Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 43
September 2, 2020
Characters’ names…
Parents only have to come up with names a few times, and they often fail miserably. Writers have to do it a lot more; they subsequently have many more times to fail and they often do. Characters’ names are important; they can make a story seem more or less real.
I was lucky my parents didn’t name me Leonard. It invariably would be shortened to Lonnie or Lon, and I was bullied with “Lawn Mower” enough as a kid—why encourage it? I have a rather common last name as it is that maybe indicates I’m at...
September 1, 2020
Op-Ed Pages #14: Vainglorious bastards…
No, this isn’t a review of that awful Brad Pitt movie Inglorious Bastards (tried to watch it, but, like a bad book, I left it after ten minutes—okay, maybe that is a review?). No, I’m talking about that Trump the Chump Reality Show (more fantasy than reality with its lies and vitriol), led by the snake-oil fascist, Donald Trump AKA Il Duce AKA Vainglorious-Bastard-in-Chief and his homophobic sidekick, Brother Pence. (Of course, they’re not bastards in the true sense of the word; Trump had a fath...
August 29, 2020
What a loss!
Chadwick Boseman, RIP. While Thurgood Marshall, Jackie Robinson, and other great historical figures you played would have established you as a great actor and sensitive man, your Black Panther portrayal inspired many. It also became a symbol for what we need to be in these troubling times: Resistant, resolute, and resilient agents for change. The big C often takes young victims and those in the prime of their lives. It’s always sad when it takes anyone. That other big C in our lives right now wi...
August 27, 2020
ABC Shorts: Birth Day…
[Note from Steve: A.B., author of a YA sci-fi mystery series, has been busy working on a new trilogy. He almost has the first book done. I convinced him to take a break and dash off a short story for our readers. This story, like most of his, has an interesting young adult as main character. Enjoy.]
Birth Day
Copyright 2020, A.B. Carolan
He awoke and knew he was surrounded by liquid…wet and slimy stuff that somehow made him feel secure. He was surrounded by walls. He reached out and touched the ...
August 26, 2020
Did she say that?
Writers should always strive to strike a balance in their prose. That’s another way of saying they should follow the Goldilocks Principle: Not too much, not too little, but just enough of narrative, background, characterization, and dialogue. The last seems to be a problem for some, though.
A reader of my very first novel Full Medical (2006) said she loved the dialogue. I have to confess that I don’t pay much attention to it; I just tell my story, and dialogue is part of that telling. After all...
August 25, 2020
Op-Ed Pages #13: Voting by mail…
DeJoy, Il Duce’s campaign donor and sneaky fascist, is having fun doing Narcissus le Grand’s bidding to destroy the USPS as a way of suppressing voting in 2020. [Note added in press: He’s backtracking on Post Office removal of sorting machines and cutting overtime and other things, even before Speaker Pelosi holds his feet to the fire. That’s not enough, of course.] You see, most Good Ole Piranhas know they don’t have enough votes if everyone votes (some mail-in states like Utah see 80% turnout)...
August 20, 2020
News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #184…
Spring is gone. One of many things I loved about Colombia when I lived there was that the climate was just a function of altitude. It could get down to freezing at 8000 feet (Bogotá, the capital—not Bogota, NJ), sweltering heat on the coast (e.g. Cartegena—Colombia has both an Atlantic and Pacific shore), and eternal springtime in coffee country (e.g. Medellín) Here in the Northeast, we have four weeks of nice weather if we’re lucky—two in spring and two in fall. We can take it, though; we’re st...
August 19, 2020
The flow of prose…
It might be hard to believe, but I’m more of a reader than a writer; and, as I read, I often admire other authors’ prose, especially when it flows like a current in the ocean or in a river that can’t be denied. Sometimes I imagine that some great voice is reading it to me—a James Earl Jones, say—with inflections and pauses interlaced with those words from a great story. I suppose that’s a justification for audio books, but my imagination is sufficient.
“Flow” is the key word here. Some authors h...
August 18, 2020
Op-Ed Pages #12: The stupid gene…
Sci-fi novellas can be just as meaningful and probing as novels (most of mine can be found in the list on the “Free Stuff and Contests” web page at his website). One of the best is a classic by C. M. Kornbluth, “The Marching Morons.” This was long before Trump even inherited his millions; in fact, he might have still been in diapers! (For all the crap he spreads, he probably should still be.) Kornbluth’s humorous albeit dystopian story first appeared in Galaxy in 1951 (back when ‘zines weren’t s...
August 13, 2020
Soap operas…
Until I went to Colombia to live for a while (a majority of my life in academia, in fact), I thought soap operas were an American institution (they’re called telenovelas there and elsewhere in Latin America). I’m not a fan. I can’t imagine being a writer for one either. That would be my vision of hell. Most of them are a never-ending story, and their plots are stereotypical, trite, and plodding.
Truth be told, I haven’s watched many of them. In Colombia, they even occurred in the evenings, maybe...
