Steven M. Moore's Blog, page 70
March 7, 2019
Plot vs. characterization…
Some authors put plot before characterization; others reverse that. I always ask the question in my interviews with other authors. It’s a trick question, you see. You have character-driven plots and plots that aren’t. For the first, the author has to make sure the characters (even if there’s only one) are well-developed and interesting enough. Note that I didn’t add “…to support the plot.” Their development and the interest that generates among readers carries the plot forward, but it can wor...
March 6, 2019
Reviews of recent books…
I write reviews all the time for other authors’ books, but I’m not very lucky in receiving them for my own books. Here’s a few for some recent books.
A reviewer of Goin’ the Extra Mile says…
“WOW! What an exciting story from Steven Moore. A total page turner from the start. There are no doubts who you cheer for and who you want to lose in this exciting espionage story.
BACKGROUND: While in the CIA [actually she’s an ex-USN Master-at-Arms], Mary Jo was sent to reclaim two MECHs (“Mechanicall...
March 5, 2019
It was a dark and stormy night…
Let’s take this clichéd weather phrase as segue to the following question: How important is weather in fiction? As usual, the answer is: It depends.
Sometimes apocalyptic weather is like a main character: tornados, hurricanes, blizzards, volcanoes raining down ash and pumace, and other dangerous events often become villains in thrillers. I still remember from my three-year-old book reading experiences a story about a little red fire engine who had to perform in the middle of an ice storm. Yea...
March 1, 2019
Movie Reviews #71: Green Book…
Green Book. Peter Farrelly, dir. Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) is a classically trained black pianist who is the lead in a trio based in NYC that plays classic jazz and stylized popular tunes. He lives over Carnegie Hall back during the sixties. He wants Frank “Tony Lip” Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen) to be his driver on the trio’s tour south. Tony thinks Shirley means Atlantic City, but the pianist corrects him: he means the Deep South, not a good place for a black to be in the sixties.
Thi...
February 28, 2019
Writing companions…
Readers often want to know how authors write those books they love. It’s a common question in interviews. In my list of questions for interviewees, I approach the question sideways and treat it indirectly. As both a reader and writer, though, I’m interested in the answers if only because I want to compare myself to other authors.
So writers, do you sit in Starbucks with your laptop and sip on a bad cup of coffee to do your writing? Do you have classical or rock music playing in the background...
February 27, 2019
Book review of The Red and the Blue…
The Red and the Blue. Steve Kornacki, author (ECCO-Harper Collins, 2018). This book’s subtitle is a useful addition: The 1990s and the Birth of Political Tribalism. For those not yet born during that time (millennials, for example), it’s a must read if only to see that the current craziness isn’t just some kind of spontaneously generated creature spawned in the rotting vegetation of DC’s political swamps. The thesis here is that Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich created America’s bitter politica...
February 26, 2019
Inspiration vs. plagiarism…
These are two extremes. Plagiarism has a legal definition that’s changed over time, and the crime has been punished at different levels. But it’s at one end of a linear spectrum with inspiration at the other. Authors are often inspired by other authors and their books, but actually copying their prose seems infrequent.
But consider the case of Daniel Mallory (pseudonym A. J. Finn), the fellow who wrote the bestseller The Woman in the Window. The plot has similarities with Gone Girl, The Girl...
February 22, 2019
Movie Reviews #70…
Cold Pursuit. Hans Peter Moland, dir. Based on Hans’s Swedish film, this version channels the movies No Country for Old Men and Kill Bill—brutal violence plus black humor. Liam Neeson plays Nels Coxman, a snowplow driver who wins a “Man of the Year” award in a Colorado ski town. His son is killed by a drug lord.
Neeson’s promo efforts for this film led to the discussion of revenge that has created a lot of polemic in social media: Coxman looks for his son’s killer, and Neeson linked this to s...
February 21, 2019
Numbers…
Writers often worry about them: how many words did I write today? How many books did I sell this month? How many reviews have my books received? Even, how many “likes” or retweets did I get on Twitter?
Science is all about numbers, and business now emphasizes them too. In a sense, econ 101 for publishing doesn’t differ from econ 101 in general. Metrics! Everything is about metrics these days.
I contend that this focus on numbers is antithetical to good writing. We writers shouldn’t worry abou...
February 20, 2019
Mini-Reviews of Books #40…
[Note from Steve: While these reviews are often lengthier than what you’ll find on Amazon, they’re shorter than those I’ve written for Bookpleasures or archived in the “Book Reviews” category of this blog, so please also refer there for reviews of books you might want to read.]
Pure Gold. Theodore P. Durch, author. (Black Opal Books, 2018.) Joe Gold is an ex-cop turned PI. Here the reader can follow three successive cases as he morphs from a deadbeat to a famous PI, accompanied by Jenny, a De...
