Lee Allen Howard's Blog, page 15
January 30, 2013
Movie Review: House of Wax (2005)
I’m a little late to the show for this one, but if a movie fuels my imagination, even if it’s eight years old, I’ll review it. I felt this way about HOUSE OF WAX, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and released in 2005.
HOUSE OF WAX
Synopsis: Six friends are traveling to a football game. They camp out for the night and plan to continue driving the next morning. But after discovering car trouble, two of them accept a stranger’s ride into the small, out-of-the-way town of Ambrose, where the main attr...
January 26, 2013
How Arnzstigation Set Me Free
When I was earning my master’s in Writing Popular Fiction at Seton Hill University, professor of dark literature extraordinaire Michael A. Arnzen was my mentor while I wrote my thesis novel, DEATH PERCEPTION.
Besides being a terrific teacher with a great sense of humor, Mike is super creative in supporting the careers of fledgling writers. In his critique of DEATH PERCEPTION, I’ll never forget one suggestion he made about protagonist Kennet Singleton. Mike pointed out that he could get revenge...
January 24, 2013
The Next Big Thing: Death Perception by Lee Allen Howard
I’m participating in a blog hop called The Next Big Thing, about my latest work in progress. I’ve got other things in the work, but here’s what’s up next…
What is the title of your next book/work?
DEATH PERCEPTION. You can read the summary and the first chapter here.
Where did the idea come from for the book/work?
Where it came from, I’m not certain and am a bit afraid to know! But the original idea was that a young man can discern the cause of death of those he cremates–by toasting marshmallows...
January 23, 2013
Interviewed in the Madhouse
Horror girl Stephanie Wytovich interviews me at her site, JOIN ME IN THE MADHOUSE.
Go read the exchange and then let me know what your prognosis is…
INCOMING PATIENT: LEE ALLEN HOWARD
January 22, 2013
Coming Soon: A MIRACLE OF RARE DESIGN by Mike Resnick
The best way to learn about an alien species is not only to live among them, but to become them in both physical form and function. But could a human really learn to think like an alien, and at what cost to his humanity?
Journalist and adventurer Xavier William Lennox becomes obsessed with the rituals of the Fireflies, an alien culture of gold-skinned inhabitants living on the planet Medina. When he gets too close to their mysterious society, he’s captured, tortured, and banished for his curio...
January 19, 2013
Wordsmithereens: Undangling Your Participles
Wordsmithereens is a whenever-I-feel-like-it column where I blast the hell out of some nitpicky topic pertaining to diction, editing, self-editing, or writing. Why? Because I’m anal-retentive with a hyphen, that’s why.
Many fledgling writers have trouble with dangling participles. But before you can undangle them, you must recognize them in your writing.
What’s a Participle?
A participle is an action verb that acts like an adjective and usually ends in “-ing.” For instance, “write” is the infini...
January 16, 2013
Guest Post: MIAMI SPY GAMES: The Progression of the Story by Armand Rosamilia
Every story, no matter how long or short, begins with a kernel of an idea. I like to call it the What If? moment. With MIAMI SPY GAMES the basic idea presented to me was, “What if there was a weapon that could turn people into zombies?”
That was what was pretty much dropped into my lap when Hobbes End Publishing came to me with the idea to write this story. I love a challenge, and when they gave me the three main characters and not much about them, I was even happier. I was allowed to create...
January 13, 2013
Movie Review: Chained
“Brilliant!” That was my exclamation after watching CHAINED (2012), dark crime thriller directed by Jennifer Lynch (daughter of David Lynch).
Bob is a taxi-driving serial killer who abducts women, rapes and kills them, and buries them on his property. But one day he picks up Sarah and her nine-year-old son Tim. After doing his schtick on Mom, Bob raises the boy as his own. “Rabbit,” as Bob calls him, must do as he says: eat his leftovers, clean the house, and bury the dead.
Eamon Farren as “Rab...
January 8, 2013
Book Review: HELLBENDER by Jason Jack Miller
4.8/5.0 stars
“It’s Johnny Cash with a fistful of copperheads singing the devil right back to hell.”
HELLBENDER, sophomore novel by Jason Jack Miller, is as much a sensory experience as his first in the Murder Ballads and Whiskey Series, THE DEVIL AND PRESTON BLACK. Instead of Morgantown, HELLBENDER is set in the mountains of West Virginia, and with Miller’s descriptive skill, I got to experience the flora and fauna of the Appalachians: the sights, sounds, and sme...
January 3, 2013
Wordsmithereens: Cut Unnecessary Details
Wordsmithereens is a whenever-I-feel-like-it column where I blast the hell out of some nitpicky topic pertaining to diction, editing, self-editing, or writing. Why? Because I’m anal-retentive with a hyphen, that’s why.
We can overwrite, giving more information than necessary. But sometimes we also belabor the obvious by being unnecessarily specific. This post is about cutting unnecessary details.
Consider this paragraph from a first draft:
Charlie turned off the ignition, opened the driver’s sid...
