Tag Archives: Featured

Blog, Featured, Writing

How to Keep Your Writing from Reading like a Bogus Essay Answer

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In his book On Bullshit Harry G. Frankfurt wrote, “It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction.”

Something magical happens when people are called upon to give information they don’t have: rather than admit the limits of their knowledge they give it the old college try. We all know what decisive conclusions sound like. We need not know what we’re talking about to draw them. So we riff to buy ourselves time until we stumble upon a point.

This article is going to explore this phenomenon, identify how it shows up in fiction writing, and what can be done to fix it so that would-be authors can seem like they actually know what they’re doing. Continue reading How to Keep Your Writing from Reading like a Bogus Essay Answer →

Blog, Featured, Writing

A Different Kind of Bathroom Bill

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DISCLAIMER: Discrimination is ridiculous. Especially when the ability to discriminate hides behind the veil of victimization, like the religious liberty bills that have been proposed throughout the US this year. These bills would give devout shop owners the right to deny service to members of the LGBT community.

The following isn’t simply a parody of this ironic situation, it’s a callback to a prejudice against another segment of the population. They too were discriminated against for religious reasons. They too have a trait that can be found in 1 in 10 members of the population, and they too cannot change the way they are despite efforts to convert them.

The following is written from the perspective of someone with a strong prejudice against them. Continue reading A Different Kind of Bathroom Bill →

Blog, Featured, Writing

When Symbolism Goes Wrong

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There’s a scene in 2013’s Man of Steel where Clark Kent goes to church seeking guidance from a priest. Aliens combatants, from Kent’s home planet Krypton, are broadcasting a message to draw him out of hiding. He’s torn between stepping forward or remaining in the shadows. The priest stands over Kent, from the aisle, as the Kyrptonian confesses from the pew.

Normally in a scene with two characters speaking the cameras are positioned over the shoulders of the characters to show their point of view. First we see a camera tilted upward to show Kent’s view of the priest (who eventually sits on a railing, but is still looking downward). We should then see a reverse shot from the priest’s perspective looking down on Kent. Instead we see a shot that’s tilted upward, as if the priest was looking at Kent from the floor.

Screen Shot 2016-04-03 at 12.01.35 PM

Super Jesus
Okay, that’s a little on the nose

Why did director Zack Snyder choose to frame the shot this way? My theory is that he meant to emphasize the stained glass depiction of Christ over Kent’s shoulder, kneeling in prayer, just as Kent is. As far as symbolic references go this one isn’t that subtle.

This weeks article is all about when it’s a good idea to link your story to icons with  deeper meanings, and when they can hurt your story by feeling unearned. I’m going to focus on Man of Steel and Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice because they’re filled with examples of heavy handed symbolism.

(Spoilers for Man of Steel and Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice follow).

Full Disclosure: I don’t hate either film. There’s a lot to like in both, but this isn’t a review of either movie. It’s an examination of visual shorthand.  Continue reading When Symbolism Goes Wrong →

Blog, Featured, Writing

How Writers can Manage Lower Back Pain

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Every coffee shop has one: the guy standing at the bar with his laptop. He’s parked his stool right next to the neighboring one ensuring neither seat can be used. The baristas try to wash their dishes without staring at him, but how can they not when he’s leering at eye level? Anyone stuck sitting on one side of him mistakes him for someone approaching with a question, because he’s looming over them like a boss with new instructions. Every so often he pushes away from the bar to grab his foot and stretch his hamstring. He’s that guy.

If he could he’d put his heel right up on the bar, grip the neighboring chairs, and do squats. It’s not his fault you don’t respect his extreme posture culture.

If there’s no room at the bar he just moseys over to a two seater and puts a chair right on the table. This makeshift MacGuyver isn’t too proud to make himself at home. He’s in the middle of a screenwriting sprint, he’s composing his master’s thesis, and marathon coding for 8 hours straight.

I’ve scoffed at this guy, with his ergonomic keyboard, his arthritis glove, and magic wristband that tells him when to move around. What a spinally mindful millennial. What a abdominal oblique elite. What a nerve savvy yuppie.

I am currently typing this from a slapdash desk made from an ironing board, a stack of books, and my laptop. I’m doing this because that standing room dick was right.

My back has gone out in a way where changing the cat litter involves tapping the scooper to a broom handle, in a way where I’m seriously considering the logistics of sleeping standing, in a way where things at the bottom of the refrigerator are lost to me.

Last night limping through the grocery store to pick up some Bayer was a Herculean challenge. Today I crawled out of bed, literally.

I’d like to say this condition came from a feat of strength gone wrong like pushing two separate cars out of the snow, helping someone carry their prize anvil collection into a fifth floor apartment, or bench pressing a picnic table filled with attractive people, but I’m pretty sure bad posture is my major trigger. Sure I’ve had a few spills this winter and I’ve lifted a few weights without taking the time to stretch, but of all the things attacking my lower back I think my couch was the biggest culprit.

You know you’re a writer when chronic lower back pain is a hazard of your line of work.

I’m in such chronic pain that I didn’t believe I could deliver a blog entry this week. When your nerves keep sending you the same pain signal it’s hard to get inspiration to flow. Then I thought: what if I wrote a quick blurb on lower back pain? I’ve spent the last few days learning how to manage it and how to prevent it in the future, and since we writers spend so much time hunched over in 45 degree angels, it’s something we should talk about.  Continue reading How Writers can Manage Lower Back Pain →

Blog, Featured, Writing

The Art of Power Slacking

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Work has the power to emotionally exhaust everyone. Customers, clients, and coworkers can drain us faster than iPhones with Location Services turned on. Artists are at a higher risk of burnout, because the moment our shifts end we punch into our creative vocation. If you’re a writer it doesn’t matter how much copy you wrote while you were on the clock. When you get home you have to put another 2,000 words. Everyday is a double shift.

This leaves us with even less time to reach total zen.

When it comes to distractions we have an embarrassment of riches. We don’t know how to spend our time off, so we spend it debating; what to watch, where to go, who to hangout with. We over schedule and no matter what we end up doing we feel like we’re missing out on something. Even when we stay in we feel like we’re losing out on the best possible lounging.  Continue reading The Art of Power Slacking →

Blog, Featured, Writing

When Perfectionism Goes Wrong

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Visualize that perfect novel you’ve always wanted to write. See the simple yet elegant design. It’s covered in medals like a four star general’s chest: the Newbery Medal, the Noble Prize for Literature, and the coveted Oprah’s book club sticker. Feel your name bulging from the dust jacket, feel the perfect stitching in the binding, and the deckled edges of pages.

Flip the book over and see your flawless portrait filling out the back. You look so well read, charming, and confidant, nothing like a fraud at all. Crack the book open, see the inside flaps littered with endorsements from authors you’d wet yourself upon meeting.

Within this book’s pages are the most profound prose you could pry from your soul. It’s your personal philosophy laundered into a story. Your life experience is spread throughout its contents. Every least comma represents a broken shard of your heart. Your every skeleton is laid out between its lines.

Readers will think of their lives in terms of who they were before reading this novel and who they became afterward. They will carry it with them like a bible. They’ll quote it in arguments. They’ll page through it in moments of quiet desperation.

Hold this novel out in front of you like an offering to the Heavens. Now drop it and kick it like a football. Watch it go over the horizon. Accept that this false ideal will never happen. Continue reading When Perfectionism Goes Wrong →

Blog, Featured, Writing

How to Tighten Up Your Dialogue

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When I’m writing a novel my train of thought needs to stay on track. If I loop around to edit I run out of steam. So I keep shoveling coal into the engine and words onto the page. Sometimes there’s nothing but rails all the way up the horizon. Sometimes curves in the mountains keep me from seeing where I’m going. Some routes are ideal while others are just serviceable.

The process forces me to wear many hats. I’m both the conductor and the stoker, tasked with staying on schedule and fueling the creative process. If I overthink the path the crankshaft screeches to a halt. So I keep chugging along until the first draft is done. No sense in letting writer’s block derail me.

When I write dialogue I get a sense of where the scene needs to go and let my cast say the first things that come to mind. I let their upbringings, attitudes, and professions dictate their speech patterns. For the characters I pick up along the way I try to find their voices while writing. I’m not too worried if I can’t on my first try because all writing is rewriting and I know I’ll be back this way again.

These are the most important lessons I’ve learned while tightening up dialogue for the second draft. Continue reading How to Tighten Up Your Dialogue →

Blog, Writing

How to Make Your Book As Bingeable as a TV Show

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Confessions of a Serial Binge Watcher

I keep a disciplined writing regiment, but every so often I hear the siren call of television. I’m not the type of person to watch any show that happens to be available. The shows that satisfy my fiction addiction need all the right elements. When I find one that does I fall into a Netflix vortex until the season is done.

I plowed through Marvel’s Jessica Jones in one weekend. Binge watching became part of my routine. I woke up with my tablet on my pillow, opened Netflix, and brought it into the bathroom while I brushed my teeth. I set it on the table as I ate my cereal. When I got on the bus to work I resumed watching on my phone. When I came home I put Jessica back up on the big screen.

It wasn’t that I was a chronic couch potato so much as Jessica Jones was just that good of a show. Let’s talk about the psychology of what makes a good story so binge worthy and how novelists can use the techniques of found on TV to write something readers will have trouble putting down. Continue reading How to Make Your Book As Bingeable as a TV Show →

Blog, Featured, Writing

Why You Should Let Your Characters Blow Their Tops

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We live in a world where we ask, “How’s it going?” as a “Hello,” not as a inquiry into someone’s wellbeing.

Happiness is so revered it seems mandated. If a fellow employee asks, “How’s it going?” and you respond with, “I’m alright,” a common response is, “Just alright?”

If you’re one of those people who says, “Just alright?” know that you’re not coming off as someone who’s concerned so much as someone who’s enforcing an impossibly high standard of positivity. Those of us on the receiving end of that question see you as one of those screamers from the end Invasion of the Body Snatchers, calling us out for our nonconformity.

If this isn’t your intension consider the following: if the person you’re asking, “How’s it going?” says they’re alright flatly leave it at that. If they say they’re alright with a pensive downward inflection ask if anything is going on. Those are you options. Continue reading Why You Should Let Your Characters Blow Their Tops →

Blog, Writing

My Secret Blogging Formula

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When I started this blog four years ago I had no idea what I was doing. My first article was on the arrogance of trying to build a brand online. I openly mocked the concept, myself for going along with it, and any potential audience for reading it. The one thing I can say for my approach was that it was honest. I was daunted by the excess of blogs by other writers who were trying to do the same thing. I resisted the notion that authors have to sell themselves before they sell their work.

I wrote with a cynical tone because I feared an intimate one would make me vulnerable to criticism. A sarcastic edge is the armor of every novice blogger. I just wanted to share my art. I didn’t know the write way to acknowledge my audience.

The months went on and my blog became more than a depository for old poetry. I realized all the tricks I used to keep my writing flowing were things worth sharing. I just had to develop the language to articulate them. Over the years I’ve perfected this blogging formula. These are some of the techniques I use. Continue reading My Secret Blogging Formula →