by Melinda Snodgrass | May 9, 2016 | TV & Movies
Saturday was my day to finally see the latest Captain America movie though it really wasn’t a Cap movie. It more of an Avengers movie. I liked it — with reservations — and feel like I need to see it again. One thing it did very nicely was start a passionate discussion among the folks with whom I’d seen the movie. What did I like — the new Spiderman was adorable. He really was a teenager. It was fun to see Antman return. The Black Panther — OMG what a...
by Melinda Snodgrass | May 3, 2016 | About Writing
I started my new novel (book 3 in the Imperials Saga) a few days ago. Starting a book is always the hardest part of writing for me. I circle the computer warily. I sit down, stare at the screen, remember I should really do some laundry, or wash my hair or go to the market. It’s not that I don’t know where I’m going — the elaborate outline is off to my left, scrawled across my white board, the colored pens showing the arc of the three POV characters I have in this...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Apr 26, 2016 | TV & Movies
I can’t watch every show that out there. Not with some 144 scripted dramas currently showing on various platforms, however, in the shows I do watch I’m noticing a trend that is bothering me. Extremely interesting and charismatic male leads, and woman characters that aren’t as strong or interesting. It really hit me last night as I was watching the latest episode of Lucifer. A very problematic show that I keep watching because of the amazing job being done by Tom Ellis in...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Apr 23, 2016 | Blog
I guess my blog is viewed by more people then I realize because my lyrical post about The Magicians landed me an interview/discussion about the show for Wired. Here’s the link where you can listen in while David Barr Kirtley interviews Andrew Liptak and me about the show. Wired Geeks Guide The Magicians
by Melinda Snodgrass | Apr 18, 2016 | Blog
I generally don’t get political here. I talk about movies and games and books, writing, riding, etc. But as this long (too long) campaign season winds toward its conclusion I have to speak up, and plead with Democrats and Independents and progressives to think very hard about wounded feelings. I have repeated stated that I am team blue. I will vote for which ever candidate wins the nomination. For the record I will vote for Secretary Clinton in the New Mexico primary, but if Senator...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Apr 15, 2016 | About Writing
There have been questions about how I plot and outline. I learned this technique when I was working on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and it’s used on every television show. I use it for the movies I write as well. And then it occurred to me — this could work for novels too. Not in as much detail, not every scene, but the big scenes, the “tent pole” moments could be laid out. I’m going to actually put up a photo of the next Imperials novel, but please...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Mar 29, 2016 | General
So I hosted a cream tea on Friday. George R.R. had urged me to do something to welcome Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer to Santa Fe and to give them a chance to meet some of the cool people who live here. George also wanted to show off my house which is very beautiful with an 80 mile view out the glass wall of the living room. It sounded like a fun idea so I invited a group of novelists and screenwriters. Including Ed Khamara — he wrote Lady Hawk and Enemy Mine, Bruce McKenna — he...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Mar 27, 2016 | About Writing, Blog, TV & Movies
I’ve done a lot of adaptations. It’s a tricky skill, but fun. You have to take from the underlying material the essential themes, the emotional sense of the work, keep the characters relatively intact, but be willing to make changes because film and print are two different mediums and they tell stories in different ways. The emotional impact is ultimately the same, but how you get there is different. You have to know what to cut and what to expand. Right now I’m watching...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Mar 20, 2016 | TV & Movies
I just finished watching Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace back to back. Guess what — Quantum isn’t a bad movie. The problem was that it was the second half of a movie that got broken into two parts. Quantum seems to pick up like one day after the end of Royale, but for viewers two years had passed and by then we’d forgotten a lot of the details. Bond is killing his way through people as he tries to find out who was behind Vesper’s death, but his rage and obsession...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Mar 16, 2016 | About Writing
I’ve been doing my final rewrite of the second novel in my space opera series. I’ve only got a couple of chapters to go before it’s as cooked as I can get it. Late this afternoon I went back to a scene that had stumped me earlier in the day. I realized I had used internal dialog where a son is reflecting on his father’s devotion to the ruling class and how the son rebelled against that. The moment just felt flat to me and then I realized, both men are in the same space. Why not have them...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Mar 6, 2016 | About Writing
Money flows to the writer. Not from the writer. That’s the rule. Remember it. Tattoo it on the back of your eyelids. Nothing makes me angrier then when I hear about an aspiring writer who had paid someone a lot of money to read their manuscript and comment. These so called “writing coaches” are preying on the hopes and dreams of people who want to write and it’s disgusting. They have no power to put your manuscript in front of an agent or an editor. They...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 4, 2016 | TV & Movies
Tuesday night George and I were having a long conversation via text. (Yes, Mr. Wordstar is a texting monster. He’s the reason I had to go with unlimited texting.) Truthfully we should have just picked up the phone and talked, but oh well. Anyway, GRRM wanted to know if I had watched the latest episode of The Flash yet. I hadn’t because of the time difference between L.A. and Santa Fe, but we ended up talking about how the Star Labs Scooby gang keep locking people up in the basement in...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Feb 1, 2016 | TV & Movies
After writing for most of yesterday and staying warm while the rain and wind battered the house I decided to spend the evening on a movie binge. Guardians of the Galaxy was on followed by Avengers — Ultron. Boy is Guardians a _much_ better movie than Ultron. There was a seed of a good movie in among all the endless and often pointless action sequences in Ultron, but it gasped and died under the weight of the CGI action. I noticed something else. When Whedon thinks something is going...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jan 29, 2016 | About Writing
I’m tiptoeing up on the final chapter of the next novel in the Imperials series. Usually approaching the end of a novel feels like a toboggan ride, but this one has me groping my way toward the conclusion. I think it’s a combination of things. I can see the final scenes and how to present them if this were a movie where the camera itself can be a point of view but because this is a novel I have to present it through the eyes of one of the two view point characters. In this case...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jan 13, 2016 | Newsflash
Folks may or may not know that Random House Audio is doing our Wild Cards books and has made the very exciting decision to hire different actors for the various characters instead of one reader for the entire book. The line up for JOKER’S WILD is as follows: Prentice Onayemi, reading Fortunato, Pam Grier, reading Roulette, Molly Quinn, reading Wraith, Ray Porter, reading Sewer Jack, Felicia Day, reading Bagabond, Stephen McHattie, reading Demise, Ron Donachie, reading Hiram Worchester....
