A thought experiment for you: Do a Google search for “atmospheric movies.” Check out how many of the movies had posters with some sort of fog, weather, smoke, or translucence in them. Of the ones that don’t, if you’ve seen the movie, ask yourself, “Is some element of the weather a factor in the story?” […]
Atmosphere Part 1: Atmosphere Is Literally Just Fog Read More »
I’m not sure I’m going to do this one justice, so I saved it for last (so far). I’m calling it The Big Twist. A crime occurs. By design or accident, the crime is completely misinterpreted. The solver(s) proceeds forward in good faith, as if it were one of the other types of simple mysteries or
Another mystery plot. This one I like to call The Two Cases. Crime #1 occurs. Crime #2, a minor/funny crime, occurs. The solver tries to track down one of the two crimes, but it’s no good. They run into something from the one crime that reminds them of the other crime. Wait wait both these crimes
Another simple mystery plot. This one I’ve got mentally labeled The Lead. A crime occurs. The solver follows leads as though they were a labyrinth. Some of the leads are dead ends. Some of the leads are live ends. One of the leads that looks like a dead end is a live end. The solver keeps
I’m slowly getting a grasp on (some) types of mystery plots. Here’s my first one, which I’m going to call The Mistake. A crime occurs. There are three suspects. The criminal is not one of those three suspects. The solver rotates through investigating the three suspects, and may even form a valid-sounding theory about one of
It’s not you, or rather it’s not you you. Every time you want to change a habit, there’s a price to pay. The number of days before you can establish a habit varies wildly. Adding workload to your brain uses a disproportionate amount of calories. The cycle of adapting to change is practically the same one that
So I’m working on a series, A Fairy’s Tale, which so far is made up of a bunch of loosely related twists on ’80s-style horror novels/movies. Books have rules, right? Things like, “The magic system, if any, is X” or “The main character gets the most POV chapters” or “The writing style in this book has
Breaking the System: When Your Series Sneaks Up on You Read More »
Bone to pick. Not gonna name names, because it’s all too common. All writers have ethical choices to make. Not all stories are ethical to write. But let’s stick with horror today. A story that makes a reader want to die, for example, is an unethical story. A story that makes a reader want to become
I’m working on writing better headlines, using info from Copyblogger. Sorry if this gets weird… … Whodunnit? That’s the major question of most mysteries (leaving aside thrillers and suspense for now). And yet, most of the advice about writing a mystery that I’ve read is about hiding clues in your work–one of the least important parts
I’m trying to go through the Copyblogger archives, can you tell? I’ve determined that the most valuable thing I can do, from a marketing standpoint, is clearly establish in my own mind what value my writing has for other people. In my most objective, reasoned observations: My writing has no value. None whatsoever. Now, I
SEVEN REASONS TO MILLION DOLLARS AND YOU CAN TOO Read More »
