R.A. McCandless's Blog, page 21

The 13 Lives of a Television Repairman by M.D. Thalmann

Here lies the world.
That's one way to do it!The world has died, and Arthur knows how it happened. In many ways, he caused it. But to get there, and to understand the character and the events, the...

Conservation of Characters

Tell your sister . . . I'll be back as a young and vibrant Force ghost!There’s a rule that almost every movie and book series adheres to called “Conservation of Characters.” The thrust is simple: a writer/reader spends time introducing, understanding, and relating to a character as they go through conflicts and resolutions. Because of the limited space of books and movies, Conservation of Characters results in a noticeable and significantly lower percentage of death vs. danger.
Television show...

Creatures of Will and Temper by Molly Tanzer

“Creatures of Will and Grace” by Molly Tanzer is a wonderful homage to the late, great Oscar Wilde and the only novel he published, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”.  Readers concerned that they need to be intimately familiar with Wilde’s original need not worry.  Tanzer has created a novel that stands on its own, while paying all due respect.
Set in Victorian London, sisters Evadne and Dorina find themselves being introduced to society through Lady Henrietta “Henry” Wotten.  Henry...

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

It's good to be bad!Ok, that’s a big, fat lie.  It goes exactly the way you think, except for the parts where it doesn’t.  The Last Jedi does . . . or did?  Whatever Yoda would say, and how!
This will be a spoiler-free report, so read on without fear or remorse.
Anyone who pans these films just doesn’t know how to embrace the cheese.  The movies are fun, but they’...

Marketing Covers for Flames of Perdition Part 3

As promised, here is the theoretical cover art for Company of the Damned.  This might be my favorite out of all three, as it’s the only book that hasn’t released yet, and thus had no first or second cover to salt the well.
Shaken, but not stirred

Also, as I said, I have some news about an upcoming release.  In addition to being picked up by Ellysian Press for the Aubrey Hartmann steampunk books, a side project for Del’s world has been nagging at me.  I’ve decided to give in and w...

Show & Tell

Tell me again how to make your drink!Back in the day, I loved, loved, loved Show & Tell time.  Mostly, I loved to show and tell.  Probably we all did, but I don’t recall a thing anyone showed and told about during Show & Tell.  Probably it was a lot of stuffed animals and real animals and whatnot.  I do, however, remember some of my showing and telling.
Writers are often told “show, don’t tell.”  It’s one of the first things posted on a request for critique.
Tel...

Aubrey Hartmann Rides Again!

Got steam?It is with extreme pleasure that I announce my steampunk series, Constable of Aqualinne has been signed to contract with Ellysian Press.  The process was long and fraught (on my end) but I’m honored and humbled that Maer Wilson liked my work enough to take a chance on me.
Similar in scope and scale to Cherie Priest’s Clockwork Century series and Maureen Jenning’s Detective Murdoch series, The Constable Comes to Town is a page-turning steampunk adventure of duty, danger, honor, b...

Marketing Covers for Flames of Perdition Part 2

See?  Lovely!  Totally a “Del” cover.  I’m going ahead and having one made for Company of the Damned and will release that to y’all...

Contracts and Copyrights and Covers—OH MY!

Don't worry about the details . . . Really great article by a buddy of mine who is doing a twelve-part series that everyone should read.  Today’s article is on contracts.  Here's a brief introduction:
This article is the third (of twelve) in my publishing series. This article is going to be long, but worth the read. It’ll cover everything (or almost everything) that you wanted to know about contracts.
Whether you’ve landed an agent who has just received an offer from a large publ...

When Cleaning Goes Wrong

And this . . . is where I dropped my soup!He came at me before I was even aware he was in the room.  Fists clenched and down to his sides, as if he was a gunslinger about to go to work.  His brows were furrowed down over his narrowed eyes.  He breathed, like a bull, through clenched teeth.
His first words streamed out in a vicious path so fast that I couldn’t make sense of them.
“What’s that, buddy?”
“YOU THINK MY ART IS TRASH!?”  My five-year-old made it an accusation, not a...