Category: The Craft
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High Noon
Good morning, friends and followers, and welcome to June. I sincerely hope it finds you well. June 1st, and if I tilt my head just right, I can still catch the lingering scent of last year’s Christmas tree… Now, that’s horror! This month I’m going to continue my series on my writing techniques that I…
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The Hero’s Cage
Those among you who are writers are well aware of the processes involved in character creation. Of course, you need a name and an appearance to build your character around. That’s what your audience will consciously relate to throughout the story. But every character must have quirks, traits, mannerisms, accents, all of which will serve…
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What Inspires Me
When asked what inspires me, I think of the 1985-92 television series Ray Bradbury Theater. During the intro segment, Ray Bradbury walked into an old cage elevator and came out in an office full of memorabilia and toys. He referred to it as his “magician’s toyshop.” All he had to do was look around and…
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The Steampunk Aesthetic
Earlier this month, I was a panelist at the Wild Wild West Steampunk Convention in Tucson, Arizona. During the convention, I had the opportunity to sit on a panel with K.W. Jeter, the man who coined the word “steampunk” in a 1987 letter to Locus Magazine. In the letter, he spoke about fantasies set in…
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Did I Write That?
Let’s talk about the subconscious mind and its effects on writing fiction. I’ve studied and practiced the art of fiction writing for a short time: four years, two months, and four days (4 to 8 hours per day, most days.) That’s a lot of hours. About two years ago I phoned my ‘favourite reader’, and…
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Suspending Death
Only two of my grandparents were alive at my birth and both of them had passed away by the time I was eight years old. My dad suffered a heart attack and died when I was just thirteen. I’d give anything to have more time with any of them. Because of this, it’s perhaps no…
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Writing a good twist.
If you enjoy reading a tale with a good twist, as much as I do, you’ve probably wondered how the writer did it. To me, a good twist changes the story, and I believe readers love it when you do that. Is it possible to “engineer” this kind of a twist repeatably? Maybe it is.…
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A Woman’s Place…
Allow me to update an old proverb for the twenty-first century: A woman’s place is in a horror story. And I suppose it always has been. Back in the beginning, in the days of writers like Poe, Stoker, and their contemporaries, her function was either to die to demonstrate the awful nature of the beast,…
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FEAR ~ My First Day of Teaching
What is fear? What does it mean to be brave, to show courage? Where is the actual courage and bravery if one is not afraid? According to a famous John Wayne quote, “Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.” My favorite quote on this subject is from Eddie Rickenbacker (WW-1, Ace Pilot) “Courage…
Threads that Bind 