Listen
You can call this a lazy post. It’s ok. It is. I’m working on a post about the research and writing of an action scene (as I’m in the middle of one right now for my second book). It’s a bit more involved than I expected so I didn’t want Read more…
Some have said naming a character is like naming a kid. Seems extreme to me. If you screw up a kid’s name you don’t have to live with that. I don’t have kids so my characters are more important by default. Kids or no kids, naming characters that you’ll be Read more…
Like the Atari game of the same name (or the reboot SNES title), Act III’s can be like pits in the jungle. One second you’re cruising along vine to vine then it’s down a pit of despair with no return or payoff but to start over. There’s a lot of Read more…
As part of my revisit basics of writing while I pick away at my second novel, I started to explore scene transitions. In early drafts of HOST, scene transitions were not intentional for me. I think some aspects and points I hit naturally, simply from reading books you pick up Read more…
Now that I’m full steam ahead with book two (as of this writing about 30% done), I’m revisiting some basics of writing to; 1) inspire the writing process and 2) keep learning. Recently got into chapter structure and how this can shape a novel. I found there are a few Read more…
I’ve been playing video games for a long time. From Frogger on Atari, to Mario on NES, to TMNT in the arcade, to Last of Us on Playstation. It’s been a long gaming career with no pay or a 401k. Aside from games getting bigger in scope, where you’re simply Read more…
I was terrible in writing, literature, and English courses as a kid. My high school freshman year English teacher sucked the life out of writing. Until I took a creative writing class senior, my interest in writing was drained. Creative writing had no rules. It was focused on the world Read more…
One aspect I keep hearing about being an author (or any artist really) is finding your voice. For authors, some say it takes three to four books to find. Maybe that’s true. For others, they may find it right away, either way I think it’s a natural part of the Read more…
Writing isn’t easy. Like anything, it takes work, commitment, and time to be good at. Along that path myths get created about the process and successes that come with writing. Who creates these myths? Who knows. Some can be attributed to a specific comment by someone at some point in Read more…
The glue, the heart, the meat of any good story, I think lies within the theme. Characters, setting, dialogue, symbolism, all the tools at the writer’s hand can help convey the theme or themes of a story. It’s that underlying idea of or about the world you want to share. Read more…