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Tag Archives: literary techniques
Several New Classes, Plus On-Demand Content
I’ve just posted the latest round of classes, October through December, and wanted to call out a couple of highlights.
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The Writer’s Toolbox: What Goes In It?
A metaphor that I was exposed to at Clarion West (now nearly a decade ago) still works beautifully for me, and it’s one I use when teaching: the idea of the writer’s toolbox.
In my mind’s eye, it’s a big red metal tool chest, small enough to be carried around, large enough that you wouldn’t want to HAVE to carry it around all the time. Inside, drawers lift out to reveal neatly packed devices and tools, each in their own padded slot.
There’s a blade capable of lopping off awkward paragraphs, and sharper, tinier words designed for work at the sentence level, trimming beginnings till they catch a reader like a fish hook and pull them into the story. There’s a box of punctuation marks, with a special slot for the semicolons. There’s the intricate device of an unreliable narrator, calculated to wobble like a gyroscope yet still remain true to the story’s course. There’s a set of filters, each one a specific point of view, each letting you cast a section in a different light. And a layer of ornamental gadgetry: epigraphs and scraps of poetry. And a valuable gimlet, capable of drilling down to a character’s motivation: the question, “What does s/he WANT?”
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Posted in Writing
Tagged genre fiction, literary techniques, online workshops, writer's toolbox, writing F&SF
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Online Classes for Summer, 2012
It’s a busy summer – highlights include working with Clarion West this summer as well as ArmadilloCon in July, GearCon in August, and WorldCon (along with the release of Near+Far at WorldCon). I’m not scheduling any classes for August in order to be able to focus on the release. Upcoming classes include: a Saturday session of writing F&SF (only a few slots left open there), Editing Basics (about half full at the moment), a Flash workshop (brand new, so it’s wide open for registration) and an online version of the literary techniques in speculative fiction class.
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