Storytellersunplugged

I've been trying to write this novel for a year now. It's the first in an original, young adult, fantasy series that's been burning a hole in the dark corners of my brain for far longer than that. But I just can't seem to get around to it, and it bugs the hell out of me. Since I'm a full-time writer (and game designer, but that's a post for another board, I think), you might ask what the problem is. After all, don't ... Read More

By Justine Musk   This is me at nine years old, trailing my mother into the record store, a fairly unusual place for her to be.  We were in Lansdowne Place, one of the big shopping structures springing up along the outskirts of town and steadily sucking the breath from its center, where the other mall, Peterborough Square, hung on for dear life, and where a huge stuffed bear towered over the sidewalk and regularly scared the bejesus out of me (when I wasn’t ... Read More

For the files of murder mystery and horror story writers. Benny was feeling luckier than he had ever felt before as he carefully picked his way through dark woods skirting a long-abandoned logging road. After weeks of effort to gain the trust of a major drug dealer, he was about to meet and make a buy from one of the dealer’s runners. The returns he would get when he distributed the drugs would finance a legitimate business he had been planning to establish ... Read More

--by Bev Vincent I’ve written about this subject before in On Writing Horror as part of an essay on marketing myths. However, I thought a real-life example might help drive a message home. Four years ago, I read a call for submissions for a royalty-only e-anthology. If there’s anything you should run from faster than a royalty-only anthology, it’s a royalty-only e-anthology. “Royalty only” means you don’t get paid up front for your story. You are promised a pro-rated percentage of a fraction (typically ... Read More

There are people who can’t help but be different, and people who choose to be different, and people who live in fear of being different. If you’re a writer, that third category is a killer. In fact, it’s a killer for just about anything that isn’t sedentary, unimaginative or uninspiring. I’m writing about ways of thinking, of course, and let me just call that fear category S3S for Stage 3 Suffocation. Excitement and discovery don’t happen much by ... Read More

I was involved in a message board discussion the other day about how I set up a series bible. For those who aren’t familiar with the term, a series bible is a summary of all the information you need to write multiple books (or television shows or films or what-have-you) in the same setting/story world. Since I do the same thing for my stand alone novels as I do for series work, I thought I’d share that process with you ... Read More

by John B. Rosenman  Literature comes in many forms.  There’s traditional print, electronic formats, graphic novels, cartoons, hypertext . . .  I could go on.  But the form I’d like to talk about is oral storytelling, or more exactly, memorization of literary texts and recitations in front of an audience. Lately I had a harrowing experience with such an event.  My Department Head thought upper-class students should memorize and recite lines from exemplary literary works.  For my junior level English lit class, she required ... Read More

Frank Wydra November 13, 2007 Though it is five o’clock somewhere in the world, it has not yet reached Martini time at the Gonquin. Yet, here I sit, alone, sipping a latte, waiting for the others to arrive, despondent over a disquieting thought that has forced itself upon me of late. Al sensing my melancholy keeps his distance. He is wise. Edgar and Bram are the first to arrive, arms linked, chattering to each other, as if the world had not changed. ... Read More

The Anatomy of a Scene So, I have a novel coming out. I know, I know, it’s a bit shocking, what with me being a novelist and all, but there’s a point to my statement of the obvious. The point is simply that after having edited the damned thing approximately a trillion times, I decided to actually READ it again. Not the whole thing, just a couple of chapters to see if the prerequisite parts of the story were actually there.  That in turn ... Read More

by Bill Lindblad Anyone satisfied with the World Horror Convention, raise their hands. If you raised your hand, you've got a lot to learn. I've been to more conventions, large and small, than I can count. The roll includes Worldcons, World Fantasy Conventions, World Horror Conventions, Bouchercon, and even one RWA (Romance Writers of America) conference. They all have a different flavor to them, and that's pleasant, although it can lead to confusion... for example, assuming that the casual flavor of ... Read More