Rudolph Kohn's Blog, page 7

Thinking About Brandon Sanderson's "Five Tips for Writing Your First Novel"

Well, I already kinda finished my first novel before I found this video, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to go back in retrospect and see how many of Sanderson's tips I found on my own, and what I thought of his tips in general.

(By the way, you can see his original video here.)

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A Method to Help Break Bad Writing Habits: DEEP Cuts!

Have you ever found yourself "over-flowering" your writing? This could be in fiction, in copy, in essays, whatever. One temptation writers face is to write more--to create interesting little linguistic constructs that are flowery, clever, or even poetic.

However, this can sometimes develop into a bad habit of drawing things out and adding a lot of unnecessary words.

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Thoughts on Continuity, Tone, and Beetlejuice

This video was inspired by an episode of The Wordy Pair Podcast where Justin told me about "Beetlejuice" and its sequel, "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice."

Now, I've never seen either of those movies, so Justin ends up explaining how the fun, playful tone of the first movie was completely absent from the second movie. It's honestly kind of fun when I ask a basic question or put forward a rudimentary suggestion and Justin is like, "They didn't do that."

Anyway, based on this, I made a video talking about the importance of continuity (including continuity of tone), as well as thinking up some circumstances where you can get away with paying less attention to previous works.

Peak Rex Stout? A Look at The Doorbell Rang

I kind of shot this review from the hip after reading my favorite Nero Wolfe book, The Doorbell Rang.

So, I don't have a detailed written review to put here. Uh... just enjoy the video, I guess?

Here's what I can say: The Doorbell Rang is so much fun. It has one of the coolest plots of any of the Nero Wolfe books, with a lot of engaging twists and turns. It has colorful and interesting characters. It has a lot of wry humor. It also teaches you a couple of good ways to shake off a tail.

The murder is almost incidental to the story!

There are some great scenes (look for Archie "waving his legs around"), some great commentary from Archie, and an amazing scheme by Wolfe to ensure they can finish their job.

It has no illusions about law enforcement and it has a clever solution and famous ending. A lot of questions are left unanswered, yet the book is thoroughly satisfying.

It's basically Nero Wolfe vs. the FBI. As a Nero Wolfe fan who also happens to dislike government surveillance and overreach and corruption, it's like a... ...uh... a really amazing pizza in book form. I devour it whenever I get a chance, and you might like it too.

Disjointed by Design? Review of Slaughterhouse Five

Finally got around to reading some Kurt Vonnegut, and figured I'd start with the classic Slaughterhouse Five.

It's a weird book, to be honest. Not necessarily in a bad way, but as much as Vonnegut explicitly states it's an anti-war piece, the rest of the book that isn't explicitly stating its purpose... doesn't really serve that purpose very well.

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Examining the Writing in the Ultima Series...

I did a series of videos looking at the writing of the famous old CRPG series, Ultima, created by Richard Garriot. I examine the overall quality, worldbuilding, characters, themes, and several great narrative tricks that help to pull the player in and improve immersion.

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The Paradoxes of Adaptation

Adapting a work from one medium to another is a difficult and not-necessarily-straightforward task.

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The Strange Addresses of Nero Wolfe's Brownstone...

The address of Nero Wolfe's famous brownstone is given several times in the books, and there are even a couple of different addresses attributed to the great old house.

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A Reading of my Favorite Lovecraft Short: "Cool Air"

Trying to catch up my blog here with my YouTube shenanigans...
Just a reading of my favorite Lovecraft short, Cool Air. I love this story because, in contrast to a lot of Lovecraft's writings, there is no cosmic horror, no twisting dreamscape, and no ancient evil. That uniqueness is what really makes me love this story.Read more »

Fun and Funny Fantasy Goodness! The Thief of Time, by Terry Pratchett

My buddy Justin got me started reading Terry Pratchett's stuff. He let me borrow his copy of The Light Fantastic when we were in high school, and I've enjoyed quite a few Pratchett books since then.

Today's topic is The Thief of Time, a story written in that wonderful period when Pratchett had found a beautiful blend of fantasy and satire, writing stories that were highly creative, mostly standalone, and, above all else, fun.

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