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5 Old School Writing Rules That Need To Retire

September 25th, 2015

I think the title (and header image) says it all, so let's get right to it.

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5 Things 'The Martian' Film Needs to Live Up to the Book

September 25th, 2015

On October 2,  Ridley Scott’s adaptation of Andy Weir’s The Martian will hit the big screen. The book was wildly successful, but will the movie follow suit? It depends in large part on how the movie chooses to adapt the source material. As a sort of scorecard, I present the following list of things the movie will need to truly do the book justice.

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7 YA Novels Featuring Lesbian and Bisexual Girls

September 24th, 2015

Although the number of young adult novels featuring LGBT characters has risen overall, lesbians and bisexual women continue to be marginalized and erased in the media. Luckily, the times are changing, and with increased exposure and reader’s desire to see themselves in the pages of the books they read, there are more and more young adult novels that explore the lesbian and bisexual experience. Here are seven unique YA novels that feature a lesbian or bisexual woman as the protagonist.

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5 Explosive Gothic Bonfires

September 24th, 2015

I’ve been noticing a trend in my favorite gothic tales— there are a lot of house fires. Is there an underlying reason for this theme, or do old mansions just make really good tinder for marshmallow roasting?

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How To Scare Your Reader: 11 Tips From 11 Horror Writers

September 23rd, 2015

How do you scare your reader? Perhaps the ultimate question for the horror writer, and a question that has intrigued me for a long time. The dictionary definition of ‘scare’ is [to] ‘cause great fear or nervousness’. Fear is an evolutionary survival tactic that originates from our fight or flight response. Fear induces a biochemical physical reaction that can include sweating, heart palpitations, and a surge of adrenaline.

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Patton Oswalt's Night Café and the Script that Changed Joss Whedon Forever

September 23rd, 2015

In Patton Oswalt's 2015 memoir Silver Screen Fiend, the stand-up comedian and actor describes a movie addiction that lasted from May 1995 to May 1999. He uses this framing device to explore other tangents of his life, and then weaves them together in a deconstruction of the purpose of art and its role. This is brought to life with a treatise on Vincent van Gogh and The Night Café, something he gives great symbolic meaning to and then applies to his own life.

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Scandinavian Crime Fiction Primer: Sweden

September 22nd, 2015

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. There, we got it out of the way. Scandinavian crime fiction: What else is there? Well, there's plenty, but which ones should you read? Beside Stieg Larsson, you're probably looking at Henning Mankell, Håkan Nesser, Camilla Lackberg and Liza Marklund. I'm not a fan of the last two, so I won't talk about them here, but you can always check them out on Amazon. But let's talk about what I do like.

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How Character Likability Kills Movies (and How It Can Save Books)

September 21st, 2015

Get a load of this jerk. Okay, it's tough to be mad at a head of hair like that. Especially when we all know that hairline's bleak future. Enjoy the breeze, Cage-y locks. It will be...your last.

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Book vs. Film: Cabal vs. Nightbreed

September 18th, 2015

Last year, the good folks at Scream! Factory, the horror imprint of specialty Blu-Ray manufacturers Shout! Factory, released something truly special: the director's cut of Clive Barker's cult classic Nightbreed. Fans of the film, as well as Barker himself, had been eager to see the version of the film its creator had originally intended to release back in 1990.

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What Every Successful Novel Opening Must Do: Myth vs. Reality

September 17th, 2015

The day is short, the slush is deep, and if your manuscript doesn't have what it takes to hook a reader from the very first page, agents and editors will waste no time in kicking it to the curb.  It's a bit of a brutal business, but necessary; to succeed in securing a readership, a novel's opening must prove more seductive than the latest email pinging your reader's phone, the latest update from some far-flung friend, or the siren song of Netflix.

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