The next item on the Elements of Fiction Editing Checklist may seem a little odd: ☐ The chosen grammatical person is suitable to the story and the POV characters. What does that even mean?
Awards for Christian Speculative Fiction
In the run-up to the Realm Makers conference, the Christian SpecFic community has two awards programs going to celebrate our genre. Both awards will be presented at the conference. The Clive Staples Award is presented by a group of fans led by writer and editor Rebecca LuElla Miller. It is …
Psychic distance isn’t about mind-reading
I got a little distracted last week, but let’s return to the Elements of Fiction Editing Checklist. We were talking about point of view, or viewpoint. One aspect of viewpoint is psychic distance.
What is Speculative Fiction, anyway?
One of the great things about attending the Realm Makers conference is that when you say you write fantasy, people grin and say “cool, what kind of fantasy?” and then let you go on about whether you have dragons and magic or not. Because unlike other Christian writers conferences, this …
Inspirational must-read book for new writers
Writing in Obedience: A Primer for Christian Fiction Writers by Terry Burns and Linda Yezak My Rating: ★★★★★ This is a truly wonderful book that will help Christian writers, especially novelists, clarify their place in the market. It helps us sort out whether our writing is a calling or an …
Determine your most appropriate POV character
I’ve said that character is the most important element of fiction. Some editors disagree, and will say plot or point of view is more important. I’ve given my reasons for why I feel as I do about character. Here’s why I put viewpoint before plot on my list. Viewpoint, or …
Fiction Q&A: Concealing a character’s identity
Q: I saw what you wrote about not hiding the POV character’s identity. Isn’t there some way I can hide the villain’s identity, so the reader won’t figure out who it is until late in the story, when the hero does? Like, if he’s an evil mastermind, can I just …
Beware analysis paralysis when editing
When you look at it all at once, the Elements of Fiction Editing Checklist can be daunting. And as writers, we tend to waver between thinking we’re literary geniuses and thinking we’re hack poseurs no one will ever take seriously. The danger in self-editing is that you fall too severely on …
Is your infodump backstory, or is it research?
Last week we talked about the kind of infodump in which the character’s full history is dropped in one big block. Often this information—or pieces of it, anyway—does belong in the story. It just needs to be winnowed down to the minimum, and it needs to be woven organically into …
Your character needs backstory, but don’t dump it
I want to take some extra time to go into one point on the Elements of Fiction Editing Checklist in detail: ☐ Personal histories are brought into the story organically Backstory is usually a bad word among writers. But the truth is, it’s necessary—to you. Knowing your character’s history is good. …