I don’t normally do movie reviews on this site, but this film was related to a question I had about a particular genre of writing, the horror genre. I rented Get Out, (2017), nominally a horror film. Normally I wouldn’t, … Continue reading
I read this book because I thought it might help me create better characters in my novels. As an author, I struggle to create characters who don’t sound and act just like me. I’ve often chosen females as my first-person … Continue reading
I have launched my new web site and blog www.psi-fi.net. That’s where I promote my psi-fi books (should I ever have any), and meanwhile comment on their development. Awkwardly, at this time, I have zero commercially-published books of psi-fi. For … Continue reading
Andy Martin’s deconstruction of Lee Child’s twentieth, and hopefully last, Jack Reacher novel, Make Me, is at first glance an exercise in flamboyant grandstanding pretending to be hagiography. At least 80% of the book is filled with tangents not … Continue reading
This is a great book to help someone who wants to upgrade their reading fare from genre to literary fiction. It teaches you how to pay attention to meta-textual details such as themes, symbols, voice, diction, and story structure. Attention … Continue reading
I am grinding out sentences on my ninth novel as if it were school homework. I’ve been working on Chapter Six since the middle of September, six weeks, and I estimate I have another two weeks to go on it. … Continue reading
The first two chapters of this slim volume were most helpful to me. “What is science-fiction?” is not an easy question, especially in distinguishing it from fantasy and the broader category of speculative fiction. Basically, Card says sci-fi concerns experience … Continue reading
King has written fifty best-sellers, many of which have become hit movies. It would be churlish therefore to deny him the mantle of greatness. Yet as a how-to book for writers, this one is pretty weak. The book has only … Continue reading
I bought and read this book prior to attending a seminar led by Mr. Brooks. The workshop was far better than the book. The book can be useful but has extremely low information density. Mainly it is a ranting manifesto … Continue reading
This booklet offers advice to writers about point of view. It defines POV as a “position” from which something is considered or evaluated (p.6). The author eventually explains that this “position” is not a spatial location (e.g., a camera placement … Continue reading