character | character
May.06.2009
We’re a multi-cultural society, a global community of varying histories and legends. And yet, somehow, we all share a fascination with the supernatural … with the idea that the things unseen are not inactive. The concept of myths and legends shared through storytelling is as old as the spoken...
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Apr.28.2009
I'm almost finished with a new novel, based loosely on my first. In the process of sharing the manuscript with some trusted reader-advisers, I sent it to a dear friend who happens to be a literary agent. Her critique boiled down to the fact that she loved my writing, but thought the book would...
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Jan.19.2009
We shall overcome becausewe have overcome.We have overcome when we no longerthink of ourselves asAfrican-Americans Jewish Americans Muslim Americans orItalian-Americans but as Americans we are closer to that day.We have overcome when we "judge a man notby the color of his skin, but by the...
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Jan.16.2009
It happened like this: Ellen Sussman asked me to contribute to an anthology called The Literary Dictionary of Sex (Bloomsbury Press, June 2008). All the things I really knew about--hazards of making love in a Mustang, for example--were taken. But, like a lot of writers, I surf the...
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Dec.31.2008
I am the guest blogger at Reading, Writing and Stuff That Makes Me Crazy, blogging about Character. I would love for you to stop by and get a little taste of the process of creating characters, Dante, and how the two sometimes collide. You can see the results for yourself here:
http://reading-...
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Dec.13.2008
Characters are pliable when they first crawl out of my head. Their traits, conscious motives and hidden drives can be twisted to fit the needs of the plot for a short time, but they begin to set as words are layed on paper, and soon the plot has to change to fit the exigencies of the new...
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Dec.08.2008
Spoiler altert: I discuss the full plot of the book and film Rebecca in this blog, as well as the ending of Denis Johnson’s “Emergency.”
I first saw Daphne Du Marier’s Rebecca as a film–Alfred Hitchcock’s amazing movie with Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier. I was just a kid; my babysitter, who...
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Nov.11.2008
Hazy Mitchell was small, large enough to have grown out of toddler walking some time ago but too small to leap between the bales of hay stacked behind her house. Call her that, however, and she flared like a lit match. Three weeks ago she busted open Tommy Luthor's lower lip for that very thing....
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Nov.10.2008
After taking a break for the election and to talk about my cute new UK cover, I'm following up on my recent posts about creating a story.
You may recall that I hadn't quite finished the synopsis for my next book while in the Outer Banks. Once I got home, I whipped through to the end. . .well...
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Nov.07.2008
The one thing that separates humans from other animals is not our ability to communicate; most (perhaps all) creatures possess that ability to some degree. What separates us from animals is how we communicate: by words, by stories.
We all have stories to tell. At work, we tell colleagues, “You’ll...
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