Category: scifi

Hemingway Editor + Ginger = Paradise (almost)

Hemingway Editor, Ginger Grammary checker, Grammarly, Chrome Extension, Spell checker, Style CheckerA few months ago, I published a blog about how to use the free Hemingway Editor and Grammarly’s free grammar checker together. Both are powerful tools for writers – the Hemingway app focuses on readability by highlighting unnecessary words and complex, overly long sentences even if they are grammatically correct. In contrast, Grammarly will identify many of the grammatical errors in your work.

Great news! There is another grammar checker you can now use with the Hemingway Editor if you are not fond of Grammarly. You can now use the free Ginger grammar checker with the Hemingway app. It is super easy.

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Star War’s Rogue One and Lonely Hunter: Strange Coincidences

Rogue One, Star Wars, Science Fiction Movies, Sci Fi Movies, Best Sellers, Bestsellers, Science Fiction Bestsellers, Lonely Hunter novel, End War

Star War’s Rogue One: A short Review

I took my four teenage daughters to see the sci fi movie “Rogue One” a few days ago. There were some really strange coincidences between the movie and my forthcoming novel, Lonely Hunter. But first, some thoughts on Rogue One.

None of my kids are particularly dialed into Star Wars, but a few have seen a prior movie or two. I’ve seen four of them (swore I’d never go to another one after Clone Wars). Three of my kids enjoy various Sci-Fi-ish flicks from time to time such as Hunger Games, Inception, the Marvel franchise, Transformers, etc. We all thought the trailer looked interesting, so we gave it a shot.

The consensus coming out was that it was underwhelming at best. But what was really weird were the number of coincidences with my own novel.

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Descriptive Writing, Agency, Telling Details, and Adjectives

Writing, Grammar, Grammarly, Ginger, telling detail, writing tips, writing craft, agency, descriptions in fiction, descriptions, how to write descriptions, good descriptions, powerful descriptions, compelling descriptions, memorable descriptions, description words, description synonym, agency in writing, descriptive writing, agency in fiction, creative writing workshop, critique group, Emma Darwin, adjectives, adverbs

Descriptive Writing

As I continue to edit my work in progress and think about meeting readers’ expectations, especially when it comes to descriptive writing, I recently came across and interesting review of Peter Mendelsund’s What We See When We Read, “a book that explores how people imagine and remember the things they read.”

I’ve always been loath to write (and dislike reading) detailed descriptions of characters and settings. I’m OK with details that surface as the story progresses when they are relevant, but one of the fastest ways for me to lose interest in a book or story is a front-loaded block of description sentences which have no other purpose, and an abundance of adjectives and adverbs. She was tall and had green eyes. She stepped over the puddles with her long legs while smiling at Bob, showing off her perfect, white teeth… Ugh.

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An update on publishing End War: Lonely Hunter

Archers, Lonely Hunter, Crossbow

I don’t normally post about WIP (Works In Progress). However, I thought I’d provide an update on how End War: Lonely Hunter is progressing. It is my first full length Science Fiction novel. To be honest, I’m a bit burnt out at the moment. Between a demanding full-time job (that has nothing to do with writing), blogging, relentlessly growing my understanding about how self-publishing works, continuing to promote my first novel (to include finishing up the audio book), and working on Lonely Hunter and its four sequels…I’m smoked.

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When to “show” and when to “tell” in your fiction

Showing and telling in your fiction writing
Showing vs. Telling in fiction. It is an age-old debate and an easy thing for people new to critiquing to throw out. The trick is not one or the other, but rather both in proper proportion.

Don’t you love it when you get feedback on your fiction that you are doing too much “telling” and not enough “showing”?

When we think about how to write a novel and to be a successful writer of fiction, we must understand the balance of showing versus telling in our work. This is one of the critical skills and one that we can learn. There is no formula, and we need to do both. The trick is to keep them in proper proportion.

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