Posts Tagged ‘alfred bester’
Exposition Variations
From my many precious jewels of fiction quotations, I’ve selected a few that showcase different methods of doing exposition. Classic Infodump from omniscient POV Flat statement Ma KongQun suddenly let out a sigh and said, “You still can’t let go of that incident that happened twenty-three years ago at the base of Wudang Mountain?” –Gu […]
Filed under: EXPOSITION | 3 Comments
Tags: alfred bester, Balzac, exposition, Gu Long, lost illusions, philip k dick, pkd, wuxia
The rules of timekeeping are supposed to be simple in fiction. Choose a tense when you start writing, and stick to that tense throughout — whether it’s past, present, or (god help us) future. Sometimes, though, cutting to the present tense in your past tense story can create some unusual & noteworthy effects.Today at SpecTechnique […]
Filed under: MICRO-MANAGEMENT, STRUCTURE, WRITING STYLE | 5 Comments
Tags: alfred bester, john le carre, M John Harrison, Mary Gentle, poul anderson, vampire hunter d
What if every speculative invention & gimmick you wrote, also came packaged with a reasonable explanation as to why it was possible? If you’re a hard science fiction writer, this probably sounds like an immense blessing. Say goodbye to worrying how you can make the physics work out. It’s now easy to think up second-order […]
Filed under: CHARACTERIZATION, EXPOSITION | 8 Comments
Tags: a voyage to arcturus, alfred bester, ann beattie, david lindsay, edmund burke, eric jourdan, gay novels, kafka, moliere, poe
