Good news everyone!

Futurama is coming back to life…again! Despite the Writer’s and Actor’s strikes happening, there is a ton of new content to drop that I’m super excited about. We’ll get into that a little more later.

Anyway, my good news is that I started writing the first short story in the upcoming “Realms of Sciath” series here on my website. I outlined it last week and it’s becoming clear. It will probably be at least a couple of months before it’s out, but I’ll keep everyone posted on that.

I have at least one friend who started writing after I did the live reading, and I thought maybe other readers might be exploring their writing voice, so I wanted to give some writing advice. Fellow writers may find it basic, but for at least my one friend who is dipping his toe in.

Firstly, character, character, character. Stories are less about what happens and more about how what happens fundamentally changes the character. Plots are basically recycled over and over again (how many “chosen one must defeat ultimate evil” stories do you know?). It’s the people we’re interested in. Spend time with your characters, get to know them. I like character sketches for this purpose, and I find Myers-Briggs personality types a good way of helping me to understand the character. You can probably find some good character sketch templates online, or you can build one from a previous post of mine if you like.

Something I use a lot is sensory details, especially those beyond sight. Smell is one of the most powerful senses, and I think it’s a great way to assist in setting the tone of the book, and it helps to draw the audience in. Check my chapter 1 of Last Ark and tell me if the descriptions of severe body odor don’t help deliver the tone and give us indirect characterization of Evelyn.

Something I think about a lot before starting a story, and as I go along is theme. Many writers don’t think about theme, and they allow the themes to present themselves to audience interpretation. That’s fine if that’s your style. Everyone’s writing process is different. But it’s something to consider nonetheless. For me, much of it is “what do I want to say in this book?” Then, the theme helps to drive the story for me, and everything becomes central to it. Including the main character’s central flaw, the fear based thing that makes them make all kinds of terrible decisions.

I guess three bits of advice is probably sufficient for brevity’s sake, so let’s talk about some sci-fi stuff I’m pumped about. The number one thing I’m really excited about is the upcoming Ahsoka show featuring Rosario Dawson, which premiers next Wednesday. The live action Avatar: The Last Airbender comes out next year, along with another Star Wars show The Acolyte. There is no confirmation on season three of Shadow and Bone, but that show has put the novel series on my ever-growing TBR list. If you haven’t watched it, it’s on Netflix and it’s great! Also next year will be Andy Serkis’ animated film of Animal Farm, the classic by one my favorites, George Orwell.

I’ll keep this short and sweet!

Kathryn