Every time someone becomes spectacularly successful, especially if success bursts upon the public, many people ponder why. Most of us do this idly, out of curiosity. A few do so hoping they can duplicate the blockbuster. Literary agents and publishers may do so hoping to improve their ability to recognize a possible bestseller when it comes their way.
And we writers think wistfully about Jo Rowling’s near billions and Stephanie Meyer’s millions. Why couldn’t it have been us? Can it be us?
Posted in Analysis | Tags: fantasy, fiction, science fiction, scifi, Stephanie Meyer, Twilight, writing
This week the sequel to Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight arrives in the movie theaters to great fanfare. Next week the publicity blitz will continue. So maybe this is a good time to ask: what is the secret of her tremendous success?
Posted in Analysis | Tags: Bella, Edward, fantasy, New Moon, Stephanie Meyers, Twilight, vampire, werewolf, werewolves
A novelette titled “Lady Death” has been added the Shapechanger Tales website. Did you ever read any of James Schmitz’s “Agent of Vega” stories, or H. Beam Piper’s novel “Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen”? If so, imagine a combination of the two.
In this story Heyalna, an uplift agent of the Human Interstellar Confederacy, is angered by atrocities committed against the peaceful villagers she has been helping improve their lives. So enraged is she that she becomes a fighter to protect them. And succeeds so well that she becomes known as Lady Death.
Beginning writers are often told to “show not tell.” This means they should expand summaries of events into fully worked-out scenes with enough sensory detail to give readers the feeling that they are experiencing the events first-hand.
This is may be good advice for beginners, whose stories often are just a long series of summaries. But it leaves the impression that summaries are always bad, scenes are always good. In fact summaries are very useful dramatic tools. Also, every scene contains small summaries. And every summary has scene-like characteristics. A short discussion of how to use scenes and summaries and how the two intertwine has now been added to the Shapechanger Tales web site.
Posted in Announcements | Tags: fiction, scenes, show not tell, summaries, writing
