Brian Patrick McKinley's Blog, page 13
April 18, 2014
Review: Sorrows by Donna Fernstrom
Originally posted on Indie Books R Us:
Genre: Urban fiction
Rating: Yay
When Jayson Wallace is turned against his will, he’s taken in by a group of people, humans and vampires, known as a Law Enforcement Circle, where he somewhat learns the ins and outs of vampirism. Jay needs to testify in a trial against his sire, Malachi, who’s basically committed every crime known to man.
Throughout the novel, which covers probably a few weeks of time at the most, Jay is incredibly unsure of himself. Prone to depressive fits and often questions himself. Admittedly, it’s sometimes difficult to like Jay, but for his faults, the characters around him tend to make up for it.
My favorite was the rael-shaa character, Ryan. Rael-shaas are a kind of shape-shifter that can shift from human to wolf, and they often work with the Law Enforcement Circles. Ryan is adorable. He’s bouncy and kind and becomes Jay’s best friend…
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April 17, 2014
Sink Your Teeth: An Interview With Brian McKinley.
Check out this great interview from last year!
Originally posted on MANGLED MATTERS:
These days, independent writing is where it’s at. After scanning over the book rack at a local retailer lately, I trotted out of the exit doors empty handed and spent my evening reading through a copy of a book I downloaded through my publisher’s Facebook page.
I’m not finished with the book yet, but it didn’t take long for me to be hooked. Vampires, a seedy underworld of corruption and a haunted love. Good God, the author might as well have dedicated the book to me.
The book I am talking about is Ancient Blood, the first in a series by Brian McKinley.
McKinley is one of those good old fashioned, hard working authors who spends his nights writing and his days promoting his writing. I’m under the assumption that he has decided he will simply sleep when he is dead.
Hailing from New Jersey, a true vampire encyclopedia…
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April 16, 2014
3 Life Lessons from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”
Gotta love Buffy…
Originally posted on Denise D. Young:
It’s no secret that I’m a huge
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
fan. On the surface, it might seem like an action-packed show solely meant for entertainment. But it’s so much more than that. I believe that this show contains valuable lessons for our lives. Here are a few. Feel free to add your own in the comments section.
1.) Never judge a book by its cover.
Joss Whedon is great at taking stereotypes and upending them. A cheerleader can be a vampire slayer. A vampire can have a soul. Buffy was as far from the flaky cheerleader stereotype as one could get—street-smart, clever, and kick-ass, she was a girl no vampire should want to tangle with.
Or take Cordelia, the head cheerleader slash “mean girl.” She ends up falling for Xander and playing a role in Buffy’s vampire-fighting gang—even if she never quite loses the urge to make snarky comments…
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April 14, 2014
Promo Day!
Check it out, an internet-based writing convention and it’s FREE! http://www.promoday.info/p/media.html
April 12, 2014
Words of Wisdom for Writers
Otherwise known as phoning in a blog post. ;)
April 6, 2014
~Making Your Characters Real People~
Lots of articles come out about “knowing your character”, but this is the best concrete example I’ve seen of a simple, effective technique.
Originally posted on Christina L. Rozelle:
Recently, a friend of mine confessed to having a bit of trouble with one of her characters. This one was more complex than most of her others, and at first he seemed to elude her. Why is this the case for some characters?
In my opinion, these are the ones that are begging you to dig deeper. Just like in real life, some people are very surface-level, what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of people. You could easily write about them in first-person if you wanted to without much prodding at all.
But then, there are those like Logan’s character, Keith, (in her upcoming novel, Stockholm Sexy), whose ‘personhood’ isn’t fully visible on the surface level. In first drafts of Stockholm Sexy, Keith’s character was flat and boring, but not because he was a boring character. He’s quite the opposite.
When Logan came to me and asked my opinion on fleshing him…
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April 5, 2014
Bats Before Bram
Originally posted on The Vampirologist:
Andy Boylan recently made a discovery that challenged my views on pre-Stoker vampire-into-bat transformations.
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April 4, 2014
Why Series are Becoming Hot, Hot, HOT! How Dragging Out the Pain is Good for Your Readers
This is a fantastic article for series writers!
Originally posted on Kristen Lamb's Blog:
Battlestar Galactica
Every setback is an opportunity for an even greater comeback. I love these words. No idea who said it, but it rocks. Life has a way of being awesome, amazing, fantastic…and a ROYAL @$$whipping, too. Not only is this quote great to hold close to our chests when life has us on the spin-cycle, this is a FABULOUS mantra for writing memorable, epic stories.
Hubby and I just finished a marathon session of gorging ourselves on Battlestar Galactica and are now careening through Caprica because it is backstory for BSG. I refuse to watch any show that doesn’t have at least four seasons complete, namely because, if I like a new show? Apparently it spells its DEATH for the new show. Thus, I don’t like getting too attached. I wait, then inhale an entire season a day.
Don’t judge. I know you do it too O_o.
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April 3, 2014
Why Don’t They Remake The Howling?
I love movies and, just like I’m sure some of you do, I often despair that Hollywood has run out of original ideas since they seem to remaking every movie that was ever successful, regardless of how little anyone wants to see it remade. On the other hand, have you ever found yourself watching a great older movie and thinking: “Damn, if they took this same story and remade it with today’s special effects, it would kick ass!”
I have and one of my oft-considered such movies is the classic The Howling.
The original, written by John Sayles (based on a novel by Gary Brandner) and directed by Joe Dante, told the story of a reporter named Karen (Dee Walace Stone) who is traumatized during a meeting with a serial killer named Eddie Quint (Robert Picardo). On the advice of a renowned psychiatrist, Dr. Wagner (Patrick MacNee), she and her husband Bill (Dee’s real-life husband Christopher Stone) go up to a mountain retreat filled with odd-balls and New Agers who all seem very friendly. Naturally, everyone in the colony turns out to be a werewolf and worse, Eddie is too. Hilarity ensues as Karen’s husband gets turned and embraces the werewolf lifestyle while her other friend is killed for discovering the colony’s secret.
Now, The Howling is one of the greatest werewolf movies out there and remains a classic. The performances are still great, the dialogue snaps with wit, and the direction and pacing are great. The only area where the movie has not aged so gracefully is in the special effects department; though on the cutting edge of makeup effects technology at the time it was made, many younger viewers who are used to today’s effects will find the transformations laughable. To me, this is a golden opportunity to take a film that was fantastically effective in its day and bring that same vibe back to a new generation.
The basic plot and characters of the film are still perfectly workable in a modern setting. Really, other than modernizing the setting and references, I doubt that I would change the plot of the movie. Everything about it works. I might give Eddie a little more screen time, because I do think that the original missed an opportunity by not letting Karen face off against her serial-killer-stalker and defeat him. Perhaps drop the dim-wit feral Quint brother in favor of letting Eddie hunt and kill Karen’s friend Terry while his sister Marsha brings Bill over to the dark side.
Internet Law requires me to credit Star Wars whenever “dark side” is mentioned.
One of the other aspects of the film that I loved was the scene at the end where the doctor tries to defend his “modernization” of the werewolves to the rest of the pack. This is an aspect that I would also like to see get a little more screen time. Sacrifice the “surprise” of discovering that the entire colony is filled with werewolves in favor of exploring that idea. Let’s see some of their interactions. When Marsha brings Bill into the “pack”, let’s follow his initiation into their society. Give Marsha some time to make her case against Dr. Wagner’s repressive strategy and let her have a plan of her own.
The casting possibilities for a film like this are literally limitless, but there are lots of possibilities for cameos from beloved genre actors as well as plenty of roles for warm fluffy actors or comedians who want to do something different.
Taking such a well-written story and simply updating it with the kind of realistic and affordable werewolf effects that movies like the Underworld series have given us, I really think that a Howling remake could really bring our generation a quality werewolf thriller. Let’s bring back “The Original Nightmare!”
