This episode is a summary of the issues we have covered in the last dozen or so installments of The Creative Writer's Toolbelt, from the critical components of character: developing the character essence, and goal, motivation, and passion - through the secondary components: defining the character arc, defining the interior life of the character, using character interaction to best effect, and defining a complementary set of characteristics and voice. ...
Point of view (PoV) is critical to your story. The authorial decision you make about PoV will set the tone and voice of your work, and influence the reader's perception of your protagonist. It's a decision that you need to make up front, and once you've made it you need to stick to it. It's essential that you know what the options are, what the benefits and disadvantages of each PoV are, and you understand which option is going to work best with your story. ...
For the fiftieth episode I'm delighted to present an interview with Nebula and Hugo award winning author Nancy Kress. Nancy is the author of twenty-seven novels, three books on writing, four short story collections, and over a hundred works of short fiction. Her fiction has won six Nebulas (for “Out of All Them Bright Stars,” “Beggars in Spain,” “The Flowers of Aulit Prison,” “Fountain of Age,” “After the Fall, Before the Fall, and During the Fall,” and “Yesterday’s Kin”), two Hugos (for “Beggars in Spain” and “The Erdmann Nexus”), a Sturgeon (for “The Flowers of Aulit Prison”), and a John W. Campbell Memorial Award (for PROBABILITY SPACE). Her work has been translated into Swedish, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Danish, Polish, Croatian, Korean, Lithuanian, Chinese, Romanian, Japanese, Russian, and Klingon, none of which she can read. In 1998, Nancy married fellow SF writer Charles Sheffield, who died in 2002 of brain cancer. In 2011 she married writer Jack Skillingstead. They live in Seattle with Cosette, the world’s most spoiled toy poodle. ...
