How I write

0 comments

Researching the future

A colleague asked me today how I research what the near future is going to look like for my books. I don’t. I try to keep the story relatable and keep the whiz-bang jetpacks and flying cars to a minimum. You have to be realistic, however and acknowledge that the future is going to look different. I try to be strategic about it and drop in some new tech here or there for example which grounds the story in the future. Beyond that I’m no Asimov or Heinlein in predicting what the future will look like. Not that anyone could really do it the way they did.

0 comments

Don’t perpetrate hooptedoodle

Elmore Leonard’s ten rules of writing, number nine:

9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
Unless you’re Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even if you’re good at it, you don’t want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.

I take a lot of the ten rules to heart. Your mileage may, of course, vary.