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What Works & What Doesn't: 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'
October 2nd, 2015
Welcome back to What Works & What Doesn't. In the previous two installments, we discussed "The Story Triangle" as outlined by Robert McKee in his fantastic screenwriting book Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. First we explored the tenets of a Classical Design or Archplot via Robert Towne's classic Chinatown; next, we examined Minimalism or Miniplot by analyzing Sofia Coppola's wonderful Lost in Translation.
Read Column →UPDATED WITH WINNER - LitReactor's Flash Fiction Smackdown: September Edition
September 30th, 2015
Flash fiction: A style of fictional literature marked by extreme brevity Welcome to LitReactor's Flash Fiction Smackdown, a monthly bout of writing prowess. How It Works We give you inspiration in the form of a picture, poem, video, or prompt. You write a flash fiction piece using the inspiration we gave you. Put your entry in the comments section. One winner will be picked and awarded a prize.
Read Column →Why You Need A Writing Uniform
September 30th, 2015
In school we used to have these writing assessments. A teacher would sit you down, give you three topics to choose from, and tell you to get busy on a five-paragraph essay. Here were the topics that always came around: school lunches, whether students should be allowed to wear hats in school, and of course, school uniforms. For the record, the correct responses were: gross, yes, and who gives a shit?
Read Column →Fiction Shmiction: The Complex Question of Writing as Activism
September 29th, 2015
Over a year ago, I explored a topic that is central to the way I think about stories and the role of writers. In short, I believe that stories create the world we live in by shaping the beliefs and assumptions we hold about the "way things work," and that this in turn changes our behavior in dramatic ways.
Read Column →12 Productive Ways to be Unproductive
September 28th, 2015
At a bookstore event several years ago, I briefly met Norton Juster, author of The Phantom Tollbooth. He read some of his work aloud, then took questions from the audience. When asked how he made time to write the book, he replied that he didn't. The entire thing, he told us, had been part of an elaborate attempt to procrastinate on completing work assigned to him by his day job. Ever since hearing that, I've had a soft spot for procrastination.
Read Column →Ten Movie/TV Tie-In Cookbooks
September 25th, 2015
Movies and TV shows often have all manner of merchandise attached to their "brand," from toys, games and costumes to posters, novelizations, and tie-in novels (including graphic novel adaptations). But perhaps one of the more esoteric and sometimes strange merch categories is the tie-in cookbook, which appears far more often than you might think, and for properties you might not expect (Portlandia, anyone?).
Read Column →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.
Read Column →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.
Read Column →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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