Dystopia Dystopian fiction is really hot right now. Just look at The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, The Uglies trilogy and more. The New York Times had a discussion where authors and other professionals chimed in on the popularity of the dystopian genre and tried to understand why young adults specifically are so drawn to it. What exactly is dystopian? Dystopia, according to Merriam Webster, means an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives. It’s the anti-utopia, the anti amazing heavenly paradise. Stories in the dystopia genre are dark, conflict-driven and usually take place sometime in the future after something horrible has happened to the Earth whether through an apocalypse, government takeover, war, drought etc. Coming up with the back story in a dystopian novel is where a writer can be truly inventive in social commentary and criticism. My favorite contemporary dystopian novel is The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, which I’m on book 2 of. Get writing!
Writer's Café fiction writing software - novels - screenwriting - short stories - creative fun Tips And Tricks For Writing So what do you do when you’re pressed for time, swamped under works and you still need to get some stuff written, and written well? Your nerves are tightened up so well that you can’t sleep, but you can’t squeeze even a sentence out of your mind. I know the feeling so well, but what I did then was, just start writing fast without even thinking, then a professional article was born with the time shorter than usual. (Image Source: Fotolia) The phenomena has nothing to do with the God I worship, or any supernatural phenomenon, it’s just how brain works: we write fast and professionally if we can just limit something, abandon certain habits, and put up some beneficial habits. Articles you might be interested as well: 1. To be honest, I hate this method. (Image Source: Fotolia) If you’re pressed for time and really want get some writing done, open up a fresh Microsoft Word document, and start typing. 2. I know a lot of people who don’t like setting a timer and writing till it goes off. 3. 4.
Dystopia Truths About Fiction The following essay was previewed in the class that Stephen Graham Jones taught for LitReactor, Your Life Story Is Five Pages Long. 1. The reader should never have to work to figure out the basics of your story. Who’s whose wife or husband, what the time period is if that matters, why these people have broken into this house, and on and on, just the basic, ground-level facts about your story. If you don’t relay that stuff up-front, as quickly and efficiently as possible (and please don’t be fancy), then your story becomes a game of three-card-monty, with you hiding information under this or that shell, trying to keep everything moving fast enough that nobody knows what’s going on. 2. Meaning you don’t have to lay every last detail of every last thing out. The best writers are the ones who can cover the most distance with the fewest words. 3. 4. You open with a hook, of course—the title—then you hook with the first line, then, usually at the end of the first paragraph, you set that hook.
Writer: the internet typewriter Writing Killer Fight Scenes Fight scenes are dangerous territory for writers. On the surface, they seem as if they’re guaranteed to keep the reader glued to the action in the same way as they often do at the movies. In reality, though, readers tend to skip over fight scenes – skimming the long, tedious, blow-by-blow descriptions in favour of getting back to the dialogue and character-driven drama that truly engages them in the story. My novel, Traitor’s Blade, is a swashbuckling fantasy in which fight scenes are a crucial part of the storytelling. This means having to ensure that every piece of action is vital and engaging; it means that every duel must draw the reader in and not let them go until the end. So how do you keep the pacing, flow, and more importantly, the drama moving forward with so many fights? GIVEAWAY: Sebastien is excited to give away a free copy of his novel to a random commenter. Column by Sebastien de Castell, who had just finished a degree in archaeology when he started work on his first job.
List of books banned by governments From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia In many territories, distribution, promotion, or certain translations of the Bible have historically been prohibited or impeded. See Censorship of the Bible.[1] Many countries throughout the world have their own methods of restricting access to books, although the prohibitions vary strikingly from one country to another. Despite the opposition from the American Library Association (ALA), books continue to be banned by school and public libraries across the United States. Albania[edit] Argentina[edit] Australia[edit] Austria[edit] Bangladesh[edit] Belgium[edit] Bosnia and Herzegovina[edit] Brazil[edit] Canada[edit] Chile[edit] China[edit] Czechoslovakia[edit] Egypt[edit] El Salvador[edit] Eritrea[edit] France[edit] Germany[edit] Greece[edit] Guatemala[edit] India[edit] Indonesia[edit] Iran[edit] Ireland[edit] Italy[edit] Japan[edit] Kenya[edit] Kuwait[edit] Lebanon[edit] Liberia[edit] Malaysia[edit] Morocco[edit] Mauritius[edit] Nepal[edit] Netherlands[edit] New Zealand[edit]
Things Writers Forget When Writing Fight Scenes Recently, I attended VCON, a science fiction and fantasy conference in Surrey (part of Metro Vancouver) and attended a session called “Writing About Fighting.” The panel consisted of writers and experts who were disciplined in multiple martial arts, including authors Lorna Suzuki and T.G. Shepherd, and Devon Boorman, the swordmaster of Academie Duello in Vancouver. For me, this talk was so fascinating, it was worth the cost of admission to VCON. 1. First of all, if you’re not technical and don’t know the details of fighting, you shouldn’t try to write about them. Moreover, if you don’t feel comfortable or knowledgeable about fighting, don’t make your main character an expert on the subject. Some authors who write fight scenes well are: Dorothy Dunnet (who writes around the fight scenes, describing key moments only, without technical detail) Adrian Tchaikovsky in the Shadows of the Apt series (who, according to T.G. 2. 3. Battle scenes are truly disgusting. 4. 5. 6. This is a huge one. 7.
How a Scene List Can Change Your Novel-Writing Life By the end of this post you will have a nagging urge to use an excel spreadsheet. Don’t make that face—I know you’re a writer and not a data analyst. Or if you are a data analyst—I get that you’re on this blog to get away from your day job. But guess what? At the suggestion of Randy Ingermason—the creator of the Snowflake Method—I listed all of the scenes in my novel in a nice little Google spreadsheet. It changed my novel-writing life, and doing the same will change yours too. Creating a scene list changed my novel-writing life, and doing the same will change yours too. Scene Lists Help You Plan I tried to write a novel once before without planning in advance. I used the Snowflake Method, which consists of several steps to designing a novel that we can discuss at a later date. Today we’re focusing on a particular step: the creation of a scene list. What is a scene list? It’s literally a list of the scenes in your novel in an excel spreadsheet. Column 1: POV. 1. 2. 3. Scene Lists Help You Edit