Charlie Jane Anders's Blog, page 12

The Vital Lesson Superhero Movies Should Learn From Deadpool

As you read this, The Flash is in theaters, and it's somewhat underperforming, with an opening weekend on par with Black Adam.

As I said on Mastodon a while back, I think this film's marketing over-emphasized cameos and easter eggs rather than letting us know that there's a cool story with characters you care about. (Yet again, Hollywood seems to believe a handful of vocal fans speak for the majority of audiences.) But there's just also the fact that this is a franchise-starter, that needs to i...

"Churn" Might Actually Be a Good Thing for Streaming Services

If you've been reading a lot of coverage of the Streaming Wars [TM] lately, you've probably been hearing about the problem of "churn." Churn, we're told, is a major issue for streaming services, and it's something they're trying to get rid of. But... I'd actually call churn a good thing, and a reasonable way of subscribing to these services.

"Churn" is how the streamers refer to people subscribing for a short time — possibly just a month or two — and then canceling. Even though streaming service...

Revision is the Process of Going from General to Specific

Here's another half-baked essay about revision — since I'm in the middle of revising a novel right now! (If you missed it, last week's essay was also all about the joys of revising fiction.)

I feel as if a big part of revision is going from the general to the specific. My first drafts, at least, always include a lot of details that are kind of fuzzy. Sometimes, a piece of information changes every time it comes up, because I haven't made up my mind yet what the actual real version is, and I'm j...

Revision can be fun. No, really.

Revising a work of fiction is pure agony. This is one of the main tenets of the writer credo (or maybe just a huge meme among writers.) And yeah, it definitely sucks a lot of the time.

But I'm in the middle of revising my next adult novel, which I've vowed to deliver in June -- wish me luck! -- and I found that revision can actually be kind of exhilarating at times. Because instead of thinking of the revision process as fixing my garbage draft, I've started to think of it as unwrapping a series ...

Some (Probably) Worthless Thoughts About Content Moderation

Here's an incredibly crappy fable: Once there was a young person of great distinction who wore the most scintillating pair of kaleidoscopic pants. We'll call them Beb.

Beb would walk through the town, wearing their kaleidoscopic pants that refracted in every color, and friendly townspeople would call out to Beb that they were looking good and that their pants were bringing some much needed color to the town.

But every day, Beb needed to walk through a walled garden to get to school or work (or ...

10 Hot Takes About Star Wars

Hey, everyone. I'm reupping a piece I wrote for Star Wars Day back in 2021, because I figure most of y'all never saw it. I hope the Force is treating you right today!

It's Star Wars Day for another few hours! I know, I'm super late, and everybody else already shot a womp rat, or whatever you do to celebrate this holiday, this morning. But I love Star Wars, and I've had plenty of weird thoughts about it lately. So in the spirit of my earlier post of hot takes about Batman, here are 10 hot takes ...

What People Have Been Saying So Far About Promises Stronger Than Darkness!

It's been a few weeks since Promises Stronger Than Darkness came out, and I have been so chuffed about the response to this one so far. I've never written a sequel before, much less a whole trilogy, and I'm so stoked that folks seem to feel like I've landed the plane here.

I'm v. sorry I skipped doing a newsletter last week, and I haven't gotten around to doing one this week either. It's for a good reason: I'm in the home stretch on finishing my next adult novel! I need to get it to my editor in...

What the Universal Translator Tells Us About Exploring Other Cultures

Science fiction is full of miraculous technology. You've got instantaneous teleportation across great distances, time travel, faster-than-light starships, cryogenic suspension that lasts centuries, and so on. But one of the most fascinating science fiction tropes is the universal translator. (Or, in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the Babel fish.)

On one level, the universal translator seems like no big deal. After all, Google can now translate dozens of different languages into English with r...

Here's What I'll Do If You Buy My New Book!

Hello everyone!

My novel Promises Stronger Than Darkness comes out tomorrow. It's the last, and I think the most fun, volume in my young adult trilogy that began with Victories Greater Than Death. The fate of the whole dang galaxy hangs in the balance, and the hero we were all counting on, Tina, is gone. It's going to get intense! There are battles and feels and secrets and tough choices and singing monkey robots.

You can still order a copy of Promises Stronger Than Darkness from your local book...

EVERYTHING You Need to Know Before Promises Stronger Than Darkness!

There's just one week left before the release of Promises Stronger Than Darkness, the final book in my young adult trilogy, which I've been calling "Victories, Dreams and Promises."

To help get y'all up to speed, I thought I would do a rundown of the story so far, with everything you need to know before reading the third book.

Note: There will be spoilers. You probably shouldn't read any further, unless you've read the first two books of the trilogy, or you're one of those people who doesn't car...