Indiana Jones and the Art of Foreshadowing
Indiana: THERE’S A BIG SNAKE IN THE PLANE, JOCK! Jock: Oh, that’s just my pet snake Reggie! Indiana: I HATE SNAKES, JOCK! I HATE ‘EM! Jock: Come on! Show a little backbone, will ya! In the classic movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, after Indiana Jones’s death-defying encounters after...
How to be Convincing
When you think about it, we writers spend an awful lot of time trying to make our stories convincing. On one level we want to convince you that our stories are worth reading and, even better, worth spending good money on or worth borrowing from a library. But it’s...
Foibles, Quirks and Mannerisms
One crafty technique that should be part of every writer’s toolbox is using foibles, quirks and mannerisms in your characterisation. You should do this for two very good reasons: They individualise your characters. All humans have foibles, quirks and mannerisms. They’re the minor and unconscious ways we do things,...
Fantasy and SF Sentences to Savour
I keep a compendium of sentences that I like both for inspiration and for the sheer pleasure of reading them again and again. What gets a sentence onto my list? A number of reasons. A neat turn of phrase. An unusual construction. An arresting use of punctuation. A thousand...
Why Do We Value Books That Make Us Cry More Than Books That Make Us Laugh?
Some time ago, I was in a room of thirty or so YA writers, editors and other industry people when one writer declared, ‘I know you’ll all agree with me that what makes a good book is a chance for us all to have a massive cry.’ She was...
Advice for Novice World Builders
Don’t place your Forest of Terror right next door to your Mountains of Doom alongside your Chasm of Eternal Fear. You can have too much of a good thing. Remember: rivers flow from the mountains to the sea, not the other way around. Tempting though it may be to...
Music to Write By
I like listening to and reading about other writers. I find the process of writing fascinating, and I find the multitude of different approaches empowering. There is no single magical formula for writing. There are a million ways to do it and to do it well. Take the business...
World-building 101
If you’ve ever looked at our world with discontent, unhappiness or a feeling of ‘I could do better than that!’ then fantasy writing is for you. In a lifetime of reading Fantasy and half a lifetime writing it, I’ve compiled a number of hints, tips and techniques for novice...
What publishers are looking for. Some of them, anyway.
One of the other hats I wear is as co-publisher of Aurealis, Australia’s longest-running magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. In a recent editorial, I wanted to let the writers out there know what we’re looking for. It turned into a statement of principles, the criteria by which we...
Alternative History
I’ve nominated a bunch of top Alternative History books here. But how does one go about writing in this challenging, but alluring, sub-genre? Alternative Histories are where the writer changes something in our past and imagines what difference it would make t0 the now divergent timeline. For example, because of...