Recent content by Gospodin

Allow me to add to the encouragement. Having read your OP, you do seem to have a grasp of what show & tell are. That's a huge advantage. Don't know if you play in other writing forums, but the array of (mis)interpretations for what show & tell are can often be bewildering and seem like an...

Whether one shows or tells, whether there is narrative or dialogue, whether the writing is terse or waxes rhapsodic, whatever the mode, manner or method, it should always be done with deliberation and intent. None of the aforementioned is any better or worse or more or less correct than the...

Both, but for different reasons. Books in English are hard to come by where I live so the convenience of an ebook magically showing up in my Kindle seconds after purchase is, well, magical. :) It's at least a small part of the Science Fiction future I was promised as a kid in the 1970's. I...

You should be please. I am envious.

Steerpike lead me here. We know one another in an alternate world. :)

I'm somewhere in the middle. Heresy, I know. :( I know where my story will end and I know some landmark points to get there. The beginning usually presents itself as I start to write, and the initial beginning that I write is never, ever the actual beginning. There's always warm-up that...

For those members who are Mac users and also fans of fantastic cartography, what applications do you make use of in map-making? I have always relied on GIMP, but wish I could find something a little more task-specific as regards the making of maps. Any suggestions?

<-- Knowing the underlying why of my story. Having a why I am writing this thing doesn't mean it needs to be a polemic. Yeah, that can definitely happen, but it's not obligatory. I recently read Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy and it was a strange read indeed and it was also very...

My opinion is that a genuine Societal Utopia - were such a thing possible - would make for a very boring story. What conflict is there if there is no conflict? What growth or change is there to engage in the story if there is no need for such? In the reading of any utopia or dystopia, it is...

Kino (кино) is still the common word in Russian for films. ;)

You could maintain a bit linguistic consistency and call it a cinemátograph, though, I won't pretend that's not a mouthful. :o

Another example that comes to mind, and speaks directly to the idea of Creation Myth, are the Dwarves of Tolkien's Middle Earth. If you braved The Silmarillion (yes, I know, reading that thing is like pulling molars with your fingers), you learn early on that the Dwarves of Middle Earth are -...

Like in any aspect of writing, for me, it comes down to the purpose of the fantastical element (wether I am just the reader or when I am the writer), be it in the form of a Fantasy prop or a Science Fiction prop. Why is it there? What's the purpose to the fabric of the story? In Octavia...

Firstly, thanks to everyone for your time, suggestions, and mostly for your questions. Questions are very profitable, I find. :) As I answer, I am answering to myself as much as to each of you who has been so kind as to help me. Thank you much for the suggested reading, both for this...

Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany DUNE, Frank Herbert Xenogenesis, Octavia Butler Embassytown, China Miéville The City and the Stars, Arthur C. Clarke