Writing my tie-in novella for the Wasteland 3 video game

No Way Home was written as a companion to the Wasteland 3 video game by inXile Entertainment, and explores a beloved main character’s adventures between W2 and W3. (Available as part of the Digital Deluxe Version of the game through Steam.) The other two novellas you get as part of this package are written by Matt Wallace and Ari Marmell. I’ve gone back and forth about when to post this for a couple of months now. On one hand, I’m impatient and excited to talk about this project. I originally got the contract in 2019, and the finished novella was accepted by my editor…

A Semiotics Primer for Writers, Part 2 (All the Links!)

“Semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie. If something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth: it cannot in fact be used “to tell” at all.” ― Umberto Eco, A Theory of Semiotics Did you read “A Semiotics Primer for Writers, Part 1“? In that post, I talked about the basics of what semiotics is, and a little about how it’s applied to writing. These links go to articles and sites which will explain further: Foundational Work: David Chandler’s Semiotics for Beginners (1998) is…

What is Semiotics Anyway? A Short Primer for Writers, Part 1

I chatted with Juliette Wade on Dive Into Worldbuilding in 2016, about writing without a visual imagination, and semiotics, as it’s applied to writing. Last week, I tweeted about the semiotics of MAGA hats, which got me thinking about how useful the study of semiotics is. I’ve updated this post a little; Part 2 will post next week. Semiotics (not to be confused with the Saussurean tradition of “semiology”) is basically the study of what visual symbols mean. It examines how signs become a kind of short-hand for meaning, with the context of the specific time and culture where that…