Columns

Turkey Coma: Five Times Screenwriters Put Characters Conveniently to Sleep

November 20th, 2015

The coma as catalyst is old hat, popping up in such classics as Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle”, and consequently has made its way, unbeknownst, into many a writer's bag of tricks. More often than not this results in the convenient coma, when a character is put to sleep in order to drive the plot forward, usually with others fighting to wake them up. This is a tried and true plot device of the screenwriter, so much so that it has its own page on the All the Tropes Wiki.

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13 Ways to Live And Write Like Kurt Vonnegut

November 20th, 2015

Kurt Vonnegut would have been 93 this month. If we were lucky enough to live in a world where people like Kurt Vonnegut lived to be 93.  The dude is one of those writers who's well-liked and popular, but still underrated somehow. How it is that The Sirens Of Titan isn't an all-time classic I do now know or understand, and frankly it's part of what makes me feel like our society is nothing but wreckage.

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What Works & What Doesn't: 'Repo Man'

November 19th, 2015

Welcome once again to What Works & What Doesn't, a monthly column dedicated to the craft of screenwriting.

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Primer: The Work of Tom Piccirilli

November 18th, 2015

Tom Piccirilli passed away this July and the literary world lost one of its most intense and passionate authors. Like many of his friends and acquaintances wrote in their tributes earlier this year, Tom was a great, talented guy. He was always down to talk writing and publishing with people he barely knew (like me!). I have an email lingering in my account from him, which still sits there to this day. I asked to interview him back in 2009, but the magazine I was working with at the time shut down unexpectedly, so the interview never happened. I never got back to him about it.

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The Time I Tried to Steal Joe R. Lansdale’s Wallet at Noir at the Bar: Dallas

November 18th, 2015

Last month, Eryk Pruitt asked me if I’d be willing to attend a book reading in Dallas. I told him I’d heavily consider it, but only if the reading fell on a Saturday. Dallas is a five hour drive from San Antonio, and it’s extremely difficult to get someone to cover my night shifts at the hotel. As it turned out, the only day the reading could possibly take place was a Thursday, so I respectfully declined his offer. Then he told me Joe R.

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Library Love: A Rough Timeline of Lost Libraries

November 17th, 2015

Not everyone loves books. For centuries, despotic governments and rulers have feared the power of the written word and its influence on the masses; enough to destroy the most hallowed sanctuaries of bibliophiles across the globe—libraries. From Iraq to Los Angeles, countless libraries have been lost to war, fire, and “progress.” 

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'Scream: The TV Series' – Exploring Character Archetypes and Story Conventions in Slashers

November 16th, 2015

When I first heard about Scream: The TV Series, like many others, I was skeptical. Let’s face it, movie to television adaptations are pretty hit and miss, the original Scream is an iconic part of horror history, and the traditional slasher isn’t meant to stretch much further than ninety minutes. Now, with the final credits a mere memory, I have mixed feelings about Scream: The TV Series.

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5 Easy Ways to Make Your Writing Gender-Neutral

November 13th, 2015

You know, I had another introduction planned, but as I have been writing this over the last month, many articles on the topic of gender-neutral language have popped up (you’ll see me mention some of them below). This topic is on everyone’s mind lately because we have some high-profile people who have brought it to the forefront. But let’s not be naïve. This didn’t start the day Caitlyn appeared on Vanity Fair. This is a conversation a lot of people have been having for a long time.

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10 Albums Based on Books and Literature

November 13th, 2015

Music fans are no doubt familiar with "concept albums," recordings by a given artist that offer a thematically-unified narrative told through lyrics and musical movements. For obvious reasons, these albums, which differ from more standard releases that simply collect unrelated songs, are often compared to novels. Sometimes, musicians take this literary connection quite literally, creating records that are conceptually hinged around books and literature, sometimes to great effect, other times, not so much.

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Everybody Hates You: Using Empathy to Write Realistic Characters

November 12th, 2015

At my hotel gig, a situation I run into quite frequently involves attempting to check-in a guest while they’re talking to somebody on their cell phone. The guest will typically enter the hotel, already on the phone, and toss their license on the front desk. Direct eye contact with me is unfathomable. Any sort of recognition that I’m a human being and not another automatic robot designed to satisfy their every need is a laughable dream. This is irritating, frustrating. There are many questions I need to ask this guest before I can complete the check-in process.

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