Let’s talk about villains for a moment, shall we? I LOVE a good villain. Someone who makes your skin crawl. Someone whose presence in the lives of the protagonist and her friends alternately infuriates and scares you. Someone who is a legitimate threat to your protagonist. But how do you create this? How do you…
Category: Blog
Writing Romance: The Climax
Hello, Campers, and welcome to Act III. Last month we covered the Crisis in our romance. Headed into Act III, most likely your hero and heroine have gone their separate ways. Broken up. Finit! Sigh. But we all know where this is going. That’s why we’re still reading. The Dark Moment has done its duty,…
Writing the Avengers: Infinity War (No, I didn’t write it, but I will steal from it!)
First off, let me be clear. I did not write the Avengers: Infinity War screenplay. Or any blockbuster screenplay, book, and/or novelization, a dictionary, thesaurus, app…pretty much anything that made me a millionaire. Now that we’ve got that part out of the way, let’s talk about the movie (which I haven’t seen yet, so no…
Writing Fresh
I recently heard about a rising singer/songwriter who has found some success on social media who decided to interview herself on her own blog. How does that even work? ME: So, what’s your main inspiration for writing? MYSELF: Why are you asking me? You probably know better than I do. I: Or at least as…
One Judge’s Tale
Last year, I judged the Edgar Awards for the Mystery Writers of America. I was on the committee that selected Best Novel. My committee was nine judges to start with, including me. One judge dropped out somewhere around August, perhaps overwhelmed by the number of books or underwhelmed by the stories he was reading. I’ll…