Madeline Turnipseed - Author

Happy Friday!  Over the past ten weeks, I've been completing an introductory level Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing class online from Gotham Writers .  My husband gave it to me for my birthday back at the beginning of the year. If you are unfamiliar with the layout and format of an online Gotham class, they have an online tour  here .  Gotham has both online and brick-and-mortar classes in their physical location in NYC. This class is set up to help aspiring writers in the field of speculative fiction hone their craft.  In that respect, it focuses more on craft than it does the speculative fiction.  I've heard that "general" creative writing classes tend to be geared towards literary fiction and can be unfriendly towards genre writers, so it is good that there is a place where we are welcome.  Selections from spec-fic writing were used as examples, and the students are expected to be working on spec-fic projects, but the main focus of the class...

Happy Friday, friends! Over the past few weeks, I've been thinking about feedback that I've gotten on my pieces and feedback I've seen others receive.  If you're a relatively new writer, or at least new to getting critiques, it can be difficult to receive critiques with grace.  What's even more difficult is figuring out if what you've gotten back is useful.  Here's how I evaluate my feedback to decide what advice and suggestions to keep, and what to discard. 1) Is this person in my target audience? Your target audience is a rough approximation of the demographic that you see being a fan of your work.  Whether it's YA, something geared more for baby boomers, whatever, you should have a pretty good idea about who this is by the time you're getting feedback, if not before you start writing.  If they are in your target audience, give their suggestions greater weight. 2) Is this person a fan of other works in this genre? This goes along the same l...

Hello friends, happy Friday!  Last week bumped the blog over the 2k view mark, which is awesome.  Thank you for reading and commenting!  (You should comment more!) Anyway, today I'm reviewing Shades of Milk and Honey  by Mary Robinette Kowal .  If you haven't read it, but her name is familiar, you may know her from the Writing Excuses podcast.  Yes, Shades  came out in 2010, and I am a bit behind the curve ball, but let me explain.  When I started listening to the Writing Excuses podcast a year ago, I started waaaaayyy back at the beginning of the series, and Kowal didn't come on to the podcast until about July of last year, by my progress.  (I believe she actually came on as a permanent member back in 2011, but I cannot confirm for certain in the five minutes I spent combing their website.)  I loved everything Kowal was bringing to the podcast and I knew her work would be just as wonderful.  But I had excuses, so I didn't pic...

A few weekends ago, my in-laws were in town.  They brought us some lovely furniture that my father-in-law had made, and we visited a little.  We talked about TV that we liked, and The Walking Dead came up.  We talked about scary stories and how they have changed between their generation and ours. While standard horror, action, and thriller stories are still wildly popular,  both in literature and visual media, there has been a rising trend of post-apocalyptic stories. This  article from io9  in 2009 catalogues the rise in the number of post-apocalyptic stories by the causes of the apocalypse. This article from SF Signal last year poses the question of the rising popularity of post-apocalyptic stories to a number of popular authors in the genre. Why are these stories so popular? I'll offer my own reason. We know that our world is fragile. We anticipate a possible end with every news story that we see in our feed. A landslide.  A hurricane.  A ...

Hello Friends!  Today I'm discussing how I use alpha readers, assisted by The Amazing World of Gumball , because I love that show. Cartoon Network First, you should understand that there is no wrong way to use alpha readers.  You should use them in the way that will most benefit you.  Some people only want line-editing, some want plot feedback, some want character help.  It just depends on the writer.  Alpha readers for me are fellow writers and avid readers that have an eye for story structure and the way people act.  They may correct grammar or sentence structure but really what I am looking for is sanding of the bones, not paint and varnish just yet.  I use this list when an alpha reader is looking at my entire manuscript.  For an alpha that is only reading part of my manuscript, or maybe even just a chapter, I pick a few questions and modify this list. Here is the list that I came up with.  This is one I generated incorporating th...

Ahhh, it is Friday, sorry I nearly forgot! After discussing it with my financial advisor (aka my husband) I have decided to upgrade to the full version of Scribophile . Currently,  I'm using the free version, which means that I can only post two chapters at a time.  This means that as my story progresses, anyone that wants to critique it that hasn't been following it since I posted the first chapter will be clueless as to the beginning.  Instead of getting good critiques,  I'm getting stuff like "I have no idea who these characters are," and "what's going on in this scene?"  So, for the sake of my story,  I'm springing for the full version.  Critiques that say essentially "I haven't read the beginning" aren't any help to me, and I'm sure the people trying to help me get frustrated when they can't. So, if you want to look me up on Scribophile ,  you'll be able to read Om Nom Nombies as I post it, chapter by chapter...

Hello friends!  This post is an argument for the prologue.   I've read comments on writing forums from fellow writers that say they hate prologues.   Orson Scott Card says he never reads prologues.  If so many people take issue with prologues, why do they even exist?  What purpose do they serve?  Let's first look at why prologues are hated. 1) Prologues are info-dumps     - Readers are picking up a book to read A STORY, not hear about all the worldbuilding the author has done.  Any worldbuilding or history that is important to the story can be interspersed within the story. 2) Prologues are flashbacks    - Ditto the worldbuilding comment above. 3) Prologues should just be re-named Chapter 1     - I can see this argument, but I think this should only be the case if main characters and storyline are introduced in the prologue. 4) Prologues are too long     - Anything more than a couple pages feels like t...