Gabrielle PollackA long time ago on a hill not so far away, Gabrielle Pollack fell in love. Not with ice cream or cats (though those things are never far from her side) but with storytelling. Since then, she’s been glued to a keyboard and is always in the midst of a writing project, whether a story, blog post, or book. She was a reader before becoming a writer, however, and believes paradise should include thick novels, hot cocoa, a warm fire, and “Do Not Disturb” signs. Her favorite stories include Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn saga and Nadine Brandes’s Out of Time trilogy.
As those who know her will confess, Gabby is a whole lot of weirdness packed into one INFP. Sharp objects, storms, and trees are her friends, along with stubborn characters and, on occasion, actual people. When she’s not writing, she’s shooting arrows through thickets and subsequently missing her target, jamming on the piano, and pushing her cat off her keyboard. She hopes to infuse her fiction with honesty, victory, and hope, and create stories that grip readers from the first page to the last. Her other goals include saving the world and mastering a strange concept called adulthood.
Arron didn’t believe in panicking. The threat of imminent loss brought fear, but few would dare steal from him or his team. But there were some. And that knowledge, combined with the fact that his brother hadn’t yet returned, made his stomach coil.
Characters with tragic backstories are as common as parentless Disney protagonists. Depressing pasts are widespread in the fantasy genre. Want to give a main character a rough edge and make readers feel sorry for her? Slap on some traumatic memories.
“Be specific,” they say. “It will help your story,” they say. This is good advice, but it’s not always true. “Be specific” does not mean “be specific with every word you write.” The wrong kind of details won’t help, especially in action sequences. Painting a vivid image is all about balance.
It is a generally acknowledged fact that writing takes forever. We wish we could skip the blood, sweat, and ink part of the process to get to the shiny published product. Publication becomes a higher priority as we grow older and college, job, and life choices loom before us.
A unique setting isn’t about how you describe it, but about how a character perceives it. Everything in a story revolves around characters, including setting. Descriptions are not foreign elements that must be incorporated solely because characters need a place to plant their feet. Showing the setting through the eyes of a character gives it purpose, direction, and meaning.
“Your hands are shaking,” Yirah said. Fiddler curled his tremor-ridden hands around his mug of honey brew. Yirah would never describe her mischievous charge as serene, but shaking hands? They sat in the most relaxing tavern she’d seen this side of Chron. Vines traveled up the fireplace’s sides and drooped over a fine mantel. Dying flames struggled to survive within the confines, feeding on more ashes than wood. Even the tables and chairs amplified the calm atmosphere, their backs carved, sanded, and stained a deep, comforting brown.
