From time to time, I’ve been inspired to write nonfiction, mostly as advice to my friends on the ins and outs of writing theory and practice. There are enough of them at this point that I need to gather them all in one place, and that’s what this index is for.
Big Essays
These essays are several thousand words long, and aim to cover some topic in depth that is, if not exhaustive, at least comprehensive.
“Sensory Reifiction: or: the Advanced Lecture on “Show, Don’t Tell”” explores one of the most common pieces of writing advice. I break “Show, Don’t Tell” down into seven distinct yet overlapping principles, each with their own applications and motivations. Many people have tried to explain showing, but I aim to collect all of the arguments for it in one place.
“Ur-Development or: Another Unified Theory of Plot” is the counterpart to the above essay, covering the broadest overview of what stories are, and what structures they exhibit. There are many ways of breaking a story down, into acts or plot beats, and I advance a general model that relates to a variety of them.
“Outlines as Temporarily Embarrassed Drafts,” a follow up to the above, takes the above principles, refining and applying them to present a step by step guide to outlining a new story.
“Xenodetermism: An Introduction” is about aliens. I write a lot of nonhuman characters, and often get asked for advice portraying them convincingly. This is that promised essay, which illustrates the principles involved in differentiating an alien character from a human one.
“Dissecting the False Hydra” explores the mechanics that might undergird a systemic take on Arnold K’s famous monster. I come up with a compelling basis for the erasure mechanism, analyze how a culture might respond to the existence of hydrae, and spin up a false alt hydrae which operate on similar mechanics.
“A Closer Look At Time Travel and Probability” aims to examine what it means to for information to travel backward in time, and provides models for what we should expect to come out of a small time machine. There’s math, and, I hope, an uncommonly rigorous level of retrocausal argumentation.
“Complexity is Not Objective” has nothing to do with writing; it’s a rebuttal to an argument about determining objective truth I had on discord. (I won the argument.)
Small Essays
I’m often long winded, but sometimes I only have a small thought to share. These essays are only several hundred words, perhaps a thousand.
“A Small Theory of Detail” is, in some ways, a prelude to Sensory Reification, written just a few days beforehand. It explores the function of detail in fiction.
“Some Notes on Fight Scene” gives a few pointers based on how I think about combat and action when I’m writing.
“Actions are Louder: On Writing Characters” gives a few tools for thinking about, analyzing, and iterating on characters.
“Problems with Pocket Dimension” pokes some holes in the physics of devices like pokeball or sealing scrolls, where large objects are packed in and carried around.
“A Thought on Ra” uses a somewhat well-regarded web fiction to examine the pitfalls of explanations that are too powerful.
“Emphasis and Stuff” explains some low level mechanics about how word choice conveys emphasis and meaning.
Snuggly Serials 