Last week we discussed two issues common in modern writing: failure to take it seriously and disregard for realism. Today we’re continuing the topic with another issue endemic to the failures of popular media, particularly films and TV shows. We
If you’ve followed popular culture over the past few years, even at a remove, you will likely have noticed a paucity of truly excellent stories on the television screen (actually your computer, but that’s neither here nor there), particularly of
Writing a story down is hard, but it’s only half the battle. After drafting comes editing, which is a whole skill on its own. I can’t tell you everything I know about editing, let alone all that could be known.
The archetypical ‘pure evil’ race (no, not that kind of race) in fantasy is the orc, as inspired by (ripped off from) Tolkien, often by way of D&D. If you’re interested in writing fantasy, you almost certainly have some thoughts
Stories can have some wild, wild premises. When it comes to the beginning of the story, the catalyst if not the chronological beginning, we’ll accept a coincidence that would break the entire story if it were the hinge of the
Last week we looked at a scene from The Princess Bride. This week we’re going for something a bit more brutal, much less comedic, certainly more gory. This won’t include a review of the movie the scene is from- I
What does a fight scene do, besides the obvious of ‘stop one person, allow another person past,’ tournament style? I could say that I’ll be answering that question, but honestly, it’s too big. Fight scenes come in all shapes, colors,
Over Christmas break, devoid of either college or work, I did what I had long forsworn, in part from self-perservation, to do: I wrote a piece of fanfiction. Now, it’s not the only fanfiction I’ve written (this poem is based
In a deviation from my preferred modus operandi, I’ll be using the term ‘aesthetics’ under a definition I prefer not to. Whereas I’ve tended to define ‘aesthetic’ as ‘relating to beauty’ or ‘relating to coherence on all levels in reflection
The difficulty of defining poetry is in drawing a line which keeps everything poetic on one side, everything prose on the other. It can’t be alliteration or rhyme or meter or syllabification, because for every one of those, I can