http://www.infinitediversity.com.au/anovelidea Writing a fantasy novel on-line, from first draft to final version Thu, 04 Mar 2010 07:49:01 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Over on Nathan Bransford's blog he posed the question do you own your characters or do your characters own you? He says: I ... find it curious to hear authors so completely in thrall to their worlds and characters, and I start wondering, "Wait a second, who's in charge here?" Nathan Bransford ... http://www.infinitediversity.com.au/anovelidea/archives/185 Earlier this month one of the agents at the Wylie-Merrick Literary Agency posted a thoughtful insight into the future of young adult novels. Have you noticed ... that the books propping up the industry (Twilight, Harry Potter, etc.) are YA crossovers? Not only do young readers read them, but adults do ... http://www.infinitediversity.com.au/anovelidea/archives/184 In a previous article, Developing the science fiction reading skillset, I talked about an article written by Jo Walton over at Tor.com. The article was on SF reading protocols and how science fiction readers develop a skillset to read science fiction. In the same article Jo also covered the opposite of ... http://www.infinitediversity.com.au/anovelidea/archives/182 Over at Tor.com Jo Walton has an interesting article on SF reading protocols and how regular readers of science fiction know how to read without getting hung up on the detail that's not important. She uses the example of Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, and how you don't need to ... http://www.infinitediversity.com.au/anovelidea/archives/181 This is the second in a (very) occasional series of common writing mistakes made by unpublished writers. (Note, I am not a published writer, but I do write, and I do read.) This is one I know I am guilty of myself and I've read quite a few published novels that ... http://www.infinitediversity.com.au/anovelidea/archives/180 I'm juggling so many unfinished manuscripts at the moment I'm starting to wonder how I going to do it. Guess which one suffers. Barrain of course, because it's more in the line of a blogging hobby than serious writing. I have: Shared Memories—science fiction, 120,000 words, now into it's third draft. There's ... http://www.infinitediversity.com.au/anovelidea/archives/179 Fight scenes are not my thing. I'm a conversation writer. I can do repartee with the best of them, and Calder puts emotion and actions around it. So when our characters talk it's a reasonable mix of talking versus description (we think anyway). Get them into a fight, however, and it's ... http://www.infinitediversity.com.au/anovelidea/archives/177 Well, we did it. NaNoWriMo. 50,000 words (in Calder's case, 60,000) of two novels that have some promise. Both of us did it easier than we expected.  It was mostly a case of bums-on-seats and don't talk to anyone until we had finished our allocated words. Due to other commitments on the ... http://www.infinitediversity.com.au/anovelidea/archives/176 It's a long-standing joke that Fantasy writers make up names for characters. If you look on the internet you can find a dozen fantasy name generators. Nowadays almost every how-to on writing fantasy nowadays warns you not to do this, and books like Diana Wynne Jones' Tough Guide To Fantasyland ... http://www.infinitediversity.com.au/anovelidea/archives/175 November is nearly here and that means NaNoWriMo. Write a novel in a month. 50,000 words. It's a big job. For the last few years work deadlines have stopped me entering NaNoWriMo. November for my company is always a busy month as major projects go live then, trying to get them out ... http://www.infinitediversity.com.au/anovelidea/archives/174