Ask anyone what an ‘RO’ or ‘LI’ is, and you’re likely to figure out who is and who isn’t an interactive fiction reader. That’s how essential Romance Options and Love Interests have become to the medium. Notice how I didn’t say genre? That’s because romance—in these games, at least—is non-negotiable. Whether it’s an RPG like Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, a visual novel like Tsukihime, or a choicegame like Samurai of Hyuga, players have...

‘How the words look on a page’ sounds pretty silly compared to premise lines and grammatical structure, but it’s an important part of the process all the same. Too many writers struggle to see the forest for the trees–or the pages for the sentences, in this case–which can come back to bite them in terms of presentation. As an author, you can’t just be concerned with what your words say: their looks matter, too!...

Two-and-a-half-years. Monthly deadlines. Thirty stories. 183,426 words. What am I talking about? I’m talking about the character side stories I’ve written up over on my patreon! If you want insights into the characters and world of Hyuga, you’ll find no better source. This isn’t interactive fiction: there’s no words hidden by an *if statement here. What you see is what you get, and what you get is… The Work I’m Most Proud Of While...

Having beaten the outlining aspects of writing to death, I wanted to shift over to prose in this post. According to wikipedia, prose is a form or technique of language that exhibits a natural flow of speech and grammatical structure. That ‘flow of speech’ is what I want to go over here, because it is, in my opinion, the single greatest defining factor between good writing and bad. I’ve talked about how I talk...

Every novel writer walks their own path towards developing their craft. Some submit themselves to sharp criticism in writing groups while others undergo in-depth workshops on plot and character development. Many more read established works until their eyes bleed. As for me, I don’t do any of that…though I probably should! That’s not to say I’ve been lazy. If you’ve read my blog then you’ve noticed the greatest changes I’ve incorporated into my stories...

All successful writers incite resonance in their readers. They may not be consciously aware of what they’re doing–or even know the meaning of the word–but they wouldn’t be successful otherwise. In this blog post, I’ll try my best to define what resonance is, why it’s so important and how you can implement it to affect readers so deeply that your stories will stick with them for years to come. DefinitionResonance is “drawing power from...

Brainstorming is that chaotic first step where writers ask themselves the almighty question: what do I want to write? We sometimes get these answers when we least expect them as flashes of insight, glimpses of scenes that seem so perfect that you can’t help but get excited about them. But these eureka moments are few and far between. What if there was a way, a process or a ritual in which you could consistently...