Hey man, I know it’s hard. You’re sitting down at the keyboard, busting out your latest masterpiece, and you’re thinking:
“Man, characterization is tough! What if I just did it for my protagonist and no one else?” Continue reading Can We Have At Least Two Interesting Characters?
I’ve been jamming tons of text into my eyeballs lately, flash fiction and short stories, novels and craft blogs.
I also told you how I really feel when I wrote Things I’m Sick of Reading About in September. In it, I railed against stories that lack a proper ending. TL;DR If you misuse authorial power so blatantly, this is you:
Call me old-fashioned, but I believe in real stories; stories with beginnings, middles, and ends. Stories that leave the audience satisfied, rather than befuddled, upon reaching the end. When someone writes a story with no end, I wonder, did they have a purpose in writing at all, or did they just want to waste my reading time? In 100% of apprentice writers, 99% of journeyman writers, and 95% of masters, the inconclusive ending flops.
So I stand unapologetically pro-ending.
Next question! Given that an ending must exist (assuming you buy my unconvincing and ill-backed opinion), what kind of ending shall we have? Continue reading Downer Endings: The Novel’s Answer to the Hollywood Ending!
The stone pillars to each side of the dirt road had been overgrown with moss, and lichen covered the fenceposts. The old farmstead had fallen apart once he’d left it. The sheds where the sheep wintered lay in shambles, and the animals grazed in overgrown flowerbeds. Ol’ Mag, the cow that had been ancient before Barrett had left, gazed at his carriage as it rolled up to the entryway and bellowed before returning to her grass.
Wil huddled on his cot, peering through a crack in the wall that admitted starlight and rooftops. The straw mattress couldn’t hide the hardwood underneath from his bruises. He tried to ignore the tearing sackcloth sounds his Father’s snores made. He tried not to think about the old drunk at all.
Curling tighter to keep out the cold only drew his mind to the aches. His hands clenched around a normal looking tooth strung onto a necklace. To him, the tooth seemed to shine through his fingers, but he knew that it didn’t. Continue reading Short Story – A Jalt’s Tooth
“And before he died, Taran-Ish had scrawled upon the altar of chrysolite with coarse shaky strokes the sign of DOOM.” – The Doom That Came to Sarnath by H.P. Lovecraft.
Warning, major spoilers up ahead because this story made me cranky.
Continue reading What I’m Reading: The Doom That Came to Sarnath, H.P. Lovecraft
When I finished this short story, I looked around in the reader, wondering where the rest of it was.
Continue reading What I’m Reading: The Descendant by H.P. Lovecraft, Review
For its weight class, Dagon is a strong contender. It packs good tension, a solid narrative structure, and a close lensing that allows us to get solidly behind the protagonist. No spoilers ahead, but still providing a break.
I’m really not sure what to make of this story. Oh, right, spoiler alert, although there’s not that much to spoil.
Surgeon General’s Warning: Certain Colours can drive you MAD. Most colors, however, are safe. Except Agent Orange, which can cause cancer.
Continue reading What I’m Reading: The Colour Out of Space, Review
“OGTHROD AI’F
GEB’L-EE’H
YOG-SOTHOTH
‘NGAH’NG AI’Y
ZHRO!”
-Mystical Psychobabble from the story.
Thanks for the word-salad, Lovecraft. In all seriousness, read that aloud, in a dark room, it’s wholly chilling.
Continue reading What I’m Reading: The Review of Charles Dexter Ward
“That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.”
– H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
The Call of Cthulhu, perhaps the most iconic and recognizable of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cosmic Horror stories, is also at once a let down and a wonder of literature.
Gregory Blake 