short stories at east of the web A game of Scrabble has serious consequences. - Length: 4 pages - Age Rating: PG - Genre: Crime, Humor A semi-barbaric king devises a semi-barabaric (but entirely fair) method of criminal trial involving two doors, a beautiful lady and a very hungry tiger. - Length: 7 pages - Genre: Fiction, Humor ‘Bloody hell!’ - Genre: Humor Looking round he saw an old woman dragging a bucket across the floor and holding a mop. - Length: 3 pages Henry pours more coal onto the hearth as a gust of wind rattles through the cracked window frame. - Length: 14 pages - Genre: Horror ulissa Ye relished all the comfortable little routines and quietude defining her part-time job at The Bookery, downtown’s last small, locally-owned bookstore. - Length: 8 pages - Age Rating: U The forest looked ethereal in the light from the moon overhead. - Length: 15 pages - Age Rating: 18 Corporal Earnest Goodheart is crouched in a ditch on the edge of an orchard between Dunkirk and De Panne. - Genre: Fiction - Length: 20 pages
FASHIOLISTA | love your style! 10 Modern Must-Read Sci-Fi Masterpieces Any discussion of science fiction invariably begins and ends with the masters of the genre. Jules Verne, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, Phillip K. People didn’t suddenly stop writing science fiction novels in 1980. The Dark Tower (1982 – 2004) Written by: Stephen King King is best known as one of the modern masters of fantasy and horror but The Dark Tower series is as much science fiction as it is anything. Neuromancer (1984) Written by: William Gibson William Gibson created the cyber punk genre with Neuromancer. Ender’s Game (1985) Written by: Orson Scott Card There’s never been anything quite like Ender’s Game, before or since. The Liaden Universe (1988 – 2010) Written by: Sharon Lee and Steve MillerAgent of Change was the first book published (though not the first chronologically) in what would eventually become known as the Liaden Universe. Hyperion Cantos (1989 – 1997) Written by: Dan Simmons The Hyperion Cantos is actually four books. Jurassic Park (1990) On Basilisk Station (1992)
36 Writing Essays by Chuck Palahniuk 1: Establishing Your Authority Chuck teaches two principal methods for building a narrative voice your readers will believe in. Discover the Heart Method and the Head Method and how to employ each to greatest effect. 2: Developing a Theme At the core of Minimalism is focusing any piece of writing to support one or two major themes. 3: Using “On-The-Body” Physical Sensation Great writing must reach both the mind and the heart of your reader, but to effectively suspend reality in favor of the fictional world, you must communicate on a physical level, as well. 4: Submerging the “I” First-person narration, for all its immediacy and power, becomes a liability if your reader can't identify with your narrator. 5: Nuts and Bolts: Hiding a Gun Sometimes called "plants and payoffs" in the language of screenwriters, Hiding a Gun is an essential skill to the writer's arsenal that university writing courses almost never touch upon. 6: Nuts and Bolts: “Thought” Verbs 8: Nuts and Bolts: Using Choruses
The Humble Indie Bundle #4 (pay what you want and help charity) What was that book? Written? Kitten! Don't post to facebook from Gameboy Color, Post from ALL THE THINGS! Webnovel - Your Fictional Stories Hub Place Names Let's say you've created a fictitious tavern, hamlet, village, town, city, realm, kingdom or planet for your story but you can't think of what to name it. Or the name you came up with for your fictitious tavern, hamlet, village, town city, realm, kingdom or planet makes your critique partner snort coffee out of her nose. Either way, you're in trouble. Let's cruise around some of the online place name generators, see how they can help, and grade them accordingly. 1. Generator Grade: Okay to good. 2. Generator Grade Range: Eh to okay. 3. Generator Grade Range: Okay to good. 4. Generator Grade Range: Okay to good. 5. Generator Grade Range: Great to excellent. 6. Generator Grade Range: Okay to good. Seventh Sanctum offers some different place name generators: 7. Generator Grade Range: Eh to okay. 8. Generator Grade Range: Okay to good. 9. Generator Grade Range: Good to great. 10. Generator Grade Range: Eh to okay. I tend to invent names out of the blue or use anagrams of common words.
Interview: Shawna Trpcic Helps Torchwood, Firefly, and Dr. Horrible Get Dressed » MTV Geek A few weeks ago, Starz, the network that’s launching a brand new series of Torchwood, sent out a press release trumpeting the new coat John Barrowman would be wearing on screen. Between releases trumpeting new trailers, online games, and more, it stuck out to your faithful garment-challenged MTV Geek writer, but we put up a – some might say snarky – post, all the same. And then almost immediately, were corrected about certain details over Twitter by the designer of the coat, Shawna Trpcic. Turns out that I’m the ignoramus here, and Trpcic gracefully agreed to an interview to chat more about why the changes in the coat were important. MTV Geek: Let’s talk about Torchwood, which you’re working on right now… There’s a lot of new characters, of course, but you do have some pre-existing characters: Captain Jack, Gwen Cooper, etc… What’s it like trying to adapt another designer’s looks to American TV? Shawna Trpcic: I just updated them - slimmed them down and accentuated their bodies.
Victoria's Advice Column Hi Victoria, I am a poet and the editor of a community journal of literature and visual art. We publish short prose and poetry, as well as the work of local artists. This is an annual, and we have just completed our twelfth journal. It is published by a not-for-profit organization, and my position as editor-in-chief is unpaid. Hi, Judith! My work is both similar to and different from yours. Certainly, my background in editing technical manuals helps enormously with Copy Editing, as yours in editing law books must. However, the real work I do—Developmental Editing and Line Editing fiction and memoir—takes years to learn properly. I know there are, right now, almost as many aspiring editors hoping to break into freelance editing as there are aspiring writers hoping to break into publication. So your competition is enormous. I earned my reputation in freelance independent editing through four years of intensive blogging and editing. So that’s how I did it. I love my job.
OMG Facts - Your Mind. Blown. Show Some Character! -- Forty-five more flaws that expose your lack of storytelling experience, part 1 So the other day, someone tweeted this post from storyfix.com containing five writing mistakes that, as they put it (and hat-tip to them for the title of this post), “expose your lack of storytelling experience.” I retweeted the link, adding that the real number was probably more like 50 than 5. Twitter people being who they are, now I’m on the hook for the other 45. The problem is, if I put 45 flaws in one blog post, it’s going to be 10,000 words long by the time I’m done and nobody’s going to read that. Clever, those Storyfix folks, limiting themselves to five. Sneaky bastards. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Ok. On to part 2 >