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Do You Strive for Mastery, or Simply to Write?
What is one piece of advice that just doesn’t work for me? That it’s okay not to write every day. I experienced unfinished work, plummeted productivity and even quality. Robert A. Heinlein wrote constantly. Robert Heinlein was arguably one of the biggest names in science fiction of the 20th century. Heinlein published 32 novels, 59 […]
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What do I do about Editing and Revision regarding Creative Writing?
I have been consistently writing creatively since 2017, so as of writing this it’s been 6 years. The helpful answer is that I find that once I’m already editing I actually enjoy it, even if I resist starting. So the answer is to just start, and worry about liking it after. The more difficult answer […]
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Review of Lifelong Writing Habit (Book on Writing)
Welcome to the new year! Hopefully this review is in time for anyone whose resolution involves writing. I will keep this review short, just like the book itself. It didn’t take me long to realize that in Chris Fox’s Lifelong Writing Habit I had found something that I could grab a hold of and use. […]
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How to Write From the Middle
Of all the books on writing I’ve encountered, Write Your Novel from the Middle, by James Scott Bell is one of the best. Let’s discuss it, and check out some of the writing ideas it gave me. There are some books that should be short but are stretched out to fill some sort of page […]
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Seeding in Storytelling
The concept of “seeding” is fairly universal in narratives. Seeding is when an author inserts clear hints of something that will be coming. I’m not sure if this exact term is used outside of video games, but the relationship to foreshadowing is clear. In the game Arknights, for example, five portraits were given for upcoming […]
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How to Manage a Mass of Ideas and Goals
What if you have a lot of ideas? Too many ideas? Oh, but some of them are so good! Ah…well, here is some of the ideas I’ve personally used to wade through and manage ideas and projects. I am no expert, and perhaps one of the many productivity-focussed blogs could cover this better, but at […]
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Should We Really “Keep Dialogue Short” ?
(Republish, Second Edition) Across blog posts, forums, and subreddits, there seems to be an almost universal rule in the online writing community. That notion that dialogue should be kept short, or even avoided. It isn’t as common as advice like “show don’t tell” or “don’t use the passive voice.” All three rules of thumb are […]
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Musings on “Character vs Plot” and Mark Hamill vs New Storylines
In any narrative be it movies, video games, or writing, there is often this question of, “is it plot driven, or character driven?” You can ask this regarding any story and find that the narrative tilts one way or the other. In this blog, I’m going to explore some of the tensions that can arise, […]
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Musings on Gender and Characters
This is adapted from a reply to a reddit thread: “Male writers, what annoys you the most about women making male characters?” I think most people agree that there isn’t really a problem with how women and men are written either way. Psychologically, the statistics show that the average man and the average woman are […]
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Alice and Finch: The Archetypal Recapitulation
In this article, I write about Northrop Frye’s theory of myths and archetypes, specifically comedy, using my manuscript of Alice and Finch as a comparison and example. It may contain spoilers, but nothing I thing would ruin the experience of reading the novel. Nine months ago, I powered through the first chapter of a three-part […]
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Can You make a Living as a Writer?
In a long continuance of poverty, and long habits of dissipation, it cannot be expected that any character should be exactly uniform. There is a degree of want by which the freedom of agency is almost destroyed; and long association with fortuitous companions will at last relax the strictness of truth, and abate the fervour […]
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My Favourite YouTubers for Writing
Finding a YouTuber that will help you become a writer is very difficult. It took me two years, actually, but I finally found someone who gives real, specific advice, and who has decades of experience. 1. Michael Levin His name is Michael Levin and books are his babies! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmp_gKFZbs4 When I’m […]
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On Music: Should you Rock and Write?
No. Thanks for reading, Daniel Triumph. Facebook, Twitter, DeviantArt, Instagram. Okay, but why not? Alright, it’s a fact that music is a distraction. Especially anything with vocals, or things that sound like voices such as guitars. The truth is that our brains will passively focus on the music and some of our cognitive abilities will be […]
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On Theme: When Should you Have One?
The theme of a story is what the whole thing is about. And I don’t mean the events that happen, that’s the plot. So, what is theme more specifically? It’s the message that the writer is trying to convey to the reader through their story. All good narratives, regardless of medium, have a strong theme. […]