character | Myths of the Mirror

Aunt Agnes and the Accidental Invasion

By L.T. Garvin

It all started when Ilene Wilson showed up at Dominoes Club saying that her husband, Ralph, had been taken away by an Accidental Invasion.

“I have never heard tell of such!” exclaimed Aunt Agnes, giving me a sharp look over her dominos. Aunt Agnes had been worried about our neighbor, Ilene, ever since she found out she had been taking Nervous Pills, you know, for her nerves and all.

“I think those things have got her,” Aunt Agnes whispered to me as I put a domino on the table.

Ilene and Ralph had been our neighbors now for goin’ on four years. Truthfully, I was pretty sure I had seen Ralph slip out of the building a few times getting on the casino bus going over to Oklahoma to gamble. Ilene would have skinned him alive if she knew he was over there wasting money…

(Continue Reading: Aunt Agnes and the Accidental Invasion)

image from flightfox.com

Well, I have a gift for you today. NO, it’s not a book. Phew!

A friend of mine shared a link with me, and when I opened it, I gasped. My knees turned to syrup, and I wiped tears of delight from my eyes. I’d struck writing gold.

Brandon Sanderson, the highly successful author of Mistborn and The Way of Kings fame, teaches a master’s level class at BYU for fantasy and science-fiction writers. The class is so popular that only a small number of interested students actually get to enroll. In response to the flood of despair, the entire series of winter lectures were videotaped and are available on YouTube at zero cost.

image from thebooksmuggler.com

You don’t write sci-fi or fantasy, you say.

I will assert, while skipping in circles with excitement, that the ideas he presents are 99% applicable to all fiction writing. He covers a broad range of choices and approaches, and rarely lays down any hard fast rules. Writers will fill up their brains with ideas while being told to discover what works for them.

(Just to warn you, he does hate passive sentences and has an odd aversion to the word “replied”).

Now, this is a ton of material that includes not only invaluable lessons on writing, but also on how to pitch, sell, and market a book. He’s tidily listed the lessons by content so it’s possible to pick and choose what you’re interested in learning about. The complete listing, with links to each lecture is here: Brandon Sanderson Writing Seminar.

Enjoy!