Fans are a mixed blessing. I've been reading about True Fans and I've been reading commentary by the fans of Harry Potter, Doctor Who, and Torchwood. And it seems there's a lesson in there about Fan Rage. Fan Rage may be more prevalent in sci-fi and fantasy genres sicne they're the genres in which fans …
Category: character
Coffee, Action Figures, and Love
The other day one of my students (remember, my students are all adults) said (with affection) that I was a child inside. This was because I said I was going to the midnight release of the last Harry Potter film. Since I don't have any friends who will stay up that late, I'm going on …
High School, Facebook, and Who the Hell Am I Anyway?
Former high school friends find me on facebook. This happens to everyone who ventures onto fb-land. Maybe this makes you happy. Most of the people who "friend" me, are nice people. They never did me any particular harm back in school. In some ways, catching up on their lives is good. But here is the …
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To Write or Not Write That Sex Scene
Why not fade to black and leave it all to the imagination? The reader's imagination is a great thing and shouldn't be underestimated. The comments on yesterday's post made me think about several issues when deciding whether or not to write a sex scene. I'm no expert at writing such things, so this is mostly …
Slippery Little Bastards
I really good at not writing sex scenes. I was, after all, raised not talking about lots of things. In fact, by my teenage years, I was an expert at figuring out what my family was not talking about. The more I didn't talk about the things, the happier everyone was with me. There have …
Women Are Awesome. How about if We Stop Murdering Them?
I don't remember when I started to care about women. (And I'm not going to say women's issues because it's not a self-contained status sort of thing. We're half the population----nothing special interest about that.) In grad school I complained about a professor who told the class his favorite bar was called "The Silent Woman" …
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Kill Them All!
I've just killed someone. Well, a fictional someone. A fictional character that I quite liked. She was young. And sympathetic. I wanted her to live, but that seemed...so unlikely. I've killed characters before...this one just bothered me more than usual. Maybe I've watched too much of Stranger than Fiction. Am I killing a character because …
Maybe You Can Blame Your Parents
Your parents may bequeath you many things... like brown eyes, a house, a fiery personality, an obsession for antiques. My parents have not left me any of those particulars. One thing about writing a separate story every day is that you notice what your repeat. In fact, I think I'm repeating that idea. Was that …
Maybe This Voice
This may become tedious. Forcing myself to blog and write a short story every single day is a challenge all right----to me and my readers. Okay, maybe not my readers. You aren't obligated to do anything. But what is all this writing for? This morning I read an article in Vanity Fair by Christopher Hitchens----Unspoken …
Maybe Characters Do It
Many things may befall your characters, but one of those things, eventually, somewhere, in some story, unless you're writing for children, surely----implied or direct (have I drawn this out enough?), good or bad----is going to be sex. And I'm going to avoid the euphemism "love scene." Plenty of characters aren't in the story for love. …
Marta Bacon 