by Melinda Snodgrass | Jun 17, 2018 | About Writing, Blog
No, this one is not about #MeToo or complaining about suits or agents or the thousand other aggravations that accompany working in the industry. This is an actual writing tip. Truth is I became a much better novelist after I spent a few years in Hollywood writing scripts. So here is one of those things I learned. It’s called Hanging a Lantern on It, and it works like this. If something is likely to bump a reader or a viewer your best course of action is to forthrightly acknowledge...
by Melinda Snodgrass | May 15, 2018 | About Writing
I’m writing this big space battle action sequence in The Currency of War. In my head it lays out like a film — quick cuts between the four view point characters reacting to the changing situation. So I decided to try to write it as if it were a screenplay. Which means minimal description and rapid fire dialogue in each cut. Sort of a Aaron Sorkin meets Hitchcock in the shower scene in Psycho mashup that will (hopefully) weave together into a coherent whole. Each of these...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Apr 14, 2018 | About Writing
I’ve been working with the four other writers involved in the next Wild Cards mosaic novel. Mosaic novels are hard. Instead of individual stories the person editing the book (me) has to weave together all the stories so it reads like a novel with, in this case, five different writers and five different point of view characters. They meet, argue, fight together and against each other so we all using each others characters at different points in the book. As most people know I’m...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jan 6, 2018 | About Writing
If you haven’t seen Thor: Ragnarok there are some minor SPOILERS and also a couple of SPOILERS about The Dark World in this post so read no further if you are dismayed by spoilers. Recently I had a similar reaction in two very different mediums within a few days of each other. The first was when I went to see Thor: Ragnarok. (I love the Thor movies and I don’t think it’s entirely due to Tom Hiddleston as Loki.) For those of you who share my passion for all things Asgardian it was made clear in...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Jun 27, 2017 | About Writing
Ah, the teaser, the hook, the opening scene of a book — whatever you want to call it it is absolutely necessary that you have something that grabs a reader’s eyeballs and brain when they casually flip open your book and skim that first page be it at the bookstore or that online sample of an ebook. Robert Heinlein is reputed to have said that you have one page to convince a buyer to spend his or her hard earned money on your book rather than a six pack of beer so it better be a great first...
by Melinda Snodgrass | Mar 28, 2017 | About Writing
No, this is not a post about my abortion. Literarily not literally. Anyway — Let me tell you how THE IMPERIALS SAGA came to pass. Years and years and years ago I was on a panel about the third Star Wars movie The Return of the Jedi. Among its many failings was the fact that I could not accept that the imperial senate would ever approve the vast sums of money necessary to build a new Death Star after the Emperor and Vader had let a farm boy blow up the first one. I mean, I know...
