Columns

How To Break Up With Your First Draft

April 14th, 2014

It’s time to be honest with yourself: you’re staying with your first draft because you’re not sure you can do better. You’re afraid of letting go. You’re comfortable. Look, I get it. There’s nothing worse than a break up. Everything you know and rely on crumbles, and you’re faced with an overwhelming, depressing unknown. At first, you don’t even have it in you to go out and try to meet someone new. You just feel lost. There's a lot of ice cream.

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Bookshots: 'The Bend of the World' by Jacob Bacharach

April 14th, 2014

Bookshots: Pumping new life into the corpse of the book review Title: The Bend of the World Who wrote it? 'The Bend of the World' is a terrific read – funny, disturbing, endlessly entertaining. Jacob Bacharach Plot in a Box: A young corporate cog sees spaceships hovering over Pittsburgh, which (it turns out – who knew?) sits atop a fracture in the time/space continuum.

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Is Sci-fi a “Closed Shop”?

April 14th, 2014

Science fiction and fantasy fans, authors, merchandise sellers, media types and a lot more will be gathering in London this year for the annual WorldCon convention, or LonCon3, as it’s known. This is also the place where the winners of this year’s Hugo Awards will be announced — science fiction’s most coveted prize. Past winners of this award include: Philip K. Dick, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Ursula K.

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The Ten Worst Pieces of Writing Advice You Will Ever Hear (and Probably Already Have)

April 11th, 2014

There is perhaps more writing advice in the known universe than there is actual writing. Or at least it can feel that way when you’re flailing around for a life raft during the apprenticeship phase of writing fiction (which, by all accounts, lasts anywhere between ten years and the rest of your life). But all writing advice is not created equal. I know this both because I’ve amassed a lot of it over the years and because I’ve worked as an editor long enough to see the sort of atrocities it can result in. Here are my top ten caveats.

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'Game of Thrones' and the Power of Resolution

April 11th, 2014

NOTE: This column is chock-full of spoilers, not just for Game of Thrones, but for one other television show as well. I'll try to warn you ahead of the really, really big spoilers, but bear in mind that if I do this for the small spoilers too, half of all words used will likely be "spoiler." So just consider this your pre-warning for the latter.

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Book Trailers...Definitely NOT The Wave Of The Future

April 11th, 2014

I just spent the weekend watching a slew of book trailers on Youtube, all in the hopes of answering the gripping question “Are Book Trailers Worthless?” After I gouge my eyes out (gimme a second) I can firmly tell you that with a few shining and awesome exceptions, book trailers are indeed mostly worthless. However, watching so many was a good tutorial on what works and why, and I’ll talk about that below, as well as what to avoid doing if you insist on making one of your own. 

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How Stress Assassinates Creativity

April 10th, 2014

Is writer's block real? The answer depends on how you define "writer's block." So long as we don't assume it is some mythological disease out to damn poor writers, we can find reasonable definitions and solid answers on where writer's block comes from. The simple truth is that some situations make creativity more likely, while others make it almost impossible. The worst enemy of creativity is found in stress.

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10 Social Media Words That Need to DIE!

April 10th, 2014

Like all bad (and good) trends, there comes a point when people continue to use social media buzzwords long after the recommended expiration date. Here are a few that need to be cleaned out of the lexicographical fridge. 1. Bestie What does it mean? Bestie is short for “best friend” as in: My 14-year-old cousin spends hours on her iPhone texting her bestie, Fran. Why it should die:

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9 Great Poop Reads: Taking Literary Structures From Classroom To Bathroom

April 9th, 2014

My junior high English teacher measured reading assignments in something he called Poop Reads.  I had an interesting education. Ask me about it sometime. Buy me a drink first and you'll hear some stuff. There's a story about a speech and debate teacher's pregnancy that's still hard to tell without slipping back into the voice of an embarrassed 8th grader.

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Storyville: Putting Your Life in Your Fiction

April 8th, 2014

There is really no way to avoid letting your real life experiences seep into your writing. I mean, think about it. The emotions, they are your own. The experiences, the ones that really ring true, probably come from actual moments. But I’ll assume here that most of us have not killed a man, or been to Mars, or chased fireflies off a cliff, or lived in a stone tower making tiny mechanical birds. So how do you insert your real life experience into your fiction? Here are some tips on how to do that.

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