Columns

Dystropia: Examining the Trope of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl

July 19th, 2013

Somewhere situated between Easter Island and Papua New Guinea, perfectly pinned on a straight line between the Great Pyramid and the Nazca Lines lies the Isle of Dystropia, the place where every cliché and worn-out convention sticks out like rubble in the sand. Pawing through the debris, you'll find the trope that may just make or break your story. Each installment, we'll explore a different literary platitude, examining it for its various strengths and weaknesses. Set sail for Dystropia, where you might just learn something about your writing and yourself.

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Why Is The Rolling Stone Cover Controversy Even A Controversy?

July 18th, 2013

The internet lost its collective shit yesterday after the cover for the latest issue of Rolling Stone was released. It features Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, to accompany a story written by Janet Reitman. This is what it says at the bottom of the cover: The Bomber: How a Popular, Promising Student Was Failed by His Family, Fell Into Radical Islam and Became a Monster

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Storyville: Dramatic Structure and Freytag's Triangle

July 18th, 2013

Quite often people ask me about the essential elements of a short story (or novel)—what are they missing, why does it feel incomplete, is there a reason it doesn’t resonate when it’s done? Most likely, they are missing one or more of the essential dramatic elements. So let’s discuss them in detail and see what we can do to improve your writing. I’ll be talking about short stories here, but you can apply all of this to novels as well.

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8 Predictions On the Future of Digital Publishing

July 17th, 2013

We've reached the digital frontier of book publishing, but the implications of living in this new territory are not yet fully understood. If anything's certain it's that the next couple decades will see major changes in how we think of books, publishing, marketing, and maybe even writing itself. Here are eight of my predictions about the future of digital publishing.

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TripLit: Drinkin’ At The Drive-in

July 16th, 2013

A column reviving car trip games with a literary twist. Bust out your map app, it's time to go on a trip.

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10 Places We Read (and Why We Read There)

July 16th, 2013

Hi there, my name’s Ben. I’m one of the new guys here at LitReactor. For my first article I wanted to conjure up a subject that’d aim for the personal, but also strike up a great conversation within the community here, as it pertains to all of us readers. The subject in focus herein is one I’ve often thought about, occasionally talked about, and never once written about.

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Why The F*ck Aren't You Reading Sara Gran?

July 15th, 2013

Why The F*ck Aren't You Reading? is a new feature where the columnist spotlights a writer who has a dedicated following and is well known within the writing community, but hasn't achieved the elephant-in-the-room style success of a Stephen King or Gillian Flynn—But they deserve to, dammit! Hopefully the column will help gain the author featured a few more well deserved readers. Let’s get a quick show of hands: How many of you read Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys growing up?

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7 Horrifying Ailments Named After Literary Characters

July 15th, 2013

Photo by Rob Krause

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Magna Monstra: 10 Giant Monsters of Fantasy

July 12th, 2013

Monsters. They’re one of the greatest parts of Fantasy, one of the features of the genre. Monsters are, simply put, freaking cool. Anyone who ever cracked open a Monster Manual (or perhaps the Fiend Folio) and flipped through its pages knows what I mean. The best monsters are powerful, scary, and just plain weird.

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Choose Your New Adventure: The Resurgence of Interactive Storytelling

July 12th, 2013

True story: About ten years ago, a friend and I were talking about how to get out of a job we both hated (we were destined for great things and we knew it!) and one of us said we should launch a series of Choose Your Own Adventure type books, but for adults. We discussed how awesome and amazing we were to have thought of this. But we were lazy, so we laughed and went back to our menial tasks. What fools we were! We could have been on the cutting edge of what has become a Choose Your Own Adventure-like revolution.

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