Here’s today’s exercise: If you have not yet watched Avatar: The Last Airbender, go to Netflix and watch it right now. We’ll wait. Actually, if you have watched it, take this time to watch it again. It’s definitely worth a repeat viewing. Okay, now we’re all refreshed on the awesomeness that is Aang and the…
An agent asked me at the end of last year, “Do you have any sword and sorcery?” I love sword and sorcery. Okay, I love Conan. I have extolled the greatness that is He-Man and Thundarr the Barbarian here before and they’re both just rip-offs of Conan. If you say sword and sorcery, I think…
Have you seen Veronica Mars? Let’s assume you have. If you haven’t, go watch it so my assumption will be correct. You can thank me later. Okay, now that we’re all up to speed, who is one of the best characters on the show? Keith, the dad, played by Enrico Colantoni. If I could rent…
Suzanne Johnson posted today on Roni Loren’s writing blog, Fiction Groupie1. Suzanne is discussing picking names for your characters. This is a topic relevant to EVERYONE and a particular challenge to fantasy authors who so often create cultures from the ground up and can’t name their protagonist Joe despite how awesome people named Joe are.…
I am not anti-social. In fact, I love being the center of attention. I have wanted to be the storyteller since I was five, lying about the size of the frog I caught1. The trick is, there are a lot of social situations where I cannot be the center of attention, and in those cases…
My friend Luke introduced me to Penny Arcade many years ago and it didn’t click. I didn’t have an X-Box and my Playstation 1 was gathering dust. I didn’t get any of their jokes. But one day in 2005 we’re hanging out in his room and his screensaver is a composite of his favorite PA…
I was watching an episode of Castle recently (in itself not surprising since it’s the only show on right now where I watch weekly [Psych being the other]) and I made a startling realization. Nathan Fillion is playing the same character he played in Firefly. I will not explain to you what Firefly is. You…
The scenes I have the most trouble writing are men posturing. I blame fantasy for this. It is one of the most used scenes in classic fantasy when two alpha males begin barking at each other and bumping chests. It also reads like the stereotypical nerd living in his parents’ basement writing the hero he…
The subject line says it all. No one likes a dumb protagonist. We accept flawed characters and we accept that situations can be shrouded in mystery or so layered that a character cannot comprehend it on spec. They need time to peel back the layers or let the whole thing soak in before it finally…
A scenario. Your character has: Given up professional and post-graduate dreams to aid a friend Moved to a new city to aid said friend Then been let down by said friend Which resulted in the loss of your character’s entire circle of friends, who had really been said friend’s friends Only speaks to his ex-fiancee…