CON GAMES: Historical Fiction You Can’t Make Up
Suggested reading: THOMAS EDISON MEETS HIS BASTARD SON, a short story from the BOOK O’KELLS. Suggested listening: DEARBORN audio short story from the novel NATURE OF THE BEAST from [...]
CON GAMES: Goodbye Blank Page, Hello Writing 2.0
A Con Games Column I feel lucky because I did most of my writing before artificial intelligence (AI) became the Headless Horseman heedless of humankind. Pre-Chatbot, the ink-stained wretch had [...]
WRITE GOOD! How To Crowdsource A Short Story: OPTION RIGHT
By Michael Conniff I don’t know what took me so long to get wise to crowdsourcing my stories. Maybe it was my old-school notion that writing a story actually required [...]
WRITE GOOD! The Title Above The Name
The right title makes all the difference—and a bad title can leave a work dead on arrival. Not only do titles (and headlines) matter, but they exist for one reason [...]
Rule #1: Break The Rules of Writing
#1 Break The Rules Know the rule you are breaking. Rule #1 is a shot across the bow of those who would say you can’t do that: of course you [...]
WRITE GOOD! How To Write a Screenplay Like Keyser Soze
Everybody knows Keyser Soze. He’s the Turkish crime lord from The Usual Suspects, the classic noir directed by Bryan Singer and written by Christopher McQuarrie. McQuarrie went on to write [...]
Warming Up To A Novel Called CLIMATA
If you are a novelist, or a writer of any kind of fiction, ideas can arrive without making a sound—if you only have ears (or hearing aids) to hear. Take [...]
Write Good!
What follows below is the Author’s Note and Preface to WRITE GOOD 1.0, my virgin attempt to codify the rules of writing as I see ’em. Coming soon, one by one, will be the rules proper. In all cases, above and below, I would love to hear your comments.
WRITE GOOD! Why ‘The Walking Dead’ Needs To ‘End This Thing’
If the showrunner for “The Walking Dead” on AMC were a major league coach or manager, the boo birds would have been calling for his neck and diehard fans in the stands would be wearing paper bags over their heads.