Columns

Project Redlight: Part I

May 22nd, 2018

For anger slays the foolish man and jealousy kills the simple. -Gob 5:20 p.m. Something like twenty years ago I was stranded for what seemed like days in a hospital waiting room while my brother got a Total Recall-esque benign mass/government tracking device removed from his nasal cavity, and to kill time my dad and I started pondering the idea of writing our first screenplay. This was his initial brain tempest:

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Make Your Characters More Interesting With Lies

May 21st, 2018

When’s the last time one of your characters told a lie? A small one or a big one, doesn’t matter. Lies are an under-used facet of real-life interaction that don’t get enough play in fiction. Characters telling too much truth too much of the time makes for some very boring, very rote storytelling. Simple lies, elaborate lies, systematic lies, Santa Claus lies—all ways to push a story and a character into a new, more interesting, more real place.

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10 of the Best Indie Horror Presses

May 18th, 2018

I do my best to spread the good word about all books, and when doing so, I have to accept that Big Five publishers regularly put out outstanding work. That being said, fans of horror will find a lot to dig their teeth into if they pay attention to what's happening in indie publishing. Why? Because small presses are putting out some of the most unique, exciting, gory, and entertaining horror there is. Here are a few that every horror fiction fan should know.

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Putting Together a Literary Magazine

May 17th, 2018

I had wanted to put out a print magazine for CLASH for a while, but it was never a pressing project. Literary magazines don’t make that much money, after all (hey, sorry, it’s true). Whenever I felt the impulse to put one together I would remember how all of my favorites ended up folding in a year or two. "Was it really worth it?" I asked myself.

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Books About Mental Illness are Important, Especially if You Have One

May 16th, 2018

Emery Lord’s When We Collided, a 2016 YA contemporary novel about a girl with bipolar's summer of love, was one of my most highly anticipated reads about a year and a half ago. I’d never read any of Lord’s books, and was just really diving into my young adult fiction obsession, but I had heard it was a book about mental illness, and that spoke to me. Plus, the cover is stunning!

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13 Solid Pieces Of Advice From LitReactor's Writers Workshop

May 15th, 2018

One of the great, unsung aspects of any writers' workshop is what you learn from reading the critiques of someone else's story.  You get to see the entire process, from story to critique, and you get to exist outside of that process. You can have an emotional detachment that's hard to come by when it's your own work. 

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What It Really Takes to Get Your First Book Published: 5 Critical Factors

May 14th, 2018

Publishing a book: it's a bucket list dream for many, but few are aware of what it actually takes to break through with a traditional book deal.

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Happy Birthday To The Evil Genius Behind 'Sweet Valley High'

May 14th, 2018

Francine Pascal turned 80 years old on May 13th, and in her honor we’d like to celebrate her wickedest creation (a legacy carried on by the fleet of ghostwriters working under her): the twisty, gossipy, teen-poppy confection of Sweet Valley High.

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Wonderful and Strange: Twin Peaks — The Literary Tie-Ins

May 10th, 2018

Twin Peaks first aired on April 8, 1990. The bizarre murder mystery, created by Mark Frost and acclaimed avant-garde filmmaker David Lynch, first centered on “Who killed Laura Palmer?” as a catalyst that ballooned into so much more. The show’s first season ran eight episodes and the second ran 22 before being canceled, and then there was a spinoff movie in 1992, Fire Walk With Me, that operated as both a prequel and a sequel to the series.

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The Subtle Beauty of A Quiet Place's Gender-Trope Upheaval

May 7th, 2018

As writers, we're often offered sage advice like "write what you know" or "show, don't tell." What we're not often offered are examples of what this looks like in practice. I saw a great example recently, and as it's been on my mind, I'm excited to share it with you. But please beware: there be spoilers ahead.

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