A line of dialogue is not clear enough if you need to explain how it’s said.
~ Elmore Leonard
Zeno’s Werewolf
A very short story.
Zeno’s Werewolf
The moon is full at last, and I’m halfway to being a werewolf.
Now I’m half again there.
And again, halfway as close.
Too late. The moon’s no longer full.
The creative imperative
Sometimes a title comes to mind and I think, I really want to read that story. I guess I’d better write it.
Only you…
“If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.”
~ Toni Morrison
I think about this every time I get a new story idea. NOBODY is going to write that story but me. Nobody else could.
So many story ideas, so little time…
If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.
~ Toni Morrison
I think about this every time I get a new story idea. NOBODY is going to write that story but me. Nobody else could.
Doomed, I tell you. DOOMED.
This is a writer’s imagination at work. Someone in real life mentions a happy adventure coming up, and you think, “Ah! In fiction, this would be a foreshadowing of DOOM for this unsuspecting character!” And you start counting down their last happy hours.
Killing your characters
J.K. Rowling on Twitter:
“It’s the 16th anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts. I’m having a moment’s silence over my keyboard. I hated killing some of those people.”
There was an article where the writer said “You guys! Despite cavalierly killing Lupin, Tonks, Fred Weasley, Colin Creevey, Lavender Brown, Severus Snape and dozens more, she does have feelings!”
SO wrong. Rowling didn’t cavalierly kill those characters; characters she had spend years developing. But there couldn’t be a Battle of Hogwarts where only the bad guys died. The stakes at the. Battle of Hogwarts were high. For none of the good guys to die would have been shallow, artificial, and unconvincing.
Fair warning to you: I’m writing. I will write characters I hope you like, and then bad things will happen to some of them. I won’t want bad things to happen to them, but if you know some of the characters are the author’s little darlings, living charmed lives, there goes the suspense, the drama. It might still be interesting, but it won’t be as deeply engaging as it could be.
I, Reboot
I am working on a story called “I, Reboot” about a new robot line which threatens mankind until they get their weekly software update.
But wouldn’t it be loverly?
Over on Twitter, I said I was going to do a rewrite of Pulp Fiction, write in Professor Henry Higgins, and call it Pulp Diction.
But I probably won’t. Probably.
Duplicitous
Line from the story I’m working on:
“He raised his arm. There was a hatchet in his hand. Something told me this was a guy who would lie about what had happened to the cherry tree.”