Follow
Books by D.J. Butler
Category Archives: How to Write
Steam
I play games. Recently, that means that I play boardgames, and this morning it occurred to me that I like games and novels for some of the same reasons. Conflict and interactivity. Players engaging in solitaire at the same table … Continue reading
Posted in How to Write
Leave a comment
The Saxon Tales: Two Observations
I am reading Bernard Cornwell’s Death of Kings now, the latest in his Saxon Tales (it’s in ARC form, and I get to read it thanks to Amazon’s Vine program… nyaah, nyaah). It’s awesome, and I’ll have a review up on … Continue reading
Posted in How to Write
Tagged Bernard Cornwell, Historical Fiction, Milieu Detail, The Saxon Tales
Leave a comment
Telling Characters Apart
Day three of revision work on City of the Saints, and I think it’s going well. City has six POV characters, and I want each of them to sound distinctive in his speech and feel distinctive in his POV. What … Continue reading
Revisions!
Sitting down to revise City of the Saints. I get comments from the Story Monkeys weekly and revise as I go from the beginning of writing, so I never feel like my “rough” draft is really, really dire, but I … Continue reading
Export the Import
EXPORT the IMPORT There was a guy named Person who imported stuff to Venice. Person was entering Venice one day, delivering monthly milk. Three fourths of the way through a tiny black hole fell onto the water, close to the … Continue reading
Posted in How to Write
Leave a comment
How to Get Unstuck at Work
I read a performance book over the weekend. This is not my usual fare, nor have I ever blogged on such a thing. It was a good book, though, Change Anything. And when I read a bit in a chapter … Continue reading
Writer’s Block
Nice blog post on the subject here.
Milieu
I’m working on a rewrite the main objective of which is to get more milieu detail into my novel Witchy Eye. This is fun, and it has me thinking about ways to communicate milieu to a reader, in any book … Continue reading
Unconventional Narrator: Brian Selznick
In his novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Brian Selznick introduced us to a striking and, to my knowledge, unique style of storytelling. Hugo Cabret alternated between prose narration and sections where there were no words, only pictures. In other … Continue reading
Posted in How to Write
Tagged Brian Selznick, Narration, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Wonderstruck
Leave a comment
The Adults Problem: P.S. Treasure Island
I read Treasure Island over the weekend, too, and it’s worth mentioning as a thought exercise in terms of the Adults Problem. Set aside, for the moment, the various deus ex machina issues, which may have been less problematic for … Continue reading
Posted in How to Write
Tagged Robert Louis Stevenson, The Adults Problem, Treasure Island
Leave a comment
