Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 57
November 6, 2019
Have a novel in you?
Don’t cripple it by trying to write it in a month! Even the venerable NY Times (yes, the newspaper that often has its names attached to “bestseller” in some arcane and suspicious indication of quality) bought into NaNoWriMo, or “National Novel Writing Month.” The challenge (and it belies the name a bit): Write a novel in a month. The best I can say about that nonsense is that it might motivate someone to get started writing. The worst? Continue on.
Most of you know I’ve written a few novels. I’v...
November 5, 2019
The influence of Hamlet…
As I was watching PBS’s “Shakespeare Uncovered” analysis of Hamlet a while ago, I realized how much that play has influenced writers. Revenge is a common plot device, and often, like in Hamlet, it doesn’t turn out well for the avenger. Hamlet’s moralistic dilemma so aptly portrayed by Shakespeare (for example, Hamlet can kill his uncle in one scene, but refrains from doing so when the uncle is praying, thinking that will send his father’s assassin to heaven instead of hell). But in other works, protagonis...
October 31, 2019
My reading and writing days…
H A P P Y H A L L O W E E N!
There will be ghosts and goblins cruising around your neighborhoods tonight. Please be careful. And, if you’re adults heading off to a party, be responsible: Don’t drink and drive.
***
I was already a mature adult when computers, computing, and the internet came into being and began to dominate our lives. I remember that “blog” originally was an abbreviation for “bio log.” They often took the form of someone going through their waking day, describing everything that happen...
October 30, 2019
Book review of Daniella Bernett’s Lead Me into Danger…
(Daniella Bernett, Lead Me into Danger, Black Opal Books, 2015.)
Readers of this blog know that I love British-style mysteries. Here’s one that’s a bit different, a tightly written international mystery/suspense novel. Lead Me into Danger will keep the reader guessing.
Emmeline Kirby is an investigative reporter for the Times who has a bit of personal baggage, both in her family history and in her relationship with jewel thief Gregory Longdon. As in any Christie novel, she becomes involved in a murder mystery. The plot is cle...
novel.Interviewing mystery author Daniella Bernett…
Steve: It’s my pleasure today to interview author Daniella Bernett, author of the Emmeline Kirby/Gregory Longdon mystery series. (A review of the first book, Lead Me Into Danger, follows.) Her sleuths are unusual. Emmeline is an investigative journalist while Gregory is a jewel thief. They’re both British, and together with a Scotland Yard detective, readers will find an unusual trio that makes her books fit nicely into one of my favorite subgenres, British mysteries. So please welcome Daniella to my blog. Why d...
October 29, 2019
Writing for Hollywood…
Screenplays—who’s writing them? I’ve often said in these blog pages that many good movies are adaptations of a good book into a screenplay. They can also come from screenplays where the author(s) are good at storytelling. But can a screenplay be written by someone who can’t write?
Apparently—and those screenplays often lead to bad movies, ones without much of a plot and with characters who seem to be wooden caricatures of humanity. And a movie is often just an audiovisual spectacle without themes o...
October 24, 2019
Themes we need to see…
Both authors and publishers seem to be afraid of serious themes in these days of political correctness and fear of something controversial that internet trolls attack. The #MeToo and anti-cultural appropriation troops strike fear in everyone about saying anything that might set them off. Anti-vaxers even resort to calling new vaccine laws racist. Everyone has a cause, and many are fanatic about their causes. My two main causes are gun and climate control. 90% of Americans want reasonable gun...
October 23, 2019
ABC shorts: Fish Story…
Fish Story
Copyright 2019, A. B. Carolan
[Note from Steve: A. B. Carolan obviously thinks “young adult literature” applies to ETs as well.]
The Humans called it a meteor. It was our shuttle. The ocean dissipated its kinetic energy, but the water entry at high speed cracked the hull. We were forced to use escape pods. My father, mother, and I ejected into a strange, alien ocean. I never saw them again.
The pods, designed for deep space, weren’t designed for maneuverability in an aquatic environment, and the viscous s...
October 22, 2019
Excess baggage…
After I have a manuscript (MS) ready—a first draft if you like, although my first draft is my last because I content edit as I go—I self-edit, which is copy editing done before I ever send the MS to editors and beta-readers. (There are additional editing steps if I submit the MS to a publisher.) For my self-editing, I think algorithmically. I know my own gaffes fairly well, so I search for them.
A lot of those gaffes can be called excess baggage. While they’re reflections of my bad writing habits,...
October 17, 2019
Breaking the timeline…
You’ve seen it in movies: Some action scene or a murder starts things off in a mystery or thriller film, or a heated verbal battle between two lovers that makes you wonder why they’re together in a rom-com. Then on the screen some words like “two weeks earlier” or “a year ago” appear. The film industry didn’t event this—it’s been used in books for a long time.
Such scenes are the “hook” that writing tutors talk about ad infinitum. They make the moviegoer or reader ask, “Why is this happening?” Dep...
