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About Vaughn Roycroft

In the sixth grade, Vaughn’s teacher gave him a copy of The Hobbit, sparking a lifelong passion for reading and history. After college, life intervened, and Vaughn spent twenty years building a successful business. During those years, he and his wife built a getaway cottage near their favorite shoreline, in a fashion that would make the elves of Rivendell proud. After many milestone achievements, and with the mantra ‘life’s too short,’ they left their hectic lives in the business world, moved to their little cottage, and Vaughn finally returned to writing. Now he spends his days polishing his epic fantasy trilogy.

Recent Posts by this author:

  • Sustaining Hope–An Artist’s Specialty
  • Why I Actually Prefer Stories With Prologues
  • Regarding Privilege, Empathy, and Voice
  • A Letter To My Inspiration
  • It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And Writing Feels Fine)
  • Regarding Readership—My New Take
  • The Hygge Writer
  • Empowerment: The Gift of an UnConference
  • Fate Versus Free-Will: Using Theme to Leverage Revision
  • Good Story Endings: Happy or Sad, or Something Else?
  • A Father’s Legacy
  • What Makes a Story Epic…To Me

    • Sustaining Hope–An Artist’s Specialty

    By 45 Comments

    Did you read WU on Friday? Monica Bhide submitted a lovely essay, aptly titled Powered by Hope, in which she offers a link to her Sound Bites project of the same name. Monica says she’s providing this service because she knew she “had to do something,” in response to the messages of fear and despair she was receiving due to the pandemic.

    Monica’s post raised my spirits. But I have to admit, as I write this, I’m feeling pretty hopeless. It seems like hopes are tough to hold on to these days. Every time I feel like I have a grip on them, something new pops up and gets the darn wrigglers slithering away again. Which is what happened between reading WU on Friday and writing this post over the weekend.

    The disheartening turn of events this past weekend got me thinking about hope—its vital role in our lives and its fragility. As elusive as my hopes feel at the moment, I realized that we writers have a pretty special relationship with hope. In fact, I’ve come to realize that we’re hope experts.

    Hope Experts

    I hope that if there’s one thing you take with you from WU today, it’s the belief that it’s true—that you are indeed a hope expert. I’m sure you already have some understanding of how vital hope is to the gig. In fact, whether you realize it or not, I’m willing to bet that the very force that first compelled you to put pen to page to tell a story was born of, and buoyed by, hope. After all, hope is a sort of anticipation, an optimistic expectation for a fortuitous result. But at the crux of it, hope is a desire. You anticipated a positive result. But beyond that, you desired to create something. And not just any ole’ something.

    When we writers set out to tell a story, we desire to create something that will elicit anticipation in others. In other words, we hope to create a form of hope for our fellow humans. How’s that for requiring expertise?

    But wait, the need for expertise only grows. How do we do it? I mean, we can’t just write willy-nilly, call it a story, and hope it will create anticipation. We have to create more than just the desire for others to begin our story. We must provide the desire to continue consuming it to “The End.” In other words, our desire to create hope for others must be so strong that it inspires us to strive to sustain it for them.

    Seems like a lot of hope expertise already, doesn’t it? You know there’s more, though, right? [Read more…]

    Why I Actually Prefer Stories With Prologues

    By 63 Comments

    You think that title is just a provocation, don’t you? Something to get folks riled and then clicking through to my essay. Honestly, I hope people do want to read yet another essay on prologues. But also, I honestly do love prologues. I’ve been thinking about how many readers say they dislike prologues; how they routinely skip them or even refuse to read them. Are you one of these readers? I’ve been thinking about how damn near everyone recommends against including a prologue when you’re … [Read more...]

    Regarding Privilege, Empathy, and Voice

    By 42 Comments

    What a month! Seems like I’ve started just about every post here lately with a similar exclamation, but the impact of the current moment just keeps growing. WU Editorial Director Therese Walsh wrote a piece to start the month in which she reminded us that we are witnessing history. She made the case that “history is written by the writers,” which I fully embrace. As someone who identifies first and foremost as a writer, I feel I have a responsibility to use my voice—to express my perspective, … [Read more...]

    A Letter To My Inspiration

    By 38 Comments

    To: Professor John Ronald Reuel Tolkien The Undying Lands Via The Grey Havens, Eriador   Dear Professor Tolkien, I hope you’ll forgive the intrusion of this letter, but I feel a certain indebtedness and gratitude toward you. There’s a weight to these feelings that compels me to commit them to writing. Although I’ve felt them for some time, writing you about them seems like something that shouldn't be put off. You see, back here in the mortal realm we’re experiencing a … [Read more...]

    It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And Writing Feels Fine)

    By 69 Comments

    Welcome to Spring 2020! Hoo-boy, it's already a doozy, and it hasn't even officially started. So far we’ve had fires, floods, and rising tides (to the point of causing houses to fall in here along the Great Lakes). Not to mention political strife (plenty!) and economic upheaval (a veritable rollercoaster!). And now a pandemic. There’s real fear out there. Understandably! People are suffering and dying. Whether or not we’re sick, or know anyone who is, it’s a time when we’re all feeling … [Read more...]

    Regarding Readership—My New Take

    By 33 Comments

    I suppose I’d better start with a confession. It’s a big one.  Ready? Here goes… Until fairly recently, I didn’t care about readers. Wait, did I really say that? Reading it back, I can hardly believe it myself. My position was never really that straightforward. Or imprudent (impudent?). The more nuanced version might be something like: When I began writing, I wrote only to please myself. I never wanted to compromise the passion I put into my stories by pandering to the … [Read more...]

    The Hygge Writer

    By 30 Comments

    Well, it’s that time of the year again. Outside my office window as I write this, it’s not even dinnertime but it’s already getting dark. The temperature is plunging, the skies are gunship gray, there’s fluffy snow floating down, and through leaf-bare trees Christmas lights wink in the distance. But I’d like to set the holidays aside for a moment and focus on the winter season itself. Because, let’s face it, for many of us it’s going to be around a lot longer than the holiday lights and … [Read more...]

    Empowerment: The Gift of an UnConference

    By 33 Comments

    At the time of writing this essay, I’m less than a week from having attended the third WU UnConference in Salem, MA. If you click on the UnConference button in the header above, you’ll find an apt description of what it’s all about, ending with this: “In other words, we’re going to lean on our strengths, the qualities that have made Writer Unboxed a strong site and community. We’re going to empower you, but this time we’re going to empower you in person.” UnCon has always marked pivot … [Read more...]

    Fate Versus Free-Will: Using Theme to Leverage Revision

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    “Everything seems simple until you think about it.”—Audrey Niffenegger, from The Time Traveler’s Wife I recently finished reading The Time Traveler’s Wife for the first time. I know, I know—it’s about time, right? It only came out sixteen years ago! If only I could go back and read it sooner (heh). The nudge to finally act came from a thread in a writers’ forum, asking which books writers have read more than once. TTTW came up quite a few times, and made the all-time favorite list of quite a … [Read more...]

    Good Story Endings: Happy or Sad, or Something Else?

    By

    I was recently discussing a novel’s ending with a writer friend. We agreed that, while not perfect, the author had pretty much nailed the ending. We felt satisfied. Its character arcs felt complete. We both found the ending moving and multidimensional, and it obviously left us thinking, hence the conversation. (If you’re curious, the book is Daisy Jones and the Six, by Taylor Jenkins Reid.) During our conversation, I was seeking to refresh my memory about an element of the book and I stumbled … [Read more...]

    A Father’s Legacy

    By

    The past few weeks have been the perfect storm. It started with Memorial Day. Then came the D-Day commemorations, and a slew of articles and remembrances. Then came Fathers' Day. My father didn’t participate in the D-Day invasion, but his unit—the 86th Infantry, known as the Black Hawks—was one of the few to see combat in both the European and Pacific theatres. They saw action in the Ruhr Pocket, were among the first American units to cross both the Rhine and then—after they were moved south … [Read more...]

    What Makes a Story Epic…To Me

    By

    Did you hear it? That epic sigh of relief, coming from the southern end of the Lake Michigan shore? Yeah, that was me. Sorry if I interrupted anything important. It’s just that I finally finished a draft of my WIP. This one is book three of a trilogy, so it feels particularly epic. No seriously, I hope I’m on my way to completing an actual epic story. Epic Undertaking I’ve always loved epics. They’re the only sort of story I’ve ever really wanted to tell. This trilogy has been an epic … [Read more...]