As you can see from the posting dates, this place has been significantly ignored, by me, while I wrote and pitched short stories, a novel, and a young-adult short novel — with the usual uphill climb to get published. (Apparently, satirical sci-fi hasn’t been such a booming market for a while.) Some of the posts here obviously address issues an aspiring author faces while crafting a story. Others are miscellaneous. Enjoy at will. (The photos in the header are mine. Certain AI researchers have probably stolen
Goals. Many stories start with that, but not all. Beautiful tales have been written without an obvious vector, but as a reader and writer my attention soon wanders if a tale doesn’t reveal “where we are going” reasonably soon. The final result is usually (preferably) not what’s originally promised, but still at least we’ve got a direction. A firm bond with the protagonist is what every reader/listener/viewer has sought since the invention of cave painting and campfires — a struggle against the forces that b
Teaching would-be writers how to use this essential feature, of course, can be commodified. According to the “How-to-be-a-famous-storyteller” industrial complex, the main character should “want X, but really need Z” to be compelling. Okay. Transformation is desirable, even more preferably Improvement .