The concept of shared fictional space fascinates me and, it seems, I’m not alone. The amazing Antonio Maria Da Silva has carefully combined various movies’ nightclub scenes to create Hell’s Club. In doing so he’s built some fascinating, even poignant character moments. I love the look of quiet horror on Cocktail Tom Cruise’s face when he …
Ryan Macklin, RPG writer, editor and all around Renaissance man, has posted the Furious Game Jam. This is a hugely fun idea which asks people to hack an existing tabletop RPG to fit the ‘creative and industrious thrill seekers do stuff’ aesthetic of the Fast and Furious movies. Oh and it can only be 1320 …
There was a time where I found myself stepping away from fiction. My home life had become extremely stressful over a period of several years and that had destroyed my concentration. Worse still, I was no longer sure who I was writing for. Friends were getting stories published left, right and centre. Other friends were …
The LXD is a deeply weird, exuberant combination of superhero series and dance show. The first season, The Uprising Begins, is on Netflix right now while the rest of it’s on youtube in various places. It’s all ambitious, all brilliantly choreographed but this is my favorite episode. It’s Harry Shum Jr., who you may know from Glee …
You’ve just finished something. It’s great, you love it. Well done. Put it in a drawer and forget about it for at least two days. When you take it out, read it aloud. This is a trick my dad, a 22 year veteran of the mean streets of English Lit classrooms taught me and it’s …
Career City Underground-Fiction Writing-The Desk Drawer Marinade
The best way to solve a problem in a story is to do something else for a while. This is the most irritating thing about the whole process and also the most mercurial. You can pound your head against a story for weeks and make some progress then finally give up and go play Assassins …
I love my job. Well, I love all my jobs but in this instance I love podcasting. Not only is it fun but it means every now and then I get to do really fun projects with blistering talented other people. One of those is the magnificent Jared Axelrod who invited me to be on …
You want to learn how to write? It’s easy. Read everything. Watch everything. Listen to everything. You’ll find favourite texts, styles that jibe with yours. My first was Ed Mcbain’s 87th Precinct novels. They’re a huge, decades-long series about homicide cops in a fictional US city and they influenced every major police procedural TV show …
I’ve been writing fiction since I was 15. In that time I’ve had a handful of short stories published, a couple of pieces of comic work and written 1.7 novels. In fairness I’ve done a lot of other stuff too. There was definitely food. Holidays. A lot of sleeping. I’ve not written fiction seriously for …
Ant-Man the movie was a lot of fun. Ant-Man the soundtrack is way more fun. Christophe Beck’s music is full of sly heist movie stylings but it’s this track, Tales to Astonish! that stays with you. It’s the perfect music to fight science crime to, and it’s also this week’s Sunday Moment of Zen. …