In my last post in this series, I mentioned (and linked) the blog of my friend Ian McHugh, an excellent Australian SF/fantasy writer. I wanted to mention this post of his, regarding the usefulness (or uselessness) of word frequency analysis when trying to figure out what you’re doing unconsiously in your writing, as well as when thinking about character voice, but I felt it would distract from the etude I was discussion. Hence, another post. Interesting stuff, which I recommend you go check out. I may try to work up a new exercise based on it, if I can.

At Clarion West, our instructor–one of my favorite authors, the brilliant Maureen F. McHugh–suggested an idea to our class that seemed, when I heard it, to be self-evidently logical and obvious… except of course I’d never heard it stated explicitly before, or thought of it myself, and when she suggested it, my mind was also blown (to tiny bits, yes). We were discussing one of my classmates’ stories (one by this guy, and outstanding writer I must say, and  no relation to Maureen…). The story was very worldbuilding-heavy, and the plot was a little convoluted, and even the SF junkies in the class …