Craft Resources I Found Illuminating
Seth Dickinson Deconstructing His Book The Traitor Baru Cormorant
What he writes vs. what it indicates is a masterclass in indirection, i.e. hinting at a character’s emotional state without outright stating it
Here’s an example of a recent craft post asking, “What Makes A Good Story?”
The Concept of ‘Story Engines’
Turns out many things can power a story, not just character or plot. Bonus: an image can be a story structure!
Nalo Hopkinson’s Craft Talk about POV and ‘Feeding the Hungry Ghosts’
Your reader is a ghost borrowing the narrator’s body, or POV, so how do you make your reader feel like they’re experiencing your story? Why, sensory language!
Works I Learned From
Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Sharpness of words, obsession, indulgence
“Selkie Stories Are For Losers” by Sofia Samatar
Structure, sentence length, voice, suspension and release and heaving
Visual Media Whose Aesthetics I Appreciated
- Adventure Time
- Over the Garden Wall
- Devilman Crybaby
- Chainsaw Man
- Dorohedoro
- Howl’s Moving Castle
- Spirited Away
- Nausicaa
- “Twins in Paradise” by Vewn (YouTube)
SARA S. MESSENGER 