Archive for March, 2012
When Empty Things Aren’t Empty
The opposite of existence is not nonexistence, but insistence: that which does not exist, continues to insist, striving toward existence… When I miss a crucial ethical opportunity, and fail to make a move that could ‘change everything’, the very nonexistence of what I should have done will haunt me for ever: although what I did […]
Filed under: ANALYSIS | 1 Comment
The “Time Ratio” of an Action Scene or, J.G. Ballard vs Gu Long: FIGHT! On Friday at SpecTechnique we looked at Gu Long’s action writing and saw how he brought us into the POV of the spectators, forcing the reader to reconstruct Li Xun Huan’s impossibly fast dagger throw from the clues on the page. […]
Filed under: ACTION, STRUCTURE | Closed
Tags: action sequences, action writing, Gu Long, j g ballard, new wave, wuxia
Everybody already knows what Hemingway said: all writers need a good bullshit detector. But what if I told you that all your characters needed good bullshit detectors too? Okay, maybe that’s overstating things. Some characters need to be dense, always catching on last. Terry Bisson even wrote that it may help to make your POV […]
Filed under: CHARACTERIZATION, VIEWPOINT, WORLDBUILDING | 1 Comment
Tags: bullshit, bullshit detection, Clarion West, Dan Simmons, Roberto Bolano, Stendhal, Terry Bisson
SpecTechnique 