From the monthly archives:

January 2009

Character Names – Random, Plentiful and Believable

January 28, 2009

What do the following character names have in common? Maria Archer Hollis Rivers Ester Stringer Robert Mueller, Director of the FBI OK, so that last one doesn’t really fit with my topic, but all of these started out the day in my email spam folder.  I have been harvesting character names from this source for [...]

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Pacing and the Director’s Cut

January 27, 2009

Awhile back my wife (in an apparent bid to become my ex-wife) loaned one of my DVD’s out without asking me.  The movie was Troy, one I like and watch fairly often.  After a few months of it not finding its way home I just bought a new copy.  But this copy was the director’s cut.  [...]

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Mistakes with Guns

January 21, 2009

I found an article titled “Stupid Gun Mistakes EVERY Writer Makes” that has a good list of common mistakes when writing about firearm behavior.  Here are a few, but check out his full list. THE “EMPTY” AUTOMATIC We’ve all seen the scene where on adversary has the drop on another at the end of a [...]

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Extreme Characters: Jim Profit

January 19, 2009

Some of the most interesting characters we encounter in literature and film are those that are well outside the norm. They are not like anyone we know, and are probably not like anyone we could ever be.  How do such extreme characters impact the stories they are in? Are your own characters this interesting?  Don’t [...]

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“She’s A Lady…” (Female Archetypes in the Western Tradition)

January 11, 2009

In examining heroic archetypes, I am struck by how few examples there are of heroic female characters in ancient narratives. Heroic male protagonists abound in the pre-Shakespearean canon, and they usually fall into distinct categories (warriors, teachers, fools, tricksters, etc.). By contrast, the heroines of the ancient world are not so easy to categorize, and [...]

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