Storytellersunplugged

by David Niall Wilson (My apology for being a day early, but there is no one slated for the 31st, and Josh Boone sent his apology - they are in final edits of the script for his movie Parallel, and he was unable to get here with an essay yesterday. He'll be back soon with some real insights into the film making process, but in the mean time you'll have to be satisfied with me ...) My current project, which started out as a ... Read More

Just over a decade ago, I wrote a story (“Petey in La-La Land”) that featured two characters whose dialogue I patterned after a couple of quirky fellows I occasionally worked with. One of these gents, a computer service tech, came originally from the former Soviet Union, and while his English wasn’t bad, his attempts at colloquial speech often had the office gang in stitches. Expressions such as, “I do this only once in a moonlight,” “You are not wanting to buy me ... Read More

A question that I get a lot is "How do I write for video games?" The answer, of course, is "by hitting the keys on the keyboard so that words come out," but what's really being asked is "How do I get into the industry?" And that, inconstant reader, is a whole other kettle of worm-like mixed metaphors.The first, and most important thing one must do if one wants to be a professional game writer is take it seriously. This is a ... Read More

by Janet BerlinerWe writers justifiably complain that we're underpaid, undervalued, underappreciated--and we certainly are. National Geographic pays well. Reader's Digest pays well. Porn pays with regularity. Playboy? Sure. But for the most part, if you ain't a Biggie, you ain't nothin' at all. So, like lyricists turn to writing jingles, we supplement our incomes with writing-related jobs like editing, ghost writing, and working for ad agencies. There's a cute commercial for a certain credit card (sorry ... Read More

The only thing I can bring to this blog is my everyday experience of being a writer, which at this point in time is decidedly unglamourous. My book has been out for a month and I’m still waiting for that call from Oprah, although that may change once it’s revealed that THE UNWELCOME CHILD is actually a memoir. As a first time novelist, I knew it was absurd to expect to be sent out on book tours or receive royalty ... Read More

- Jeffrey ThomasIt’s our pop culture, our technological environment. We’re living in a movie, and our lives need a soundtrack.When not talking on our cell phones, we walk down the street with music pumped into our ears, so that our every step has a rhythm, ala John Travolta in the opening of ‘Saturday Night Fever.’ The first thing we do when we get home from work is turn on the TV, or the radio, or put a CD on. We play soothing ... Read More

By Jeff MariotteSince I’m in the last days of a novel’s first draft (and because it’s germane to the conversation here at SU, I’ll say that I’m in the camp of writers who power through to the finish to get the whole story out, and then go back and worry about the niceties), this month’s essay won’t be entirely original, but will instead point you toward a conversation begun on my blog Friday and expand a bit on that.Here’s the original post. ... Read More

ByRichard SteinbergWhen Bram Stoker was halfway through the first draft of Dracula, he showed it to his friend and employer Henry Irving (the legendary British actor) to get his opinion. Stoker had already sold several short stories, and had published two novels: Under The Sunset (1882) and The Snake’s Pass (1890.) By all standards, he was a creative and commercial success and well on his into the London literary power structure.When Irving unwrapped the brown paper from around the ... Read More

by Justine MuskI had a conversation at a party in a cute Spanish bungalow in LA. The guy asked me who my publisher was, I told him, and he gave the most dramatic reaction I’ve gotten so far (in my experience, people initially assume you mean some version of self- or vanity publishing, since everybody seems to know someone who ‘published’ a really crappy novel that way). “Wow!” he said. “Wow, you’re one of the lucky few! You won ... Read More

By Weston OchseWe all started somewhere. None of us appeared as fully-formed writers able to detect passive voice after that first gurgling breath.This was especially true for me. My journey to grammatical confidence was a long one. Even after high school, it took a while to figure out what the teacher really meant when she explained to the whole class the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. I was too busy reading ahead in my literary reader, ... Read More