Not all science fiction movies were books first, but some were. Some stories were so unique and inspirational that they just begged to become movies. Many of these adaptations (from the written word to the big screen) are wonderful, landmark films t…
I love the idea of notebooks. And pens. And combining the right notebook with the right pen. But… I have a problem. While I subscribe 92.46% to the notion that writers should carry a notebook to jot down ideas and observations as part of the …
One of the biggest problems that a writer faces is omniscience. The author, by definition, knows everything about the story. Unfortunately, many of the details that the writer has in his head are simply not essential to the story that they are telli…
Literature has jargon, the specialized language of any Discipline. Therefore Literature, as a Discipline, holds its own terminology: A Fable is a simple story with a moral, or a moral lesson. An …
My mother used to tell me fantastical stories about how when I was 4 years old, I’d rush home from Kindergarten with WILD stories about my day. Breathless, I could barely get out a syllable, as my mother tried to coach me and talk me down from…
What makes some stories easy to slip into and others more like homework? Good writing is the obvious answer, but even the experts pearl-clutch when someone treads on their pet structures or rules. In this post, let’s consider good writing as …
The best sports writing, in terms of depth and lyricism, focuses on baseball and golf. Neither sport is known for its non-stop action, which is exactly why they are so suited to writing. They allow time to explore, to ponder, to sift through alterna…
Well, UNTOLD TALES has been airing audio science fiction short stories from almost 5 years now and we recently broadcast our 100th episode Here is a question for all our listeners. Which episode is your favorite? Do you have a favorite type of sto…
Rewriting. That word is a bit vague until you approach it from a writer’s perspective. From there it gets even foggier. It can be a wipe-the-slate-start-over command, a reorganization, or focus-honing of the draft as it exists. To be clear, Re…
I know people who think that being a writer is easy. They are idiots. I say that because if they had ever tried to actually be a writer, they’d know it wasn’t easy and so they’d stop being idiots. I’m all about letting people…
One of the worst things that writers do is when they TELL a reader instead of SHOWING them. In particular, I hate it when an author tells me how a character ‘feels’. They’re happy, or sad, or tired, or angry. By doing so, the au…
Ponder Sisyphus. Doomed to push a massive boulder up a steep hill, only to have it roll down again. Every time. Every. Time. What’s that got to do with creativity? First: Creativity is hard work. It may seem easy, and we may pretend it …
With the recent advent of AI regenerative systems, many people have become frightened that advances in AI will result in chaos at many levels. Some fear that it will become impossible to tell the difference between AI-generated information (text or …
Jason is a bright young man who can draw brilliantly. He has an intuitive grasp of perspective and framing that lends itself well to graphic novel projects, though he has so far focu…
SELLING YOUR BOOK – Part 2 In an earlier article, SELLING YOUR BOOK – Part 1, we talked about how to market your book. But not everyone in your target audience is going to feel like buying. For some people, it won't be the right time, o…
Selling Your Book So you’ve finished writing your science fiction novel and now you’re ready to release it to the world. The good news is that for the most part, it’s an end to long hours spent checking for problems with grammar, …
I tend to write what is known as “hard SF”, that is, science fiction that is technically accurate, or as accurate as I can make it while taking a wink at things like Time Travel and Faster Than Light travel. With a few exceptions like t…
I am assuming you are a writer, or want to be. If you have yet to launch yourself into the darkness called writing, and have been putting it off for whatever reason(s) your mind can …
I was asked to pick my top ten favorite Science Fiction Movies of all time. I tried. But I couldn't. I kept thinking of others that needed to be on the list. When I reached 25 is decided that I needed to group them by category, but the categories re…
If you’ve been known as a writer among more than two persons for at least 19 minutes, you have been asked: “Where do you get your ideas?” Or you may have been asked the passive-aggressive &…
Most writers I’ve encountered are either character builders, world builders, or plotters. And while a good short story or novel needs a mix of all three, the area where most folks seem to struggle is characterization. If you’re a world …
As an actor / creative, the common advice is “never read your reviews”. As an insatiably curious, science-minded, creative person, I’m always interested in what people have to say about my storytelling interpretations. In this blog…
I recently saw a video of a 16-year-old girl flawlessly playing Eddie Van Halen's Eruption, complete with the baroque fingering style made famous by the late guitar virtuouso. I also saw another video of a 12-year-old boy playing the keybo…
You have had this experience: the novel you are reading throws a ton of invented names at you like a blizzard, makes up words for common items, has some variation of “coffee&rd…
