We touched very briefly on empires last week — just long enough to defer the question. Now we’ll look at it in more detail.
One picture is worth a thousand words. This is a commonly held aphorism. In the life of a writer this is a real-world formula. Often what kicks off the creative process is, if not literally a picture, something equally dense and vivid—one line in a movie or book, documentary, article, or scholarly volume, one paragraph …
The Mathematics of Writing: One Picture = 1000 Words Read More »
In recent years of this Patreon I’ve attempted to achieve some kind of consistency around what terms I use at what times to refer to political units. I’ve almost certainly failed, but I take some comfort in the fact that this isn’t nearly as straightforward as you might think.
When it comes to blood sacrifice — animals or humans — the logic is the unchanged from other forms of the practice. Nothing good comes without a cost; the powers that be require appeasement to turn their wrath aside, payment to bestow their blessings.
One of the most widespread practices in religion, especially in prior ages, is sacrifice.
“How would you define scene development and what is the key to making it consistently good throughout a novel?” If you’ll recall, this was a question from a client who struggled to understand how to know if a scene was good, bad or meh. Last time I discussed some of the elements of scene craft; …
New Writers Ask: What is Scene Craft and How Do I Get Some? Read More »
