edward norton in “primal fear”

One of the things I like in fiction is characters who are not what they seem.

Like all things, this sort of thing can be done well, or badly, or somewhere in between. It can be fascinating and surprising, or cliche and predictable. It can ...

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“Toxic fans” is a bit of a catch cry now and that has seemed to turn into the idea that any fan who is critical of something ...

I know you are probably rolling your eyes right now, thinking I'm about to rant about the Star Wars sequels again. I'm not.

Ok, I might a little, but not in the typical manner. And I'm inviting you to hear me out because this isn't a ...

Unreliable

Last week we talked a little pov basics.

This time, how about we talk the fascinating device called the Unreliable Narrator. For anyone who doesn't know, this type of narration (usually first person in prose, but not necessarily) tells the story in question…but is not necessarily giving ...

Prospector and babysitter, Isaac Alden, know all about the great tragedy that happened in Grand Lake, Colorado, on July 4, 1883. On that day, Bob Plummer was shot to death by Wilson Waldren, who was also a county commissioner. This shooting shows the lack of impulse control of some of ...

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Sometimes your audience just doesn't pick up on the clever symbolism, the hints, the metaphor, the underlying themes and all the artistic cleverness in writing and ...

Have you ever read something and it gave you the “feels?” Something that was so intense that you couldn't help but feel the emotional truth of a fictional moment in time? In many ways that is the highest form of our art, and possibly any art; to communicate an ...

image by Ben Burgraff

When writing a historical fiction, it's very likely that you will need to include some actual historical personalities along with your historically-adept yet fictional cast.

Depicting a historical character is hard enough when there's a general consensus among historians and popular belief about who ...

When I see artists just getting into the craft or people simply looking to improve their art ask for advice, the most omnipresent answer is “practice”; I don't like that answer. It assumes the person asking the question doesn't realize this is obvious, and hasn't already been ...

I had a meeting the other day with a director, who asked me “how do you approach a historical era to keep true to it?” and “how do you keep from being biased?”

I fear that I eclipsed the poor guy with my soap box lectures, but that aside, I ...