Columns

UPDATED WITH WINNER: LitReactor's Flash Fiction Smackdown: May Edition

May 31st, 2013

Flash Mystery Fiction: A style of fictional literature marked by extreme brevity--and mystery. Welcome to LitReactor's Flash Fiction Smackdown, a monthly bout of writing prowess. For this edition, we are going back to the 25 words and 2 sentences rules--using the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as inspiration.

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Uncomfortable Truths: Five Authors Who Do Not Live Up To Their Mythology

May 31st, 2013

Discovering your idols have feet of clay is rarely a total disappointment. Prone as we are to erecting statues to those we admire, we’re also only a misplaced tweet away from tearing down those same statues and reducing them to tiny pieces. In today’s social-media-penetrated-world, the business of myth destruction is easy. Canny celebrities hire specialists to manage their twitter accounts, but the separation between our gods and ourselves has never been thinner, or easier to breach.

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'Good Sex, Great Prayers': A Journey in Publication (Part 5: Editing and Beta Reading)

May 30th, 2013

After ten and a half months, I finish the first draft of Good Sex, Great Prayers. It’s 517 pages and ~150,000 words—a goddamn brick. Looking at this thing elicits equal parts pride and anxiety. Pride, because I’ve finally knocked out “a big book.” I’ve always wanted to do that, and in this case, I was able to do it in under a year. Then the anxiety sets in when I realize what the next step in the process is: I have to comb through this monster and pick it apart. It’s almost time to edit. 

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10 More Hysterical, Offensive, Ridiculous, Controversial, Frightening, Sexy Book Covers

May 30th, 2013

Previously, on Hysterical, Offensive, Ridiculous, Controversial, Frightening, Sexy Book Covers.

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Fictional Dealbreakers?

May 29th, 2013

In March I wrote a piece about Orson Scott Card writing Superman, and asked if readers let a writer’s offensive personal beliefs and politics (or the perceptions of same) get in the way of enjoying the work they create, even if the work they create seems free of those beliefs. But what about when a story itself conflicts with your personal beliefs?

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Why The F*ck Aren't You Reading Alan Glynn?

May 28th, 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.

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Iron Men: 8 Amazing Armors in Fantasy Fiction

May 28th, 2013

Iron Man 3 came out earlier this month, a movie all about a hero known for his super-powered armor. High-tech armor is nothing new, of course, as mech fans know, but Iron Man has become the face of armored superheroes since his creation back in the 60s by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

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Comics: Get Your Sex Out Of My Violence

May 24th, 2013

The header for this post would make you think that mainstream comics are FULL OF SEX, but look more closely (full image below) and you can see the illustration is barely about sex (I had less chaste kisses in elementary school) and much more about violence. The characters are literally covered in ropes of blood (and she’s holding a massive knife) while they give each other a closed mouth peck. Course, maybe they just don’t want to risk getting any blood in their mouths…but it doesn’t seem like they would care.

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From Screen to Screen: 5 Mobile Screenwriting Apps for Tablets and Smartphones

May 23rd, 2013

We pay a lot of attention to fiction writers here at LitReactor, with a few nods here and there to comic authors and playwrights, but we rarely discuss the art of screenwriting. I've certainly been guilty of this oversight, having written two columns about mobile applications and practices for aspiring/established novelists. Yet I myself received a B.A. in Film Studies and took three years of screenwriting, learning the nuts and bolts of storytelling—plot points, character arcs, beats—from the likes of Robert McKee and Syd Field, rather than Strunk and White.

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Storyville: 8 Tips For Growing Your Brand

May 23rd, 2013

You’re an author, you write stories and novels, you’re starting to get published and people are talking about you. Now what? How do you grow your brand, how do you get your image and your writing out there? How do you get people to take you seriously? Start by taking yourself seriously, and here are some ways to do it.

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