M.D. Presley's Blog, page 5

The Conan Drinking Game (The barbarian, not late night host)

I have a penchant for creatingvery specific drinking games, and thought I'd turn my attention to Howard's famous barbarian. While the Conan drinking game can be played while watching the movies, it's meant with more a literary bent.So take a drink when:Conan's thews are mentionedHe is compared to a pantherCrom gets a shoutoutx2 drinks if Crom is depicted as benevolent/ helpful (yeah... right)Conan freaks out at the mention of magicThere's an allusion to another author's work (Lovecraft spring...

The First Fiddle

[excerpt from Dobra Tales and Lore, collected by David Hooper]Long ago when glass was still new, there were two brothers, the older one industrious and the younger a layabout. The layabout would do no work, even as his brother labored every day as a woodsman. Neither could take a wife, the layabout because he was too lazy to earn one, and the woodsman because he was too busy working since his brother would not.But the women of the village desired the woodsman, particularly Mara, who lived in...

The Three Components of Fantasy Magic

Many fans of Fantasy and Science Fiction bemoan the fact the two share the same aisle in the bookstore, and though both genres share much of the same DNA within the realm of speculative fiction, they are utterly distinct. For the most part it boils down to that Fantasy usually takes place in a world that could never exist, while Science Fiction takes place in a world that does not exist quite yet. That said, today we’re going to take the fiction out of Sci-Fi and examine Fantasy magic with ju...

Treatments and Bibles: Screenplay Techniques Adapted For the Novel

The motley lot that we writers are, there’s a pretty massive split in opinions on outlines. Writers either adhere to them or abhor them, and there’s very little middle ground between. Myself, I’m a huge fan of the outline, and always employ at least one before a rough draft. But long before I start an outline, I begin a treatment, which will then hopefully morph into a bible.TreatmentsBefore we tackle ourwriting bible study, let’s first focus on the treatment, which is basically 8-15 page sum...

Ezria and the Giant

[From the Biba Sacara Book 7, Chapter 12]Now the people of Yestia turned against the will of Sol and gathered together an army against their rightful king Tomaz. And so Tomaz called out to his people, saying Let all men of age come forth that we might repel these usurpers.Among Tomaz’ subjects was the shepherd Cor who obeyed his king’s call and gathered his sons to him to depart for the Philo army. Cor also had a daughter named Ezria who desired to do the will of Sol along with her brothers....

Compelling Characters and Ugly Babies: Screenplay Techniques Adapted For the Novel

It’s kind of funny* that we’ve spent the last three sessions on structure and are just now getting to characters even though characters are the most important aspect of a story. They are not only the proxy through which your audience experiences that wonderful plot you’ve planned out, but also the living, breathing soul of your story.I am well aware that the actual importance of characters is debatable, as any summer blockbuster will demonstrate. But such blockbusters can get away with a dear...

Screenplay Techniques Adapted For the Novel: Compelling Characters and Ugly Babies

It’s kind of funny* that we’ve spent the last three sessions on structure and are just now getting to characters even though characters are the most important aspect of a story. They are not only the proxy through which your audience experiences that wonderful plot you’ve planned out, but also the living, breathing soul of your story.I am well aware that the actual importance of characters is debatable, as any summer blockbuster will demonstrate. But such blockbusters can get away with a dear...

The Boy Swallowed By The Sea

[excerpt from Dobra Tales and Lore, collected by David Hooper]Long ago when glass was still new, a ship crashed against the shore and sank, none aboard surviving. The ship belonged to a king, and therefore carried great treasures that were spilled upon the ocean floor.The next morning all the children of the nearby village swam out to the wreck and discovered gold coins and gems of a thousand hues intermingled with the bodies of the dead and drowned. So they collected the treasures by the han...

Structure and Painting On a Broad Canvass: Screenplay Techniques Adapted For the Novel

So here we are for our third installment discussing structure, which is kind of ironic after the fact because this original post devolved into a discussion of effective versus ineffective trilogies. And after I realized my original opening had ballooned into an entirely different discussion, I decided to shelve it so we can talk about structure and painting on a broader canvass.I wish I could say I came up with the painting on a broader canvass metaphor to describe television series, but I cr...

Screenplay Techniques Adapted For the Novel: Structure and Painting On a Broad Canvass

So here we are for our third installment discussing structure, which is kind of ironic after the fact because this original post devolved into a discussion of effective versus ineffective trilogies. And after I realized my original opening had ballooned into an entirely different discussion, I decided to shelve it so we can talk about structure and painting on a broader canvass.I wish I could say I came up with the painting on a broader canvass metaphor to describe television series, but I cr...