Article Dumping: Writer's Block Edition

As usual, I welcome your thoughts, and I'm happy that you approve of my pickings of articles.

I think The Character Therapist is a really silly concept, but I always like its blog articles.

Personally, I think the concept works. I haven't seen any other fiction writing bloggers applying such a profession to teaching craft. It's a fresh angle.

Pub Rants: Top 2 Reasons Why I Pass On Sample Pages:

Kristen Lamb: How Being Tired Can Make You a Better Writer:

Christina Reads YA: Why New Adult Novels Are Not Satisfying Me:

edited 20th Mar '13 2:37:14 PM by chihuahua0

The concept works. It's paying $49.99 for it that I find questionable.

Okay, now that TV Tropes just recovered:

Fantasy Faction: The Fantasy Language Problem: Part One:

Write to Done: Writer’s Block: Overcome It By Following The Map:

Copyblogger: How to Write Interesting Content for a “Boring” Topic:

Now the links with commentary are up on my blog!

Now for a new cycle...

From the Write Angle: Five Tips For Finding Your Pirated Novel Online:

The Indelibles: The Importance of Backups & A Disaster Recovery Plan:

Kristen Lamb: 5 Red Flags Your Story Needs Revision:

Wordplay: How Humor Can Make You a Better Writer:

edited 22nd Mar '13 1:52:00 PM by chihuahua0

The Creative Penn: Are African Writers And Readers Ready For The eBook Revolution?:

YAtopia: How to Support Authors You Love Without Spending Another Penn:

The Kill Zone: How to Write a Short Story:

Anne R. Allen: Is it Really Time for Authors to Stop Blogging?:

edited 25th Mar '13 11:58:29 AM by chihuahua0

At this rate, I'm going to be picking and choosing which posts to have commentary on, and then put the rest of the links into a bulleted list together.

Problogger: 84 Must Read ‘How to’ Blog Posts (and 3 Winners Announced):

Jennifer R. Hubbard: Things to consider in paranormal novels:

Writer Unboxed: How to Write a Screenplay: 7 Starting Tips for Adapting Your Own Novel:

Let Thoughts Brew Longer: The Death of Mary Sue:

The Big Thing: The Next Thing: Professionalization in Creative Writing:

QueryNet Blog: A Character By Any Other Name:

Christina Reads YA: How to End a Love Triangle:

Terribleminds: S&S Versus B&N And The Self-Publisher Schadenfreude Tango:

edited 25th Mar '13 11:57:19 AM by chihuahua0

The League of Extraordinary Writers: Creating the Future World: Nothing is Perfect:

Terribleminds: 25 Ways To Be A Happy Writer :

Jami Gold: Does Your Site Welcome Disabled Readers? — Guest: Linda Adams:

A Newbie's Guide to Publishing: Obsolete Anonymous:

edited 26th Mar '13 2:18:39 PM by chihuahua0

@All the posts about blogging: I just really have no words for how much I hate blogging.

The League of Extraordinary Writers: Creating the Underworld: Defy the Clichés:

Mystery Writing is Murder: Creative Exploration:

Fantasy Faction: The Fantasy Language Problem - Part Two:

And here are the posts with commentary.

Pulling back for the new cycle...

The Other Side of the Story: Oh, the Irony: Working With Dramatic Irony:

Wordplay: 2 Steps to Streamlining Your Dialogue:

David Gaughran: Why Amazon’s Purchase of Goodreads Is A Good Thing:

Books & Such: Be careful with generalizations in your writing:

The Write Practice: How Fast Can You Write?:

Storyfix: What's Your 'Vision' For Your Story?:

EDIT: By the way, here's an useful summar point from Storyfix's comments:

edited 29th Mar '13 5:00:20 PM by chihuahua0

And now, some words from the peanut gallery:

1. I love the crap out of dramatic irony, assuming that it is done well, but I don't think that this article describes it very well. Irony is when expectations are subverted through coincidence, usually leading to misfortune for the subject of the irony in question. To use an example from George Carlin, a diabetic man hit and killed by a doughnut truck is merely a striking coincidence; a diabetic man hit and killed by an insulin truck is dramatic irony. Irony is, for lack of a better term, poetic injustice. Sarcasm is a mild form of irony; comedies of errors hinge on more elaborate forms. Ms. Hardy was leading into a great demonstration of dramatic irony, but cut herself short, and that was kind of annoying. (Irony also tends to be somewhat fatalistic—a quality that I enjoy in fiction, but irrelevant here.)
2. Mixed feelings on the first step. Sometimes pruning is necessary, but sometimes realism (and/or verisimilitude) overrides the need to simplify. If you want to show how a certain person talks, you let them talk the way that they would, long or short. In her examples, the length feels unnecessary, but not all protraction is unnecessary. Some people repeat themselves, have verbal tics, pause a lot, speak very tersely—these qualities are best shown rather than told, and it's hard to do if you condense all of your dialogue to look neat and pretty. On the other hand, the second step is an important one. I have little to say about it, but I really do agree with her there.
3. I don't have a Goodreads account, but I can understand some of the concerns, particularly the reduction of emphasis on external stores. Really, I'm big on rare books, so if I had an account and wanted to talk about something that I can only find on, say, ABE Books, what would I do? Ché pas, hommes. The data thing is also a double-edged sword, both helpful and a bit iffy. That said, the benefits look pretty good for users that can take advantage of them.
4. I'm not entirely sure what the author of this article was going for here but I appreciate that she at least tried to take on the somewhat silly assumptions that certain people have about those that do not identify with a particular faith. Then again I would appreciate it more if she recognised how diverse the concept of "Christian" really is, but I digress. Generalising is not a good thing. Yeah.
5. I think that the writer of this article mistakes "writing fast" in a minute-to-minute sense with "writing fast" in a day-to-day sense. I take hours to write things sometimes, but if I did that everyday, I would probably be just as productive as the schmuck that spends half an hour banging out quick first drafts each day. That said, his last line is essential here: "All good writing is rewriting." Generally, this is true. Not always, but generally.
6. While I still think that this dude is kind of a self-righteous jerk, his point is actually a really good one. You need to know what you really want out of your story as a whole, even if you go forward with no plot or strict design. Vision has nothing to do with structure and everything to do with philosophy; without an ethos and an intent as a storyteller or an artist, you are going to get lost very quickly.

Yeah, the dramatic irony article was a little on the basic side, but it still cover its points.

Time to Write: Overcoming Procrastination (The Lesser of Two Evils Method):

[Note: I spotted this tip on Lifehacker yesterday. I wonder if both Mr. Brooks and Lifehacker took the tip from the same source or not.]

Creative Writing with the Crimson League: Why I Avoid Writing Fiction in the First Person:

The Sharp Angle: Weekend Movie: OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL:

edited 30th Mar '13 2:09:38 PM by chihuahua0

In all my time writing first person I have never given any thought to the narrator's agenda and I have never heard anyone tell me that a first person narrator needed one. I know they often have one, though.

edited 30th Mar '13 2:34:56 PM by LeungBaiFang

That was my thought too, and I just posted a comment saying that I've never heard that rule.

For my story, Bryan doesn't need a reason for his narration, and I don't think that adding one enhances the story in any way.

First, the April Fools posts...

Teen Writers Blog: Reading Bad for Kids, New Study Shows:

A Newbie's Guide to Publishing: Konrath Flip-Flops:

Ksenia Anske: How Trash Cans Can Help Your Writing:

Collective Inkwell: Announcement: A New Direction for Collective Inkwell:

YAvengers: Loki's April Fools Prank On Captain America:

Now for the real posts...

Time to Write: Are you on track for your writing or other goal? (Reminder 3 of 12):

The Write Practice: What Murakami’s 1Q84 Teaches Us:

The Sharp Angle: Quick Tip: Remember the Quiet Moments:

QueryTracker: Cloud Storage for Writers: Comparison & Caveats:

edited 1st Apr '13 7:13:50 PM by chihuahua0

YAtopia: Mundane: The Cure for Melodrama:

Elana Johnson: Make Your Scenes Work Harder:

Kristen Lamb: WordPress.COM vs. WordPress.ORG — Which Is Better for Writers?:

The amwriting Blog: Crafting your #amwriting by Susan Gottfried:

edited 2nd Apr '13 1:05:44 PM by chihuahua0

Rachelle Gardner: Give Customers What They Want?:

WordServe Water Cooler: The Surprising Thing About Book Influencers:

The Creative Penn: Writing Fiction. What Is Urban Fantasy Anyway?:

Terribleminds: When Self-Publishing Is Just Screaming Into the Void:

Firepole Marketing: The $26,495.00 SEO Sales Letter EXPOSED:

Author Media: How To Use Kickstarter To Fund Your Next Book Project:

The Passive Voice: Heartbreak for Harlequin authors as judge tosses e-book case:

Book Riot: Why YA Lit Matters to Everyone:

I'll be working to provide commentary on just some of these articles.

Have words:

1. I think that they should have taken into account that Ryan North was, in Internet terms, kind of already famous. That said, yeah, there are ways to run a Kickstarter campaign and ways to not run a Kickstrarter campaign. Maybe it's good for them to outline this for some people, and I find the whole self-deprecation-as-self-promotion thing pretty clever, but... eh. Not much to say here about content.
2. Well, what do you expect me to say? Harlequin are terrible cheapskates, this ruling sucks, the authors should have been looking more carefully at their contracts but they still got screwed. That's that... well, until you get into the issue of the court's support of a godawful legal loophole and how this reflects on future cases, but I don't want to lecture anyone and I look kind of silly wearing the Red Flag as a poncho.
3. I think I kind of like this person's attitude, but that's not why people get angry about those books. There is a stark difference between what a person might consider deserved and undeserved popularity, and that is very different from any issue of "literary fiction" or ghettoisation.

On a different note, here's an article that I found interesting and often agreed with but also managed to piss me off for various reasons: "A Reader's Manifesto by B.R. Myers, which is essentially a lengthy dissection of how modern literary criticism lauds books with shaky writing for many of the exact qualities that make that writing shaky.

My issue is not with the point of the article, and I do not intend to take Myers to task for most of his examples in and of themselves, but I do feel that there is a certain degree of intellectual dishonesty in both his tenor and his choices of individual examples. That said, I will leave it up to you to form your own opinions on the matter.

Mad props to All Nines of IJBM for linking me to this article, albeit perhaps not for the reasons that he initially intended.

edited 5th Apr '13 1:11:52 AM by JHM

And now the commentary is up on my blog!

New cycle of links...

Time to Write: Not sure which of your ideas to turn into a book or script? Try 10 - 10 - 10:

Babbles from Scott Eagan: Character Development - Day 4: Be careful of showboating secondary characters:

Kristen Lamb: Les Edgerton Shows How to Write Amazing Dialogue–Part 2 AN EXERCISE:

Copyblogger: How to Create Consistently Great Content for the Long Haul:

Procrastinating Writers: A Clever Way To Give A Story Hidden Depth:

How to Write Shop: 5 Common Problems in Your Young Adult Manuscript:

Writer Unboxed: Five Things I Wish I’d Known Before Publishing a Book:

Booktrust: The Writer and Money:

[Hoo, boy.]

edited 8th Apr '13 12:49:56 PM by chihuahua0