Once again, I’d like to explore a little more of the idea that encountering an example of bad writing by someone else can actually provide an excellent opportunity to improve your own writing. (My previous discussion about this is here.) As a writer, it’s always important to read plenty, both for enjoyment (of course!) and to have a lot of examples to draw from of what sort of writing is to your taste. But when you come across something that…
I promise this is a post about writing, but first I have to start here: In the martial arts in general, and more particularly in the martial art that I practice, TaeKwonDo (TKD), there are a lot of principles students are required to learn about and encouraged to follow. Some of these are like the student oath (e.g., ‘I shall never misuse TaeKwonDo’) or the tenets (e.g., Integrity). Others are frameworks for learning and conceptualizing the core values and lessons…
Got another reminder today that the story needs to start with the most important info first. I got turned around on the one I’m working on because the setting is contemporary. But the story itself is still speculative fiction, so the spec.fic. element does still need to exist right up front. Thank goodness. I was really struggling there.
I’ve just posted the final installment of my latest serialized story to this blog. And so now, for either those who’ve held off reading it yet and maybe need some enticement, or for those who just like to hear about what went into a story, I’d like to tell you a bit more about it. We’re going to do this in a quasi-interrogation format, just for fun, and also to keep things from wandering too far afield. Author Interrogations: SSCS-03…
How do you start a story? How do you end a story? These can be extremely vexing questions for any writer. But one thing anyone can remember when you hit this wall is that you were actually taught the best way to begin and end nearly any piece of writing in Middle School. Remember? Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Tell them. Then tell them what you told them. That, of course, sounds super-pedantic and boring, which is…
This summer I went to see a movie in the theater. This was sort of a big deal for me because, between one thing and another, I hadn’t been to a movie theater in many years. (Also, the last movie I saw in a theater was…ah…disappointing. (IT WILL LIVE FOREVER IN MY MIND IN INFAMY!)) But I saw that Twisters was in theaters, and a) an action movie is usually a safe bet at a theater—the big screen makes action…
Last year, after I had finished posting all of the installments for my first SSCS (Because the Desert is a Great, Broad Beast of Memory),I put up a post talking about different aspects of the story and/or the writing process, in the same vein as the pieces authors sometimes do when, for example, they’re doing a blog tour to promote their new book. Now that all of the installments have been posted for my most recent SSCS, How to Catch…
Alright. I think it’s about time I tell you all about what might very well be my very favorite movie: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, starring Dwayne Johnson and Jack Black, among many other excellent actors. For those, poor souls, who might not be familiar, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle came out in 2017 and is sort-of-a-reboot-of and sort-of-a-sequel-to** 1995’s Jumanji starring Robin Williams and Kirsten Dunst. In both Jumanji’s, the premise is a game, which turns itself into a…
So. I super-dooper love the Chinese fantasy drama The Untamed. The show is set in an ancient kingdom both during and after a great war between the clans, where the main character, who is gifted in black magic, has created a powerful, dark artifact to vanquish his enemies and help his side win the day. It’s 50 episodes long, but the actual war, from start to finish, comprises only about 10 of those, because who wins a war – and…