Posts Tagged ‘Gu Long’
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
Parallel Structures
Today I’m just going to present 4 quick examples of a device you can use to delight your reader. I’m sure there’s some kind of classical rhetorical term for this, but I don’t know it. I just call it a sentence with parallel structures: a sentence where a statement is made, then repeated with the […]
Filed under: DIALOG, WRITING STYLE | 2 Comments
Tags: akutagawa ryunosuke, borges, Gu Long, wuxia
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
Unexpected Explanations
One of the most powerful ways to generate delight for your reader while writing SF/F, or maybe just writing period, is the device of the unexpected explanation. To do this, begin with an expected, ordinary line, followed by an explanation rooted in your SFnal milieu. In M. John Harrison’s brilliant Nova Swing, a character enters […]
Filed under: Uncategorized, WRITING STYLE | Closed
Tags: cyril m kornbluth, dostoevsky, frederik pohl, Gu Long, H.G. Wells, K J Bishop, M John Harrison, space merchants, Tolstoy
SpecTechnique 