Words can be dangerous. Though we tend to think of censorship and book banning as modern phenomena, the prohibition of books has existed since the creation of the written word. In honor of Banned Book Week, I want to take a quick look back at censored books in history. Traditionally the people who banned books considered… Continue reading From the Qin Dynasty to Concord, MA: A History of Book Banning
When it comes to choosing character names, I have a terrible habit. It stems from the fact that I love names and spend far too much time thinking about them. Settling on only one causes me physical pain. To avoid the terror of choosing a name, I often use a placeholder when writing drafts. That… Continue reading Falling into a Character Name Rut
A year ago today I published my first post on this little blog – it is about as terrible as you might expect a first post to be – and I can hardly believe that I’ve been blogging for 365 days. Since that initial post, I’ve published 328 other articles here, including an interview with… Continue reading Forever and Not Long at All: 365 Days in Book Blogging
It seems like all I’ve been able to write lately are titles. Strictly speaking, that isn’t true – I’ve written other things – but titles are the only pieces of writing that have come easily these last few days. I never thought that I would have this particular problem. I’ve certainly struggled with choosing titles… Continue reading The Trouble with Too Many Titles
I occasionally joke that if a person reads enough, she will discover that all stories are the same story. She will be able to predict narrative beats, the presence of particular characters, and how the story will end. Of course all stories aren’t really the same. Human beings may repeatedly explore certain themes, but prose,… Continue reading Every Story Is The Same Story (Or At Least Is On This List)
The trouble with writing endings is that endings don’t actually exist. Not really. Instead there simply comes a moment when we stop telling the story. Knowing when to stop has always been hard for me. In my head, I can’t help but carry the narrative on. What happens to the hero after she defeats the… Continue reading The Trouble with Writing Endings
The women in my family always wrote. Journals, mostly. Many women fill their hope chests with clothing, linens, dishware. My mother filled hers with journals. They came in all sizes and types. Some were small enough that I could curl my palm around them. Others were large enough that they had to be held in… Continue reading The Women Always Wrote
I’ve talked about my fascination with language before, but sometimes writers need a little help creating words that make sense in their nascent worlds. I recently found something that streamlines that process. Vulgar (pardon the terrible name) is a constructed language generator. The generator creates fully realized languages; if you were truly ambitious you could… Continue reading Language Generator for Fantasy and Sci-Fi
People say that old maxim ‘never judge a book by its cover’ frequently, but of course everyone does judge book covers. Both in ebooks and in physical copies, the cover is one of the first things a reader sees. Readers use the cover to make instant assessments about a book: is this a genre I… Continue reading The Audacity of Judging a Book by Its Cover: 4 Highlights from Recent Publications
As much as I adore the process of writing and editing, there are other ways to improve my writing skills. When writing, it becomes very easy to be trapped within myself and forget about the outside world. This inevitably causes my plots and my characters to lose some of their sparkle, their life. The inside… Continue reading Becoming a Better Writer without Writing
