Category: fantasy
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Movies as “Cliff’s Notes”
When Game of Thrones released on HBO, I watched it religiously. Like millions of others, I ate up season one. Gobbled it. So tasty. I loved, and still love, the characters (#TeamSansa), the style, the plot twists. And here is where I have to admit an unpopular thing. I’d started – or tried to start…
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It’s a Kind of Magic
You know, for a fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire doesn’t have tons of magic. In plenty of fantasy, the magic is front and center. Magical creatures, magical people, magical wars, magic, magic, magic… But, Martin plays it subtle. In most of the first book, there’s hardly anything magical at all. A hint…
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Scene Breaks: Martin Doesn’t Do ’em
Recently, in the critiques I’ve been giving for my writers group, I’ve taken to pointing out that we, as a group, don’t generally use scene breaks. (Have you ever noticed you start pointing out bits and pieces in other people’s writing that you think you might need in your own? I do that. A lot.) This strikes me as…
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You Say To-may-to, I Say To-mah-to: Define Your Terms
“What I mean by ‘science fiction’ is those books that descend from H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds, which treats of an invasion by tentacled, blood-sucking Martians shot to Earth in metal canisters…’speculative fiction’ means plots that descend from Jules Verne’s books about submarines and balloon travel and such – things that really could…