This week! Books! President Barack Obama’s memoir A Promised Land arrives next Tuesday, which is going to have massive reverberations in the bookselling world, not least of which because it clocks in at a hefty $45 list price. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie reviewed it for the New York Times, and Smithsonian Magazine looks at where it […]
Charles Dickens
How to create a great villain
Bill Sikes. Lady MacBeth. Captain Ahab. Voldemort. The Wormwoods. Sauron. Iago. The best villains in literature send a shiver down our spine and make our blood pressure rise. Why do some villains have such a hold on us while others feel like weak sauce? Here are some tips on how to craft a memorable villain. […]
Are we stripping modern books bare?
Reader Drew Turney wrote to me recently with an interesting question. There’s so much advice, commentary, and opinion about stripping away anything unessential to a book’s plot. Writing in the modern era emphasizes moving the plot forward at all costs, and everything else is “ruthlessly killed off no matter how darling.” Digressions and detritus that […]
Who is the Greatest Villain in Fiction?
Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the greatest villain of them all? Iago? Ahab? Fagin? Voldemort? Sauron? Villains are just plain scarier when they only have one name, aren’t they? Who’s your choice?
This Week in Publishing 10/15/09
This week! Publishing! Thursday! Here’s the schedule: – The contest is open until today at 4pm Pacific, at which time I will close it to entries faster than you can say “thank goodness no more please thank you mercy.”– Tomorrow I will announce the paragraphs I have chosen as the Stupendously Ultimate Finalists, most likely […]
This Week in Publishing 10/2/09
This………… weekinpublishing First up, for those who are in the San Francisco Bay Area and who also happen to write suspense or thrillers or related materials, I will be meeting with the SF Sisters in Crime tomorrow at noon out in the Sunset. Dana promises to follow with details in the comments section, so if […]
