These are seasonal links insofar as we’re in the festive season, and they’re links. We’re talking links in the season, not links of the season.
Not that I’m unaffected by all things festive. I’m sure I’ll throw in some silliness at some point. I am, after all writing this scant hours from Christmas day, while saner people watch Avatar in the other room. I’m in the kitchen at a party. Again.
Ian Thealy brought out the big guns this week. In fact any kind of guns. Action! covered writing the shoot out. Incidentally, io9 embedded a trailer from the new Nick Frost and Simon Pegg movie. I love them, and this could be great. I was going to nick the embed, but that talk of gunfighting reminded me of a particular slow-mo scene in Simon Pegg’s fantastic 90s British TV series Spaced. Channel 4 have disabled embeds, but check it out here. Oh, the humanity.
Also at Action!, Ian reposted an article that was originally published at delanceyplace.com. Citing serious research, the piece looks at the way that danger can distort perception. If your characters find themselves in harm’s way, could provide some interesting ways working with these sequences.
Juliette Wade was sharpening dialogue at TalkToYoUniverse, and Janice Hardy was hunting for and cutting redundant words without mercy. Kristen Lamb took us out of the line edit to the structural level, and covered scenes and conflict.
Jeff Cohen has too many friends, and he doesn’t like most of them. Hell, he doesn’t know most of them. So at Hey, There’s a Dead Guy in the Living Room he laid out some rules for the coming Facebook cull. I have to agree about the farmyard animals. I mean really? Is life really that empty? I don’t have the friend problem. Did I mention I’m writing this alone in a kitchen on Christmas Eve?
Speaking of personality disorders, Laura Diamond looked at Freudian defense mechanisms (denial, idealization, repression and the like), and how to use them in fiction.
Julie Eshbaugh offered a quick reminder of some point of view options at Let the Words Flow, and Janice Hardy analyzed issues with deep third person point of view in a story submission at The Other Side of the Story
At the Guardian books blog Matt Shoard wrote at night about writing.. at night.
What distinguishes literary fiction from science fiction? Well, there are some clear defining characteristics at the margins, but what about the blurry edges where they merge? This is the zone that Eric Rosenfield called the Murakam-Mieville Continuum. And the answer? I guess it’s a case of saying it’s so, making it so (or not in the case of Margaret Atwood).
If that does your head in, what if history were to unfold without change? If the future is the same as today, argues John Holbo (quoted in io9), then a novel about the here and now becomes science fiction. This is nonsense, of course, but entertaining nonsense nonetheless.
Speaking of things that seem to be one thing, actually being another, or maybe themselves actually after all Eleanor Aigean wrote an AN OPEN LETTER TO THE NOT-OFFICIALLY-REQUIRED-TO-ATTEND OFFICE HOLIDAY PARTY in McSweeney’s a while back. I’ve always been a big fan of the we-can’t-bring-ourselves-to-order-you-to-have-fun-but-shut-up-and-have-the-kind-of-fun-we-think-you-worthy-of-(bitches) school of corporate celebration. Why do you think I work from home? Yes it’s to protect my poor co-workers from my relentless cynicism.
At Lit Drift Andrew Boryga worte about his notebook, in fact his SIFI or Shit I Find Interesting book. I sometimes have one of these, sometimes a bunch of filecards. My biggest problem isn’t making the notes, but making them accessible later. I have a shelf of notebooks that stretch back years and I’m strangely reluctant to open any of them.
At Writer Unboxed J.C. Hutchins suggested you should ask not just why? but Why now? That is, you should go beyond general motivation to the urgent and compelling reasons a character must act in a certain way right now.
Merry Christmas, peasants! Here in Britain, they’re shutting down our libraries. The guardian reported on a planned day of action. A commenter also linked to a protest blog, which maps out the expected closures.
Whatever you celebrate this time of year, I hope it works out for you. I came across this meme-of-the-year video via io9 -> The Atlantic. It made me laugh again, and as someone hoping for some Apple goodness in my stocking, it made just a little uneasy. God I’m easily swayed.
I’ll be reposting some of my favourite Inflatable pieces next week, and I believe Steph will be seeing in the New Year in this very slot. Cheers!
