Writing
"Drawing on my fine command of the language, I said nothing."--Robert Benchley
Yoon's Writing
- Stories Sold/Published - Sf/f short stories that have appeared in the world at large, with opening excerpts. If you want to see what's coming next (when there is a coming next), you'll see it here
- Stories in Progress - (Mostly) sf/f projects I am or will be working on, also with opening excerpts. This list tends to fall out of date rapidly.
- Other Works - For the completist: published essays and a few poetry sales.
- Writing, War...and Crayons - An examination of why I write military-flavored sf, and the ethics of writing. Not cheerful, despite the crayons.
- The Other Is I - Sf/f, the Other, my experiences, and my writing. Less grim than the above, but also not cheerful.
- Influences on my writing - For amusement value. Incomplete, yet lengthy.
Also, one of my short stories:
- "The Shadow Postulates" - Originally published in Helix, but taken down at my request. Set in the future of Paper Knives: sword-dancing, math, and shadows.
The Work and Craft of Writing
I focus on sf/f, which is what I write the most. Some of the musings below will transfer to other genres; others, less so.
- Sf/f genres - A breezy rather than comprehensive guide, naming examples, of sf/f (sub)genres. No flames, please. It's a categorical aid, not a straitjacket.
- Why Sf/f? - My apologia, although not very original, to the many people who have wondered why I am "wasting" my time in science fiction and fantasy.
- Advice - Some observations about the life of a (part-time) writer that have been helpful to me. Of course, you could also call this "the blind leading the hopefully less blind."
- Creating Plots - Observations and a variety of structural techniques/thoughts I've found useful. Generally applicable to fiction, but examples are drawn from sf/f. (You may find it useful to come up with your own examples.)
- Collisions and Calamities - The goofier particle physics approach to writing. My husband disavows all influence.
- Point-of-View Puzzles - Ruminations on POV techniques and fallacies, with quick-and-muddy examples.
- Characterization - Why you might care about it (or not), and a noncomprehensive list of techniques.
- Style - What it is, when it matters, and suggestions for improvement.
- Critiquing Sf/f - Observations based on experiences critiquing and being critiqued (haven't we all?).
- How Long Should It Be? - Novel, novella, short story--when you're writing it, how do you tell?
- Is the Pen Mightier Than the Word Processor? - You tell me. Ramblings on writing materials and baby-step LaTeX geekery.
Other Thoughts
External links to musings on my LiveJournal.
- Anti-on-the-nose dialogue.
- Auditioning Characters. Look in the comments for far more useful thoughts.
- The black hole of submissions responses and what to do while waiting.
- Character arcs and dialogue through the lens of Buffy and Angel, among other things.
- Character motivation and first causes.
- Characters through negative space.
- Christianity, the ethics of writing, and author vs. work.
- Constructed language portrayals in fiction. Some gripes.
- Culture, mythologies, and transgression.
- Books that are dead on arrival.
- Defocusing secondary characters.
- Description doesn't just describe.
- Dialogue that goes on and on.
- Education in (fantasy) worldbuilding.
- Essay-writing methodology.
- Families in sf/f, slightly facetious taxonomy.
- Fantasy and medicine, or, a great big undifferentiated mass of things to consider.
- Fantasy and musical traditions.
- Fireballslingin' on magical paradigms.
- Genre and race, including through the lens of Firefly.
- How reading is like food and intoxication with style in prose.
- Infallible plans in fiction and the problems with them.
- The frustration of long series.
- Machine and emotion, "The Cold Equations," Buffy, and anime.
- Obligations and tokenism (as a Korean-American? other?).
- Omniscient POV.
- Why outlines and most series are evil.
- Positional/character chess, plotting, tension/escalation, Angel S1 finale as example, top-down vs. bottom-up train wrecks, sex/gender balancing, and novel-navel-gazing.
- Writing from positions of pain.
- Reading and viewing protocols.
- Series and Origins of Everything.
- Short stories vs. novels, and parenthetic-recursive quest structures.
- Static characters in fiction.
- Third person omniscient narration sans names.
- Traumatic/powerful backstory. Incoherent thoughts.
- The tyranny of show-don't-tell and other musings.
- Writing and critiques.
- Writing poetry vs. writing prose.
- Writing rules vs. techniques.
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