On Writing

Wherein I ramble about technique, process, etc.

Your groundbreaking is not my groundbreaking

/ 18 Comments / On Writing, Review / By

Note: I will be mentioning a few spoilers in this post. Look away now if you’re not ready for that yet! So, a few nights ago I started Dragon Age: Inquisition, the third game in a franchise I’ve liked a lot over the years. Just for shits and giggles I livetweeted my game for a few hours. Most of the feed is pretty dull — like, me eating dinner while waiting half an hour for the game to finish installing on my XBox’s hard drive. But once I finally got the game going and dug into the character creator, I […]

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You can tell a lot about a fantasy novel by its glossary

/ 28 Comments / On Writing, Snippets / By

Was just working on the glossary for The Fifth Season. Glossaries are both fun and frustrating for me — fun because a glossary is worldbuilding at its most stark, and frustrating because it’s part of the story, and can enhance or detract from the reading experience if it’s mishandled. The tension between TELL THEM EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING, HA HA HA and tell them nothing, nothing, they don’t need to know gets kind of uncomfortable after awhile. That’s why I’ve asked that all of my glossaries be located at the backs of my books, rather than the fronts — because, like maps,

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Why I Talk So Damn Much About Non-Writing Stuff

/ 8 Comments / On Writing / By

A reader at NYCC asked me — not in an accusatory way if you’re wondering — why I spend so much time on social media talking about world events, social justice issues, health care, etc. I’m an SFF writer, after all; why don’t I just spend all of my time talking about writing? What I told her, basically, was this: when I talk about those things, I am talking about writing. How can I manage good characterization if I don’t understand the complexities of human behavior, and their motivations? How plausible will my fantasy worlds be, if they don’t demonstrate

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Author strength training: Reading reviews

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So, I saw Kameron Hurley (who’s got a new book out that I really need to get to ASAP) lamenting this morning on Twitter about something familiar: It's funny how I spent 15 years just trying to get a novel published, w/o considering how much more work would need to be done after that. — Kameron Hurley (@KameronHurley) October 1, 2014 It’s the thing they don’t really tell you in Pro-Author-Wannabe school: getting published is just the beginning. Or maybe they said it and I just didn’t want to hear it — because after all the effort most of us

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What I’ve been up to lately

/ 9 Comments / Conventions and Workshops, Natter, On Writing / By

So, it’s been awhile, blogosphere; my apologies. I would’ve updated sooner, but I had some technical difficulties (now fixed thanks to a move to a new web host) and a series of cascading deadlines that was… well, not fun. But for the first time in awhile, I’ve got room to breathe! So here’s what you missed, if you don’t follow me on Twitter or FB. “The Awakened Kingdom” and Inheritance Trilogy omnibus are on the way! You can preorder the ebook version now. Just sent off the page proofs today! And here’s the cover, if you missed it: Clarion! I

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Confirmation bias, epic fantasy, and you

/ 45 Comments / Controversies, On Writing / By

Ya’ll, MedievalPoC is (hopefully) going to be at WisCon. By a funny chance, I will be, too! (Imagine that.) I am totes going to fangirl all over them. Posts like this are why: Seeing this post reminds me that someone I’ve known for years, and who has a rather expensive college degree, said these exact words to me in regard to ASOIAF/Game of Thrones this past Tuesday at a gaming tournament: “Things were just like that back then.” There were not enough faces for me to palm. I just ended up yelling, “When was that again?? In the good old

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You CAN win the Kobayashi Maru.

/ 27 Comments / On Writing, SFF on Screen, Thinkythoughts / By

Gonna keep this brief, ’cause it’s 1:30 am as I’m writing this, and ’cause tomorrow I’m taking a 6-hour flight to Cali to attend the Nebulas and hopefully either win, or cheer while someone I really like wins. It’s a win-win, so no need to wish me luck; if anything, wish me safe and stress-free travels. Anyway. Just saw Star Trek: Into Darkness, and I have some thoughts. Those thoughts will require spoilers, so beware, anyone reading past this point. Also, spoilers for a brief mention of Iron Man 3.

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From the Mailbag: The Unbearable Baggage of Orcing

/ 54 Comments / From the Mailbag, On Writing, Thinkythoughts / By

Awhile back I got an email from a reader which asked, “When are you going to write some real fantasy, y’know, with orcs?” This is a paraphrase, because I didn’t get the reader’s permission to quote (I asked, no reply). But I’d say it’s pretty accurate as to its tone and implications, since the email went on to explain that the reader really really liked me and thought I was a good writer, but hated the fact that the stuff I write is labeled “epic fantasy” when it doesn’t resemble Tolkien much. In fact, the reader felt that this was

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Fantastic Profanity

/ 33 Comments / On Writing / By

So today I’d like to talk about fantastic profanity — by which I mean not “really good” profanity, but “made up for fantasy and science fiction” profanity. Therefore this post will contain quite a bit of cussin’. FOR ART AND SCIENCE. You are warned. There are some words that are universally vulgar, in my opinion. I only speak 1.25 languages — English and just enough of a few other languages to mangle them all magnificently — but in my vast experience I haven’t yet found a language that doesn’t treat either the act or the product of defecation as something

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Flipping the scrip: Can we? Should we?

/ 34 Comments / Controversies, On Writing / By

So since last week’s debacle, a lot of people have asked me whether it’s even possible to write a discrimination reversal that isn’t chock full o’ bigotry. Not really sure why they’re asking me; it’s not like I’m some kind of expert on the matter. But they are, so what the hell, I’ll share what I think. I think a workable discrimiflip is possible. Hell, I may have done one, depending on how you look at it — in the Dreamblood books, Gujaareh and Kisua are societies whose darkest-skinned denizens hold the greatest power and prestige, while people who are

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