These are some of the interesting, useful or informative links I’ve wandered onto or been pointed to over the past week.
L. Jagi Lamplighter argues against those writers and critics who insist good writing cannot include any adverbs in “I Have Met the Enemy and It Is . . . Elmore Leonard”:
[The cutting of adverbs] is currently being taught as “good writing”. The same way not using run-ons and having a plot are good writing. But this is not a matter of good writing, it is a style—the same way using the address “Dear Reader” was a style a previous era.
Well, I would formally like to declare war with this school of style, until at which time they back off and admit that they are a preference, not a matter of good writing (much less a mortal sin!)
My take on it is that many people love rules because rules free them from thinking and having to make decisions. “Suggestions” require discretion, and a surprising number of people would rather be told what to do than take the time and effort to make a choice.
Darcy Pattison at Fiction Notes has posted a Checklist of 17 Character Qualities.
Each character quality links to a separate article about that aspect of character creation, like “Character Roles and Jobs”, “Inner Character”, “Character Flaws and Paradoxes”, “Body Language” and others. These could be some great starting points for brainstorming characters!
Fantasy writer Laura Resnick has a great page of her own suggested Writer’s Resources:
Whether you’re a beginning writer seeking basic self-education or a mid-career professional in need of specific information, this page contains a wide variety of recommended resources that may be useful to you. There’s also a section below that’s specifically for teenage writers.
What follows is a long list of books, blogs, articles, services, organizations, workshops, and websites that I can recommend. I am personally familiar with some of the resources on this page; all of the others were recommended to me by other working writers and publishing professionals.
Mike Flynn gives a brief overview of the witch burnings—or lack thereof—during the Middle Ages in “Witchcraft and the Dark Ages”:
Although some folk apply the term “Dark Ages” to the entire medieval period, others apply it only to the early middle ages and refer to the High Middle Ages as the Early Renaissance. This is done in service to belief, of course. It is not how the historians generally view things. (In fact, those have been abandoning such propaganda labels in favor of century labels.) But in any case, one of the most cherished foundation myths of the Modern Ages is that of the West’s struggle to free itself from the violence of religious intolerance. This is almost as basic as the myth of Galileo springing pristine from the brow of Copernicus.
One aspect of that violence was the witch mania.
(Though the commenters who point out that there are no citations in the article—holding the article up to higher standards than most blog articles usually are, I might add—are correct, the article includes plenty of names and facts that can be researched.)
