Archive for February, 2006
Pardon the Interruption
One of the sad truths of writing is that one cannot simply write.That’s the high school lit class fantasy, of course – someday you’llwrite the Great American Telepathic Talking Horse Novel which willsell millions, make you rich and famous. This novel will, of course,be so well written that editors will be magically drawn by itsgoodness [...]
Literacy
by Janet Berliner
As writers, shouldn’t we want everyone to read?
A whole lot of years ago, I got into a bunch of trouble giving schoolbooks to the son of a woman of color in South Africa. Not satisfied, I gave schoolbooks to a girl of thirteen who was working as a nanny for people I knew [...]
The Filth and the Fury
THE FILTH AND THE FURY
“Why do you write such filth? Nobody wants to read that.”
So said my mother after reading the opening chapters of my first novel, The Unwelcome Child. Initially I was perplexed. What filth? I hadn’t realized I’d written any. Okay, there’s some cursing. But [...]
Stop and Spell the Roses
– Jeffrey Thomas
I have respect for Elmore Leonard. Let me say that first. But man…I don’t have much respect for rules. (See Joe Nassise’s essay of February 15, dealing with Leonard’s ten rules of writing.)
The first rule of Write Club is: there are no rules.
How dismal the reading experience would be, if every voice were [...]
Other Worlds Part 1: The Far Seeing Eye
My apologies to Mr. Joseph Nassise, my fellow Storytellers, and to the regular Storytellers Unplugged readers, for failing to provide last month’s essay. This time of year is always crazy for me at work, but I can’t blame it all on work. This time of year also depresses me, and sometimes the will to write [...]
Of Night Riders and Sheep Lice
by Richard Steinberg
“We exponents of horror do much better than those Method actors. We make the unbelievable believable. More often than not, they make the believable unbelievable,” Vincent Price
We live in a too real world where ten-year-olds put babies in microwave ovens, where teenagers discover an injured man in a vacant lot and do nothing [...]
Write What You Want to Know
By Jeff Mariotte
I can’t remember which writer it was who said (or wrote) “I write the books I’d like to read, if only someone else would write them” (paraphrasing here; since I can’t remember who it was, I certainly can’t remember the exact words. But that was the meat of it).
It’s a good approach, though, [...]
Notes from the Conference
by Justine Musk
Just back from the Southern California Writer’s Conference, where I led workshops and said things like, “You need to take us inside the physical experience of transforming into a giant puddle of metallic goo.”
After listening to people read and discuss, and chiming in thoughts of my own while wearing what I hope [...]
Friendship, Writing and the Internet
By Weston Ochse
I was thinking the other day about my friends.
Not those people I went to high school with, or old army buddies, but the friends I’ve made in the writing profession. It’s amazing really how close you can get to someone without spending any real time with them, and on some occasions, never [...]
Gnats
I’d wager to say that developing a high concept premise is something all writers struggle with from time to time. Let’s face it—it’s not easy to boil down a four hundred page novel to twenty-five words or less. As difficult as it is, however, there’s nothing more valuable than having those precious few words readily [...]
