I had been thinking about movies and the studio-system’s somewhat slavish devotion to “three act structure”, which more and more I’m seeing as a big problem in modern cinema, and […]
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Writing the Other: You’ll Probably Screw This Up
“Kids, you tried your best, and failed miserably. The lesson to learn is: never try.”-Homer Simpson In case I’ve not made this clear: I am a straight, white, upper-middle-class, non-religious*, […]
Read moreAvengers Assemble: But more women next time, hmm?
This past weekend The Avengers went down in comic-book movie history. It broke box-office records, making over $200 million in just one weekend. More importantly, it was a success in […]
Read moreReading Report: Kingdoms of Dust by Amanda Downum
Disclaimer: Amanda Downum is a friend and a critique partner. So this won’t be an “objective” review. It’s probably not even really a review.— Kingdoms of Dust by Amanda Downum […]
Read moreAction, Agency, Passivity, Pacifism
There is a tactic some writers (and screenwriters) use to put their characters in the “hero” column. It’s a tactic that is most recently used in “The Hunger Games” (with […]
Read moreThe Elegantly Bare-bones Fight Scene
I had the opportunity to watch Haywire this week, directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring the impressive Gina Carano. Now, I won’t make more of this than it is: as […]
Read moreNothing In, Nothing Out: I’m Not Reading Enough
Back when I did the DFW Writer’s Conference last year, the keynote speaker said, in part of her keynote speech, “Stephen King reads four hours a day and writes four […]
Read moreSlept The Whole Way Interview
I was interviewed for my play for ScriptWork’s Out of Ink, opening this weekend. —Marshall Ryan Maresca’s SLEPT THE WHOLE WAY is part of Out of Ink: Sound Off, the […]
Read moreOrganization of Worldbuilding
I’ve mentioned before how I have the various nations of the world that Druthal occupies given some degree of definition in “National Documents”. These are, in essence, a handful of […]
Read moreUncommon Questions in Worldbuilding
When it comes to worldbuilding, I live by the Iceberg Rule: Most of it goes unseen. Another way to look at it is the corollary to “Show, Don’t Tell”: Know, […]
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