Halloween is coming, and there are some scary things in the news. Ebola. Isis. The election. *shudder* I read an article today that said as long as you don’t live in West Africa, your odds of contracting Ebola, even with the reported procedural lapses, are worse than your odds of being crushed to death by…
I finally did it. Something I’ve been wanting to do for months. I googly-eyed my kitchen. I know, it’s not a normal life goal. But I never claimed to be normal. Life’s too short and interesting for that. It started in the evening, after the kids went to bed. I wanted them to wake up to…
Dialogue is one of my favorite elements of fiction. While it seems to only show two characters shooting the breeze or arguing, it really does so much more than that. It moves the overall story forward. It reveals character. It provides action within a scene. It quickens the pace of the narrative. It provides tension and…
Ironically, WordPress trolled me and decided to publish this when it was only a title, proving the publishing status of “draft” completely useless. Not Punishing People Rule #1: Don’t send title-only posts to your followers’ email. Sorry, email followers. Stupid WordPress. Anyway. I’m here today to discuss how people punish their followers with their social…
Welcome to the latest Funny Friday post. This week, it’s all about irony – situational irony, specifically. That’s when things happen the opposite of how you expect them to. I did a post a while back about why irony is hard to teach (read it here), and one of the points was irony is easier…
This is a great post about the use of internal monologue, and I happen to agree with the author so I’m reblogging. 😉
I’m trying something new. Seeing as this started as a humor blog, and I’m sure some of you are here from those days, I want to make sure I tap into those humor roots more regularly. So, I’m devoting Fridays to humor and writing the subtitles in the style of Friends episodes: the one with…
I’m writing on this topic because it’s a real question of mine, and I feel like I’ve been running in circles with it. Maybe thinking about it in type will bring me to some kind of conclusion. There are a few rules about novel openings that seem standard: don’t open with a character waking up/with…
Originally posted on Allison Maruska:
I’ve learned something since I started this writing adventure: there are two very distinct types of fiction, and readers and writers are divided into one of these groups, whether they know it or not. Maybe they’re not 100% camped out on one side, but they definitely lean one way or…
Originally posted on angelomarcos:
You might not have heard of her, but you’ll definitely know of the legacy of Stella Adler. She was one of the most influential and seminal acting teachers in the history of, well, acting. Taking her cue from Stanislavski’s ‘method’, she taught among others Robert De Niro, Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen,…
Allison Maruska 