Little by little, I am teaching myself how to outline. By nature, I’m an “inchwormer” when I write (thanks to John Klima and Bradley Beaulieu for that great term!), writing a bit at a time, thinking about the developments implied by what I’ve just written and then forging ahead, clinging only to a loose scaffolding [...]
Category > Outlining
Storytelling with Ian McCaig: wants, needs, and burning bridges
About 8 years ago I started writing my epic fantasy novel. (As one does.) I loved writing character sketches, scene ideas, doing research. But when it came to stringing it all together into, you know, an actual STORY, well that proved to be a bit tricky. So I just kept creating character sketches, scene ideas, [...]
A Willingness to Learn
I was a really lousy student, from grade school through my first attempt at college. Teachers thought I might be slow and made me suffer through batteries of tests and classes on preparation in an effort to get me to do my homework. It didn’t work. I barely made it through grade 12 and I [...]
Guest Post by Jack Graham: A novel is an engineering project
Back in March, my colleague John Remy posted here about using kanban, a project management technique originally invented by Toyota engineers, to keep track of multiple short fiction projects. John and I have both worked in the Information Technology field – I as a software analyst. His post got me thinking about how I’ve re-purposed [...]
YES, BUT– NO, AND
[6/15, 11:15 am: This post has been edited--when I originally posted, late last night, I had accidentally switched ALL THE PREPOSITIONS, giving "Yes, and," and "No, but." Which can still generate some good ideas, but I think you'll find these slightly more useful. Thanks again to Mary Kowal for catching my blunder!] This spring I [...]