Blog
Writing Close – Accidental Nudity
If character awareness is the lock pick in the romance toolbox, then accidental nudity is the sledgehammer. There is zero subtlety when it comes to one character seeing another in a state of undress, but sometimes it’s exactly the right tool for the job.
Reylo
I cannot condemn the relationship arc between Ren/Solo and Rey at any point in the three-movie series. Even without knowing that Kylo Ren would redeem himself and return to the light as Ben Solo, I still could not say that it was wrong for the screenwriters to portray their relationship as they did.
Why? One reason, and one reason only: Rey’s response to Ben’s abuse.
The Possibility of Paul
A deleted scene from The Little Owl, in which Gwen imagines what her life might be like with her best friend, Paul.
That idea got scrapped in the latest draft. But I found this scene lovely, so at least I can share it here. Enjoy!
Just Write – I Found Another Book Like Mine
This is one of those frustrating things that happens to every author at some point or another. You’re typing along on your entirely original story, until one day you stumble across a new book that seems eerily similar to yours. What are you supposed to do now? You guessed it: Just write anyway.
The Influence of the Romance Author
Producers of romantic media hold a heavy influence over something fluid, ambiguous, subject to opinion, and a basic tenant of our social biology.
In some form or another, romance is something everyone has to deal with on a regular basis. We are all affected by it at some point in our lives.
Writing Close – Character Awareness
This awareness gig is one of the more subtle tools in the romance toolkit. It requires context. If Rick had used the phrase “You’re in her seat” in order to clear a space next to her brother (and not next to Rick himself), it would have communicated vastly less about their relationship.
Character Description Notes
Some authors spend a lot of time on character description. There are all kinds of questionnaires and forms floating around out there on the internet, and they were even given to me as assignments in college. The author details favorite colors, food, music, and...
Writing Close – Secrets
It divides your characters into distinct categories: Those who know, and those who don’t. And that is a huge deal. When you have two characters sharing a secret, it creates a bond of trust between them. It separates them intellectually from everyone else.
Review – The Only Alien on the Planet
Rating: Five Stars – Ginny is a great main character. She is refreshingly average without being obnoxiously so. She’s no beauty queen if only she’d take off her glasses. She’s no clumsy-but-hot female protagonist. She’s good at school, makes friends easily, is a bit of a coward, occasionally makes rash decisions, and mostly just wants to mind her own business.
On the City of Valheid.
Taken from the notes document for The Little Owl. This is some world building for Valheid, the seat of government for Derehan, where the bulk of the story is set. In the northern country and at higher altitudes, so the buildings will have extremely steep roofs with...
Character Flaw vs. Character Arc
One of the most dangerous misconceptions (relatively speaking, of course) in the academia of creative writing concerns the character flaw. I blame the internet. In a day and age where everyone gets a platform, and where a huge percentage of writers are self taught...
Writing Close – Touching
One of the most obvious tools in the romance toolbox for showing close relationships between characters is simply to have them touch each other.
Don’t worry, I don’t mean explicit touching. This isn’t a how-to for writing naughty love scenes.
When I say “touching,” I mean casual touches. People who are close simply touch each other more.
Gardening is Not Bullshit
Have you ever been writing a scene, and one of your characters does something you didn’t plan on? Did they say something you didn’t intend? Did they see a clue you hadn’t come up with before? Did you paint yourself into a corner or notice a plot hole?
Just Write – What If I’m Not Good Enough
So for right now, don’t think about what might go wrong years from now. In this moment, if you enjoy writing, you should be writing. You should be taking classes and writing drafts. You should be reading your preferred genre, and you should be writing drafts.
An Entirely Unnecessary Response to a Bad Feminist Review of WW84
The last time I checked, the struggle with weak female characters was never about romance. Never. It was about the fact that the female character was consistently shallow and only existed as a reward for the male MC. She was there to provide a romance subplot for another character. That was NOT the case in WW84. If anything, Chris Pine’s character fails that particular test.