Tonight the bloodstained curtain falls on Game of Thrones, the epic HBO series based on George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire books. In a fittingly meta twist, the final season’s harshest feud unfolded not between Starks and Lannisters, but viewers and writers. Denouncing television adapters David Benioff and D.B. Weiss as “incompetent”, … More A Game of Tomes: Two Dangerous Dichtotomies of Storytelling
Spoiler alert: this post contains minor spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 7 Episode 6 “Gendry is obviously not Robert Baratheon’s bastard,” I observed to my Laddie during the most recent episode of Game of Thrones. “His father has to be The Flash.” After a few days’ hiking with the wight-hunting party, our warrior-blacksmith seems … More The Air-Speed Velocity of Ravens: “Game of Thrones” and the Importance of Consistency in SFF Writing
So you completed the first draft of your story. Congratulations—it’s a milestone in the novel-writing process. But your work is far from done. If you think revision means typing “The End” and running spellcheck, think again. Drafting just generates raw material. Through revision, we sculpt that narrative clay into a novel. That’s where creativity and … More How to Write a Novel, Part 7: Revision and Editing
Has a book ever consumed you? Hooked you so completely that you smuggle it to work and read surreptitiously under the desk, and stay up all night devouring chapters to find out what happens? I read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in one sitting, curled in my dad’s blue armchair that matched the … More How to Write a Novel, Part 3: Narrative Tension
After a wild winter here in the mid-Atlantic, spring has finally arrived. Daffodils bob on the highway medians, the famous local cherry trees cast pink carpets under my feet when I run, and my Laddie gulps allergy pills with his morning coffee. I can’t wait to get my hands in the soil, but for the … More Cultivating Plots: How to Grow your Series
“Did you see the new Star Wars movie?” I texted my friend last weekend. He’s one of the few people in my circle who shares my lifelong affection for the franchise, so I was eager to discuss it with him. “No,” he replied. “I don’t want to see what they did to it.” For him, a … More Schrödinger’s Star Wars: Multiverses in Popular Fiction
Wild Type 