I’m struggling with flash fiction.
Well, ok, it’s not a titanic struggle, but still it’s giving me problems.
Now, there is not a proper definition of flash-fiction in terms of word-count: you’ll find a wild range of figures, from below 300 to up to 1000, and beyond.
But let’s say, for the sake of discussion, that I’m working on a 1000 words story.
It’s hard.
And what makes it hard is genre. Continue reading
The drill is simple – you have to put in words what this lady is thinking.
(this picture is here considering my new 18th-century themed story in-the-works)
My first novel, The Ministry of Thunder, is six months old this week, and I thought it was high time I did some new post to bore you to death about it.
This will be a week of celebrations.
In case you missed it, The Ministry of Thunder is a pulp/fantasy novel set in 1936 China, in which a stranded Italian mechanic tries to recycle himself as an Indiana Jones-style adventurer.
Cue to mysterious artifacts, beautiful women, evil masterminds, Taoist magic, Chinese ghosts, lost cities, and the Ministry of Thunder and Storms.
And ninja.
So, I normally say that everything is part of the learning process – what did I learn (if I did), writing The Ministry of Thunder? Continue reading
Something funny happened the other day – funny up to a point, as I will try and explain later.
One of the usual debates started, about reading and writing and what else, and the discussion turned to strong female characters, and we were given a brief lecture about how
a woman will never be stronger than a man – it’s a matter of muscular mass: the strongest woman warrior will always be at the same level of a mid-range male warrior, and she could never beat a stronger opponent
Now, this statement is – of course – mindboggingly asinine on two counts1 …
Continue reading
Let’s go on with our character studies: faces, expressions, stances, attitudes.
Clothes and accessories.
Can we build a story out of these details?
Here’s a photo of Lillian Russell, taken in 1904 (probably).
I find her expression intriguing.
Is there a story, in that face?
But also in the way she’s standing, in the hand that holds the fan.
What’s going on?
What character is this?
You tell me your interpretation, maybe I’ll tell you mine.
Ah, this is a fun topic – one of the five generated last week, as I was telling you.
Now “about adventure stories” is a bit vague – about reading or writing them?
And then, Adventure stories is a pretty wide field.
And who am I, anyway, to give anybody suggestions?
But ok, it’s part of the game, so here’s my ten point list of tips for adventure writers.
For what they are worth.
1 . Don’t be afraid
They will put you down, talk about escapism, implausibility, silliness, and generally try to put you in your place. Don’t be afraid to tell your story. Continue reading
Three of the posts you have been reading on Karavansara this week were written based on titles generated by HubSpot‘s Blog Topic Generator.
The topic generator is a tool that… well, generates topics for blog posts.
Basically, you provide three keywords (nouns are better than phrases, or so does the documentation say) and at the push of a button the machine dreams up five topics for as many posts.
And you’re set for a full week.
And I thought, why not give it a try?
Might be fun, right?
So, here’s what I did. Continue reading
Karavansara 