Of late I’ve been often asked how it is I work environmental detail into my writing. Up until now I’ve never really thought about that much, partly because of the way I write (very tightly-focused character-driven stories) and partly because of major influences on my writing, which, if closely analyzed, will reveal that one is in fact a result of the other. Because of such weighted character import in my work, all environmental descriptions must…

If you’re going to be a writer of any kind, you have to research. No escaping it. Fail to and a reader somewhere in the world will catch that one inconsistency and call you on it, and for them, because of that oversight, the story will most likely lose credibility. You may even lose them as a follower, not something to dismiss with a pshaw in this new age of immediate entertainment gratification. Recently I…