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Showing posts 131 to 140 (163 total)

Jane Austen Didn't Write Romances (August 22, 2013)

Why are all of the movies about Jane Austen and her works so terrible? Well, for one thing, they're all slapdash productions of half-baked ideas, as Hollywood producers rush to capitalize on the trend. But for another, I think people fundamentally misunderstand the author herself. More »

Interpreting Surveys (August 7, 2013)

Yesterday morning, when I accessed my reading list of blogs for the first time in weeks, I found a bit of hubbub around a survey performed by Marie Force, a bestselling romance author. She surveyed 2,951 readers about what influences them to buy books. At first glance, the results seem to be encouraging to self-publishers. More »

Disappointed Recycling Bin (April 30, 2013)

Yesterday my little MLS-holding self spent the afternoon taking pictures of pretty flowers for a webpage. I stopped in the library basement to rehydrate and found a kindred spirit. I feel your pain, bottle. More »

Writing Novels Like Screenplays (April 29, 2013)

Yesterday I discovered that my local library subscribes to eBooks through Indiana Digital Media, which is powered through Overdrive. I went to town browsing all of the books I normally wouldn't look twice at if I had to pay for them through Amazon: horror novels, paperback romances, sci-fi and thrillers. More »

Americans in International Fiction (April 22, 2013)

One or two times, I've set stories in countries I've never visited and given characters English dialects I haven't heard in person. The results are embarrassing. No matter how pure your intentions, when you try to write about something you don't know well, falling back on stereotypes is inevitable. More »

Timeless Classics (April 21, 2013)

Timeless classics are so called because their plots and characters resonate with audiences decades or even centuries after they were published. But even "timeless" stories are inextricably rooted in the age and place in which they were written. More »

Mystery Tropes I Wish Would Die (April 4, 2013)

I've always loved reading mysteries. Not only to they offer fun puzzles and a bit of mental exercise, but they're very reassuring. The detective/crime/mystery genre offers a dependable catharsis—no matter what injustices the universe throws at us, the truth will always come out. More »

Organic vs. Inorganic Conflict (February 1, 2013)

For the past few weeks, I've been reading James Scott Bell's Conflict & Suspense on the recommendation of Lynn Viehl, the author of Paperback Writer. It's a short book, but it's jam-packed with advice that makes you stop and think. More »

Guns in Fiction Land (December 29, 2012)

When people are afraid of something, they tend to worship it. They obsess and they fantasize and they focus all of their fears and hopes into that one terrifying object. Let's take the most basic fear shared by everything in the kingdom Animalia: death. More »

The Romance of Rape (December 16, 2012)

There's a terrible disconnect between societal attitudes towards rape in the real world and rape in fiction. More »