https://www.zivwities.com/blog daily 0.75 2023-03-02 https://www.zivwities.com/blog/diabolical-thoughts monthly 0.5 2023-03-02 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e6e029380da441d9dd66208/3601c9f5-2a77-4972-9f12-d34c4ec830cb/DP_THOUGHTS_promo1.jpg Ziv W Posts and Bejottings - Diabolical Thoughts - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.zivwities.com/blog/writing-novels-read-short-stories monthly 0.5 2023-01-04 https://www.zivwities.com/blog/state-of-the-ziv-tweepocalypse-edition monthly 0.5 2023-01-04 https://www.zivwities.com/blog/magazines-more-than-the-sum-of-their-stories monthly 0.5 2023-01-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e6e029380da441d9dd66208/d19d0c8b-6baa-4473-bac5-cbd7c71c96b0/Cover_BestOfShimmer.jpg Ziv W Posts and Bejottings - Magazines: More Than The Sum Of Their Stories - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e6e029380da441d9dd66208/1667145001602-FEI5V7EEDZGUI9HXWNWA/Ff7C_vmXwAQ_EcB%5B1%5D.jpg Ziv W Posts and Bejottings - Magazines: More Than The Sum Of Their Stories https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e6e029380da441d9dd66208/1667145042603-KCZL37ZVBBCNU3OOVDJJ/Ff7DcxeXgAEoamL%5B1%5D.jpg Ziv W Posts and Bejottings - Magazines: More Than The Sum Of Their Stories https://www.zivwities.com/blog/dont-start-with-a-bang monthly 0.5 2023-02-07 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e6e029380da441d9dd66208/d5b16cc1-7b17-495d-8138-3df9e9a830a6/not-yet-mace.gif Ziv W Posts and Bejottings - Don’t Start With A Bang - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e6e029380da441d9dd66208/16d87f72-8498-4c17-bc8f-a685ed738992/image-asset.jpeg Ziv W Posts and Bejottings - Don’t Start With A Bang - People often think stories are supposed to open with a bang, with excitement, something that’ll grip the reader by the throat. But not all stories are bang-y; or exciting; or go for the throat. Often what you really want is simply this: to tell the reader what kind of story this is. That’s enough for the right readers to decide to dive right in. Some observations on openings -- originally written in 2019, courtesy of my first slushreading stint at Diabolical Plots , plus the very excellent collections I was reading at the time. https://www.zivwities.com/blog/on-reading-your-rejections-entrails-please-dont monthly 0.5 2022-11-06 https://www.zivwities.com/blog/tag/twitter monthly 0.5 https://www.zivwities.com/blog/tag/slush monthly 0.5 https://www.zivwities.com/blog/tag/editing monthly 0.5 https://www.zivwities.com/hebrew daily 0.75 2022-10-11 https://www.zivwities.com/hebrew/worldbuilding-games monthly 0.5 2022-10-11 https://www.zivwities.com/hebrew/mirroring monthly 0.5 2022-10-11 https://www.zivwities.com/hebrew/story-structure-discworld monthly 0.5 2022-10-11 https://www.zivwities.com/home daily 1.0 2025-04-07 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e6e029380da441d9dd66208/e2ac7a27-0fe5-4174-a13d-4f7e51943f9f/Writing+With+Mirrors+-+Cover.jpg Home - Writing With Mirrors A storycraft video on one of fiction’s most powerful tools: similarity and contrast. This video is about how different parts of a story can reflect each other, echo each other, feel fundamentally connected. Once you start looking for them, you’re going to find mirrors in all your favorite stories — and learn how to build them in your own. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e6e029380da441d9dd66208/b4376656-6c79-4966-a349-8be8018e666c/Thumbnails+Story+Structure.png Home - Story Structure Lessons From The Discworld For something as ephemeral as a story, does it even make sense to talk about its “shape” or “structure”? It does, but we often lack the concepts and terminology. That’s what we’ll build up—using the MICE approach, examples from popular media, and most of all, Terry Pratchett’s brilliant Discworld series, and the many deeply distinct sub-series that comprise it. This video series is aimed at both writers and readers, and does not require familiarity with the Discworld books. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e6e029380da441d9dd66208/1604517875892-0PTZ5MPWF4REFRQUJ7RO/MarginallyFannish Home - A Fascinating Tension: Religious Themes and Ideas in SFF I visit Parinita Shetty’s Marginally Fannish podcast to discuss how faith and religion are portrayed in popular genre fiction. We go into how these religion is in some ways similar to other “non-default” identifiers, often marginalized or stereotyped, but in some ways extremely different. There is so much to grapple with here. To me personally, that’s exactly why I want to see it grappled with. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e6e029380da441d9dd66208/1584292074772-299U8HE0Z6X72V99EHG1/KnivesOut_cover Home - Knives Out: A MICE Case Study Rian Johnson’s superb Knives Out has stabbed its way into our hearts and minds. It’s not often that a screenplay so expertly crafted makes this kind of a splash. We’ll use Knives Out to learn about MICE ⁠— a handy approach to story focus and structure — and MICE to learn some intriguing points about Knives Out. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e6e029380da441d9dd66208/1584303923242-PL1OJNNNQQTVTV3W9UOD/Discovery_Burnham_Pain.jpg Home - Star Trek: Discovery and the Theory of Pain Every heroic tale carries an implicit definition of what “heroic” means. Every dramatic victory is a fictional portrayal of how victory is achieved. What about Star Trek: Discovery? Who are its victors? What does its heroism look like? How do the crew of the Discovery win? The answer will tell us a lot about Discovery’s moral landscape, and its view of the world. And the answer, based on Discovery’s first season, is… unsettling. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e6e029380da441d9dd66208/1584272478332-1D19GS6B8I1I1I9Z1OIM/too-like-Cover-e1462800551260%255B1%255D.jpg Home - Themes in Too Like The Lightning Ada Palmer’s Too Like The Lightning constructs a utopian society — but not one it thinks can survive. It plots the course of that society’s collapse — but not because they did anything wrong. It’s a novel that is dizzying, idiosyncratic, philosophical. In these essays, I gather up hints and threads to bring the book’s statement, as I see it, to the surface. https://www.zivwities.com/contact daily 0.75 2022-11-20 https://www.zivwities.com/writing-with-mirrors daily 0.75 2023-02-07 https://www.zivwities.com/mirrors-reference-page daily 0.75 2023-02-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e6e029380da441d9dd66208/181f758c-9e24-4109-a02e-c7586930cead/thumbnail.png https://www.zivwities.com/mirrors-transcript daily 0.75 2023-02-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e6e029380da441d9dd66208/f7a53a76-d7e6-4ecb-a1d9-09649387b48d/mirroring-screen_01.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e6e029380da441d9dd66208/7914fa95-eb3e-45bd-8628-ff3b9c5b255c/mirroring-screen_02.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e6e029380da441d9dd66208/5764bb91-2cf2-4786-b89b-3466c0fc0395/mirroring-screen_03.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e6e029380da441d9dd66208/181f758c-9e24-4109-a02e-c7586930cead/thumbnail.png