Columns

Your Favorite Book Sucks: 'Naked Lunch'

September 24th, 2012

'Your Favorite Book Sucks' is an ongoing column, written by different people, that takes a classic or popular book and argues why it isn't really all that great. Confrontational, to be sure, but it's all in good fun, so please play nice.

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The Strange and Unpleasant World of the Sock Puppet

September 24th, 2012

A few years ago, I read a book I didn’t like. The book was called Shoot the Damn Dog and it was by a journalist called Sally Brampton. The book describes Ms Brampton’s struggles with depression.

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LURID: Books, Covers, Judgment - Top Ten Horror Designs

September 21st, 2012

LURID: vivid in shocking detail; sensational, horrible in savagery or violence, or, a twice-monthly guide to the merits of the kind of Bad Books you never want your co-workers to know you're reading. Do you remember the first time? 

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Fifty Shades of Inattention: An Open Letter To The Husbands and Boyfriends of America

September 21st, 2012

Hey Guys, So, before I get started, I want all of us to have a Good Will Hunting moment. I want all of you to take your tablet, or smartphone, or laptop, or whatever the fuck you're reading this on, and I want you to go and take a good long look at yourself in the mirror. The next thing I want you to do is imagine the person staring back at you isn’t you, but a middle-age, overly hairy comedian playing the part of a court ordered therapist. Next, I want you to look deep into the hard steel grey eyes of said imaginary therapist and let yourself say:

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Getting Superheroines Right

September 20th, 2012

Since we've recently seen two of the best superheroine portrayals ever captured on film thanks to Joss Whedon and Scarlett Johansson in The Avengers, and Christopher Nolan and Anne Hathaway in The Dark Knight Rises, it’s worth looking at what made them work when so many others have failed (and the list of failures is so very long – Catwoman and Elektra, I’m looking at you especially hard).

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Adventures In Self-Publishing Part 2: From Art To Commerce

September 20th, 2012

On the evening of September 10th, I submitted my novella to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo. By the next morning, it was live (but only at Amazon--more on that later). The Last Safe Place: A Zombie Novella has a handsome little 'buy' button next to it, and I get reports on how many copies have been sold, and someone I don't know posted to my Twitter account that the preview text got her to buy it.  How cool is that?  So, what's it about? Glad you asked! 

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Why I Volunteer for Writing Festivals like Wordstock (and Why You Should, Too)

September 19th, 2012

Coming home late one evening after a meeting for the Wordstock marketing team, my husband looked at me and said, “I don’t get you. You actually spend your free time talking about books and reading. You are crazy.” I laughed and agreed that, yes, I was probably crazy. Not everyone would donate their time to planning a huge literary festival, or attend hours of meetings figuring out ways to get people to come to said literary festival.

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Storyville: Narrative Hooks

September 19th, 2012

I’ve mentioned narrative hooks before, but only briefly. What I’d like to do with this column is elaborate a bit more on what a narrative hook is, how you can create great opening sentences, and how that hook relates to the rest of your story or novel. Wait, that’s a terrible narrative hook. Let me try this again. When you push the metal hook deep into the mouth of a large-mouthed bass, piercing the skin, the barb unable to be removed, you have captured the beast, he will not get away—do the same thing with your writing. Not great, but better.

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Small Packages: Short Fantasy Fiction

September 18th, 2012

In looking back on my columns for LitReactor so far, I realized that I’ve focused primarily on fantasy novels and not on short fiction. As a writer and reader of short stories, I felt that should be rectified. There’s so much good fantasy being published today, and much of that is in the short form. And while novels offer more space for worldbuilding and intricate plots, short stories often allow for more experimentation in content and style, and can pack more emotion than might be expected in such a short space.

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What's The Value Of A Great Ending?

September 17th, 2012

In art school, when building your portfolio they tell you to start strong, end even stronger, and bury any weaknesses in the center. Opening strong gives a good first impression and encourages interest, and closing strong is vital because the ending is what people remember most when they walk away. For me, and I would wager for most, the same is true of books. And since it takes a great deal longer to read a book  than to flip through a portfolio, a strong ending becomes even more important.

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