Columns

Witness Protection, Barbecue, and Crushing Loneliness: Highlights from the 'South Village' Book Tour

October 27th, 2016

Last time I went on tour—for my second novel, City of Rose—I wrote dispatches from the road. You can find them here. For my third book, I decided to sum everything up at once, because it would be a great way to kill time on the flight home. I am tired of sitting on airplanes. This time around I made four stops. A jaunt up to Boston before a swing through the American Southwest. It seemed to go well, in that I did not get beaten up by a frat guy or stung by a scorpion.

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Community SPOOKlight: October 2016

October 27th, 2016

There's a rental house I see every day when I walk out to my car. It's a normal house, fits into the neighborhood, nothing special. Right now, for Halloween, the front yard of that house is full of fake webs, witches, ghouls, all the spooky stuff a Walgreens can provide. And there's something genuinely eerie about it. It's not the flying skeleton wrapped in a burlap cloak, holding its bony hands up over its head in that classic ghost pose. It's not the giant spiders that, in the evening, look even bigger somehow.

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What To Do When Your Book Jumps the Shark

October 26th, 2016

Oh, Happy Days. How I loved you when I was young. But remember that time you felt like you needed to jazz things up, improve your ratings with a wild and crazy stunt? So you had the Fonz don his leather jacket and too-short swim trunks, water skis and a life-preserver belt? And you made him - quite literally - jump over a bit of ocean in which a white shark - reminiscent of Jaws, released two years before - circled round and round and round. Menacing. Threatening.

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Tech and Product Round-up: October Edition

October 26th, 2016

image via Amazon Japan Hey folks, welcome back to another edition of LitReactor's monthly tech news round-up, whereby I'll talk about a few things in the technology world of special interest to writers. We've got stories about Google's less A.I. A.I.

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Manga For Beginners: Horror!

October 21st, 2016

Ghosts! Demons! Devils! Oh My! It's October and that means I'm back with a horror edition of Manga for Beginners. In general, when I think of Japanese media and horror, ghosts (Ringu, Ju-on,Dark Water) and extreme violence (Ichi the Killer, Audition) come to mind. While both work well in film/television, I wasn't as confident that I'd find great horror manga.

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5 Spooky Non-Fiction Reads for Halloween

October 21st, 2016

It's that wonderful time of the year again. Halloween is upon us. And while old horror flicks and movie marathons are a staple of the holiday, nothing gets you in the right mood like a book. Time to snuggle up on the couch, grab a spooky read and descend into darkness for a little while. Now, I'm sure you've got plenty of horror novel recommendations. But that's not what we're here for. We're looking at the novel's little brother: non-fiction.

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Post-Mortem: Can 80s YA Horror Stand the Test of Time?

October 20th, 2016

Image via Discard Treasures It's 1989. I'm ten-years-old and nerdy, with long blonde hair and massive blue glasses. I'm tall for my age, and super-skinny. In my more romantic moments, I'd describe myself as "coltish." It's a pretty word often used to describe the lanky, awkward girls in the books I love. It makes me feel better about myself. Yes. I'm coltish. Darn it.

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6 Horrible Comic Book Presidents (and One Good One)

October 20th, 2016

The 2016 election has come to resemble, in many ways, a comic book. Depending on your perspective there’s an underdog on one side and a demagogue on the other, with the latter hatching malevolent plans to take over the world. This Kierkegaardian either/or has rankled most Americans, but that’s the consequence of reducing the narrative to black and white, something comic books are often accused of doing.

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Well-Written Horror Films: Part IV

October 19th, 2016

It's the most wonderful time of the year, when the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead is at its thinnest, allowing spirits to roam freely among us. Perhaps you keep these spirits at bay with propitiation, or perhaps you honor those you've lost in the last year. Or perhaps you spend this time of year engaged in the Americanized traditions of costumes, candy, and horror movies. Or all three.

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The Mini-Guide To Writing Sex For Your Genre

October 19th, 2016

There are approximately a zillion questions to consider when it comes to the craft of sex in fiction. One of the most important being: Does your genre's intended audience expect, crave, or even allow sex? Will your intended audience flee the minute the forecast leans toward a slight chance of penetration, or will they be pissed at you if there's not enough? Whether sex plays a main role, a side character, or is simply an off-the-page thought only mentioned in passing, chances are, the topic’s going to pop up. Incorporating sex into your fiction can be a tricky endeavor.

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