Where Crime, Horror, and Science Fiction Meet – Discussing new discoveries, old mysteries, creepy tales, and dark storytelling
Great news! My buddy Ajay Ramachandran, who comments early and often on anything Virginia Woolf or P.G. Wodehouse (our very special mentors from earlier this year), has had a a wonderful poem publish by Midtown: A Journal of Writing and Fine Arts. “Achebe to Zwiren” Please go check it out – it’s well worth it.…
Agatha Christie is my third mentor for this year, and she’s also the third British writer who published actively in the ’20s and ’30s. Woolf, Wodehouse, and Christie could, very conceivably, have hung out and had some beers together. They were all about the same age and wrote throughout both World Wars. What’s so interesting…
Read more Product-of-Your-Time Rhetoric – Is Awareness the Answer?
“I say, Agatha!” calls Wodehouse from across the tea room. “You’re frightfully good at puzzling things out, what?” “So I am,” responds Christie. “Perhaps you could help me out with a bit of a mystery. My cow creamer has disappeared.” “Why would you need to cream a cow?” “No. It’s a creamer in the shape…
P.G. Wodehouse is not someone that I studied in school. In fact, if it weren’t for industriously reading friends, I wouldn’t know his name at all. Why is that? I’ll be straight: I don’t know why. Without making broad negative assumptions about academia (which I don’t want to make because I’ve learned a lot from…
Humorists, like romance writers and, to some extent, mystery writers, catch some flak because, for whatever reason, it gives the impression of being ‘easy’. Which, as anyone who has tried to write comedy knows, it isn’t. Why would people think it’s easy? It occured to me as I was reading Comedy Writing Secrets by Mel Helitzer…
The Luck of the Bodkins by P.G. Wodehouse My rating: 4 of 5 stars If you’re a fan of early cinema this book–originally published in 1935–is for you. There’s plenty of in-jokes geared towards producers, nepotism, and actors. At one moment in the book I had to pause because Monty Bodkin (the Lucky Bodkin of…
Read more Thursday Reviews: The Luck of the Bodkins by P.G. Wodehouse (A Mentor Review!)
Wodehouse, I don’t think anyone will disagree, is a clever writer. There’s a dryish wit that feeds his prose. British, yes? Yes. When Wodehouse describes a regular situation (man falls off bike) he conveys all the normal information like: 1. If you’re not careful, you can fall off your bike. 2. Falling off the bike will hurt. 3. A…
Read more Fun With Lists…or Not Really…or Reading Like a Writer
Normally, I don’t do funny writing. I’ve tried to do some funny writing (or, at least, mildly laughable writing) but with mixed results. But I really, really, really super-enjoy reading it. And, because I’ve tried funny writing, I know how good the people who write it successfully really are. I mean, I love a good tear-jerker,…
Novels and screenplays work very differently. (Please, save the ‘Duh, Jennys’ for the end.) However, sometimes it’s difficult to see why they work differently without thinking about it. Novels: You get the words and only the words to describe scene, character motivation, dialogue, etc. Basically, novels have to cover everything and be complete in and…
Read more In Which Stephen Fry Says It Better Than Myself: Novels vs Screenplays
I have had the opportunity to take several poetry classes (and even succeeded in earning passing grades). In every one of the workshops that I’ve had in this genre, there’s always a person or two who says something along the lines of : “Poetry today is music.” Meaning that music lyrics are today’s version of old-school…
Read more The Difference Between Poetry and Lyrics: A Crash Course in One Way to Read Poetry
Other Worlds, and This 