I thought they’d done it. I really, really did. The show started off great, with a solid, pseudo-scientific explanation for why these super-powered people had begun to appear, a conspiracy for them to fight, and a tight-knit plot leading up to a great first-season finish that held the promise of blowing the world wide open. … More Worldbuilding 201: Getting Even.
In keeping with Mark William’s Girls Just Want To Have Fun month, I’ve decided to put up the brainiest girl of them all, Agatha Heterodyne. . . . This is Agatha. . . . Agatha is the creation of Phil and Kaja Foglio, a demented artist/writer team responsible for reimaginings of Angel and the Ape … More Brains are Beautiful
I was just digging into some serious re-writing when the latest post at The King of Elfland’s Second Cousin popped up. In it, Chris rhapsodizes about the Periodic Table of Storytelling, probably one of the funniest and most creative plotting tools I’ve ever seen. (See Chris’ blog for full-sized picture.) I first encountered it myself, … More Trope: a metaphor, example, literary device, picture–and maybe whatever else the writer wants it to mean..
Awhile ago someone asked me where I got my ideas for Wearing the Cape, and I had to think about it. Not that I didn’t know the answer, but it’s a bit of a story. Comics came first, of course, but the core idea–a socially realistic superhero world–came from a game. A role-playing game (RPG) … More World Building 101: Start with a system.
I have noticed that some of the best fantasy stories rely on an interesting device; they start out rather mundanely, in a mundane setting with a rather mundane though interesting protagonist. Then they move the protagonist–and the reader–into the fantastic realm where most of the adventure takes place. Sometimes the move is sudden, a matter … More The Wardrobe Door
I’ve learned I’ll do anything to avoid writing. Like more research; after enjoying Power Down (see previous post) I pulled out some of my old comics, looking for the ones that I enjoyed the most. One short series–not so old–that stood out in my collection is Wildguard, by Todd Nauck. That’s not Wildguard; that’s the … More Wild Times
It has been a long time since a book kept me up at night. But Kindles make impulse-buys so easy, and what started as research ended after midnight when my eyes rebelled and I had to stop. Some background: I have recently self-published my first novel, Wearing the Cape, on Amazon for the Kindle. WtC … More A Kindle Can Ruin Your Night.
David Palmer sucks. Why? Because back in 1984 he came out of nowhere with Emergence, possibly the best First Novel ever, followed it with a second novel (Threshold, almost as good), then disappeared from the face of the earth. Well-meaning people mistakenly wrote obituaries. Decades later, just the rumor that a sequel to the story … More It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine…)
Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson were serious writers of serious sci-fi, so I’ve always wondered if somebody lost a bet, or if they just got way too drunk at a convention and talked each other into it. The result was perhaps the funnest alien race ever. Picture teddy bears. Inhumanly tough and strong teddy … More Imitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Flattery.
Silverlock is not so much a lost book as one that is constantly being rediscovered. John Meyers Meyers wrote it back in 1949, so this is a fantasy untouched by JRR Tolkien’s genre-redefining work. But it’s been touched by everything else. Like Robinson Crusoe, Silverlock opens with a shipwreck. The wrecked ship is the Naglafar–named … More Adventures in the Commonwealth.
Marion G. Harmon, A Writer in Vegas. 