Category: Writing Advice & Philosophy
-
Confession: I Don’t Look for Relatability – I Look for Emotional Sincerity
I have a confession: I don’t really care about a character being relatable. Let me rephrase that: I don’t need a character to be like me in order to connect with them. That may sound like a novel concept considering relatability is one of the “buzzwords” of fiction (as writer Matt Colville would call it)1,…
-
How (NOT) to Handle Exposition – A Lesson from Datalogs
Photo by Carl Heyerdahl on Unsplash Writers can learn a lot about handling exposition through a video game tool called the datalog. Datalogs are small blocks of text that explain something about a video game. They’re used to bring the player up to speed on the game’s setting or characters. Normally, you can access them…
-
On Nostalgia
People say 90’s kids are obsessed with nostalgia. Studios make reboots, sequels, and adaptations to cater specifically to nostalgic 20- and 30-somethings. Nostalgia is often seen as a bad thing. Either your nostalgia is being manipulated (to get you to buy a ticket to that remake of Robocop) or your nostalgia is manipulating you (and…