What is psychic distance and filtering? How can we use our writers gaze properly? How do you get rid of your frame and allow the reader to fill in the gaps? Don’t forget to use all your senses and put your characters in action in your space in order to show effectively.
What does “show, don’t tell” actually mean? And how is it misleading? How should you use narrative summary to your benefit as a writer? Do you need scene breaks? And how do you make your telling showy? How present is your narrator? And what are the dangers of losing your narrator in a first-person point of view?
What is narrative drive? And why is it so important to your story? How can you craft drive with characters choices, cause, and effect? What happens when your character comes alive? How does it affect your plot, their agency, and the surprising inevitability of your story? And finally what are some ways you can develop these narrative drive skills?
What drew Emma to historical fiction, and what is it’s allure? How important is your motivation for writing, and what you are trying to communicate to your reader? How does theme drive your story? Emma explains some ways she uses structural tools to make her writing better. And finally, we talk about the trap of authenticity in our writing.
Why do first encounter stories fascinate us? What sort of problems are typical in first encounter fiction? How does it make us deal with our own humanity? And how can you use first encounters outside of its typical alien invasion genre?
What is the difference between hard and soft magic systems? How does it apply to science fiction as well as fantasy? What are some pros and cons of the spectrum? How do you avoid deus ex machina with all powerful magic systems? How do you incorporate consequence into your systems? And where do we fall on the sliding scale?
I'm Alida
I help people express their gifts to the world.
I do not believe in formulas. I believe that the stories we are compelled to tell the world make demands on us, and it is our privilege to meet those demands in order to reach the most people in the most authentic and compelling way possible.
