There isn’t a lot to do when you’re off-duty on a nuclear submarine. There was a perpetual Dungeons & Dragons game going on. Players came and went as watches changed, even the Dungeon Masters rotated, each picking up where the other left off. Most of the time it convened in the mess, which served as…
Tag: Readers
Pregnant Purple Prose
I once called a writer friend and got the following voicemail greeting: “Pardons begged, we are presently truant and prevented from undertaking dialog with callers at present. After the modulation, please recite your sobriquet and cellular digit-string to better enable us an opportunity to reciprocate the honor of this summons.” The title of this article…
“DON’T JUST DO SOMETHING, STAND THERE!”
There is a saying, “Doing anything is better than doing nothing.” For the indecisive and deliberate decision maker, this means the longer you take to make a decision, the more likely the decision is going to be taken out of your hands, made for you by fate or the actions of others, and not likely…
My Love Affair with the Written Word
Writers love to read. Writers love other writers. Writers love the written word. There is nothing that makes my heart and my mind tingle more than a clever, profound, or artfully worded turn of phrase in something I’m reading. “A fanatic can no more shut his mouth than he can open his mind.” – Will…
Thrillers: Part 4 of 4: Plotting And Pacing
The key to any fiction is tension. Romantic tension, professional tension, survival, etc. In a thriller, the tension is primarily adversarial in nature. Here, whether our protagonist is striving for some sort of reconciliation, kumbaya moment with the antagonist or is willing to stop them at all cost, the thriller is driven forward by the…