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Writing Sentences With Impact
November 9th, 2011
How many times have you encountered a writer who had great ideas and a knack for compelling characters, but just didn’t use the rights words to say it all? Yeah, me too.
Read Column →When Did A Bra Become More Offensive Than A Decapitation?
November 8th, 2011
September 21st 2011 - it's the date that will go down in history as the day I looked at my fellow comic book enthusiasts, shook my head in disgust, and hung it low from embarrassment. It's the day when the top news story wasn't about the immediate success of the DC 52 relaunch, or the first new issues of Scott Snyder's Batman and Brian Azzarello's Wonder Woman hitting the stands. No. It was about the fact that Catwoman was not only seen in her bra for a handful of panels, but capped off her first issue having sex with Batman.
Read Column →Storyville: Cover Letters and Bridging the Gap
November 8th, 2011
You’ve found your voice and it’s what you’re calling urban transgression. You’ve cornered the market on dark stories that happen in cities, women with body parts pierced and tattooed, men with stubble on their faces, stinking of cigars and despair. Now what? You’ve done your research (hitting up Duotrope and surfing for the appropriate places to submit, a column we’ll do down the road, soon I promise).
Read Column →2012 Comic Book Movie Preview
November 7th, 2011
A lot of us on staff here at LitReactor are big fans of the comic book adaptation. We normally try to bring everything back to writing, so this is admittedly a bit of a reach. Having said that, it's time to strap on that utility belt and tie a blanket around your neck--hero season at the movies is bearing down on us faster than a speeding production company. Let's begin.
Read Column →Ask The Lit Coach: "How Much Is Too Much With Description?" and More
November 7th, 2011
Another good round of questions this week, writers. Sometimes your questions can be easily answered with a list of DOs and DON'Ts, or a flow-chartesque "if this then that" scenario. But not always. We have one of each this week, as one writer needs clarity about the literary journal submission process and one writer is searching for the right balance of description in storytelling.
Read Column →"Shockaholic" by Carrie Fisher
November 4th, 2011
Carrie Fisher on her latest memoir: Bad news for anyone who thought that Carrie Fisher had stopped talking about herself: Sorry, but after all of her seemingly endless blathering on about her nose-bleed-high-class problems, it appears she has yet another brand-new problem to overshare about (though don’t expect to relate to it). This time, the electro-convulsive-shock therapy she’s been regularly undergoing is threatening to wipe out (what’s left of) her memory.
Read Column →What The Hell Ever Happened To... Jeff Noon?
November 4th, 2011
A young bookseller puts a feather into his mouth... ...and that feather was Vurt, the Aurthur C. Clarke Award winning debut of English novelist Jeff Noon. It was sometime in the late 90's, and the pusher was a friend and co-worker operating in full peer pressure mode. "C'mon, hardly anybody's doing it," she intoned. Her logic appealed to the budding literary elitist in me, so with my friend acting as guide, I took the trip.
Read Column →Binge: My Love/Hate Relationship with NaNoWriMo
November 2nd, 2011
The very first NaNoWriMo (that’s National Novel Writing Month, for the uninitiated) took place in July, 1999, in the San Francisco Bay area, consisting of a mere twenty-one participants. The goal: hit 50,000 words by the end of the month. Alas, the results were admittedly subpar and publication remained elusive, however, somewhere during the process an important discovery was made: it was fun. Yes, writing with your friends and getting cracked out on power coffee and candy bars was actually a good ti
Read Column →Sixth Sense Settings: Writing Rich, Descriptive Scenes
November 1st, 2011
Original image via Pexels What the heck are we talking about? Welcome to November. If you are participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), then you have just embarked on your month-long novelling odyssey. To help you reach your daily word counts, I’m going to focus on ways to enrich your description.
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