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Do or Dialect: 6 Tips for Building a Believable Voice
May 15th, 2013
The image above is based on a promotional poster I saw while in Edinburgh. It was for an event titled Scotland at the Cinema, and each poster featured a different movie quote translated into the Scottish dialect, as with the Star Wars reference above or with "Frankly hen, I dinnae gie a damn." For me, these "translations" were a reminder of how important a person's dialect is to who they are. A Walt Whitman quote comes to mind:
Read Column →Storyville: Ten Ways to Evaluate Fiction Markets
May 14th, 2013
So you’ve finally got a few short stories finished and you’re dying to send them out into the world. How do you know if a market is “good”? Here are ten tips for evaluating fiction markets—the very traits I look for when trying to decide whether or not I should send a website, journal, magazine, or anthology my writing.
Read Column →5 Dramatists as Novelists: The Joy of Reading Plays
May 14th, 2013
Image by Michael Beckwith via Wikipedia Commons Ever been to a really bad play? More specifically, have you seen a production of a play that, while clearly well-written, comes off either bland or way over-the-top in performance? This happens all the time, from high-school or university productions with little or no budget to Broadway spectacles of wealth. And for some of the greatest dramatic writers in history, this happens to their work more often than not.
Read Column →Recap: Game of Thrones 3.07 - The Bear and the Maiden Fair
May 13th, 2013
This is going to contain spoilers for this episode, and also for the books. Deal with it. The Bear and the Maiden Fair was a very sexy episode of Game of Thrones. At least until Theon got castrated. Unless you're into that. Which, if you are, let's not be friends.
Read Column →Ask The Agent: 20 Insights Into a Successful Agent/Client Relationship
May 13th, 2013
Navigating the rough terrain of today’s publishing industry shouldn’t be a solo event. This week in Ask the Agent, I’ll explore and dissect one of the industry’s mysteries, straight from the shoulder. Question from David When you think of your best clients, what qualities do they all have in common? I love this question… so I ran with it.
Read Column →LURID: Oooh Mama! Top 10 Bad Mother Figures
May 10th, 2013
LURID: vivid in shocking detail; sensational, horrible in savagery or violence, or, a guide to the merits of the kind of Bad Books you never want your co-workers to know you're reading.
Read Column →Iron Man 3: Marvel Studios Is In The Superhero Zone
May 9th, 2013
Marvel is in the zone right now when it comes to superhero films. They’ve learned from past mistakes and are primed to get these movies right. They've created a massive quilt of comic book movies that can stand on their own, but at the same time acknowledge each other and work inside a framework. (All that said, I’ll confess that the preview for Thor 2 looked pretty bad).
Read Column →Put a Cap on It: Learning the Rules of Capitalization
May 9th, 2013
Are you an OverCapitalizer? Do you capitalize every noun, every possible title, and every word that might be important? If so, you are an OverCapitalizer! You are not Alone in your Desire to make Every Word seem Important: I read at least 3-5 documents and emails each day that are riddled with haphazard capitalization. People tend to write the way they think, and sometimes, when they think something is important or noteworthy, they capitalize it. In fact, I’d say, most people over-capitalize because they just aren’t sure.
Read Column →The Best Writers Break the Rules
May 8th, 2013
A couple of months ago I finished Erin Morgenstern’s wonderful book The Night Circus. The Night Circus is a romantic voyage through a world of urban fantasy set in the late Victorian era. In many respects, it reminds me of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke, which is currently being made into a BBC television series. (Morgenstern herself acknowledged her love of Clarke’s book when she appeared last fall at Wordstock in Portland, Oregon.) However, Morgenstern has different sensibilities as a writer than Clarke.
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