Columns

Ask The Agent: A Review of When to Query Agents

April 1st, 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 biggest of the industry’s mysteries, straight from the shoulder. This week I was asked several times, "When should I query agents with my manuscript?" "Does my manuscript have to be complete when I query or are a few sample chapters fine?"

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Recap: Game of Thrones 3.01 - Valar Dohaeris

April 1st, 2013

This is going to contain spoilers for this episode, and also for the books. I won't tell you what happens in the fifth book, or what I think is going to happen in the next episode, but I will talk about differences between the book and the show thus far. Deal with it. 

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Game of Shows: George R. R. Martin's Future Television Prospects

March 29th, 2013

Winter is just about leaving and that means it’s time for a new season of the hit HBO series, Game of Thrones. In fact, the show is such a hit that HBO has signed creator George R. R. Martin to a two year deal to help develop more series for them. As a Martin fan I’m all for that, but so far there’s not a lot of information on what George is planning to do as a result. Which is where this column comes in. Speculation. On what form the series may take, looking at work by Martin (and others) that’s already out there.

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Comic Books and the Reverse Adaptation

March 29th, 2013

Comics have long been a breeding ground for material to adapt into film and television projects, a practice which has only increased in recent years. For example: Steve Niles famously turned his screenplay 30 Days of Night into a comic after the script was summarily rejected. Once it became popular as a comic book (with art by Ben Templesmith), Hollywood came knocking and it became a major motion picture in 2007.

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UPDATED WITH WINNER - LitReactor's Flash Fiction Smackdown: March Edition

March 29th, 2013

Flash fiction: A style of fictional literature marked by extreme brevity. Welcome to LitReactor's Flash Fiction Smackdown, a monthly bout of writing prowess. For this edition, we are going to alter the rules a bit to keep it fresh. You now get 25 words and 2 sentences. How It Works We give you inspiration in the form of a picture, poem, video, or similar. You write a flash fiction piece, using the inspiration we gave you. Put your entry in the comments section. One winner will be picked and awarded a prize.

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Shotgun Do Your Stuff: A Joe R. Lansdale Primer

March 29th, 2013

I’m from East Texas, a quaint land of pine trees and picket fences and more churches per capita than any other region in the world (don’t check my math on that). Have you seen Bernie? Bernie got it right. Like this guy:

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'Good Sex, Great Prayers': A Journey in Publication (Part 4: Spinning Plates)

March 28th, 2013

PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS

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Why The F*ck Aren't You Reading Bonnie Jo Campbell?

March 27th, 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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Nothing New Under The Sun: The Origins of 5 Common Literary Allusions

March 27th, 2013

Allusions Do you ever get the feeling that you’ve read something before? Well, you have—maybe even hundreds or thousands of times. Writers are, at best, great mimics, and, at worst, sneaky thieves. They love to steal the words of the writers who have come before them. Did I say steal? I meant allude to the words of their fore-authors.  According to An Introduction to Poetry, 9th Edition, an allusion is

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Three Books About...The Road

March 26th, 2013

Books can be about anything – elephants, antimacassars, milk cartons – but generally they are not. Books tend to cluster around certain subjects, old favorites cropping up time and time again, like regulars at a bar. But unlike barflies, who all seem to have learned the same hard luck story by rote, writers (good writers) can take the same base material and make it into something entirely original. Contrast three writers on the same subject and what you end up with is not just interesting—what you end up with is inspiration.

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