I knew my job was going to kill me from the moment I enlisted, seven years ago. Some people called me a suicidal environmentalist for joining, but personally, I call [...]
Issue: December 2005
Verisimilitude and the Competent Con: Research for Fiction
“The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof crap detector. This is the writer’s radar and all great writers have had it.”
—Ernest Hemingway
Writers are prone to [...]
Swing Sets and Stormclouds
Were it not for the boy’s red-and-white striped shirt, Madison would never even have gone outside, much less approached the swing set. As it was, she felt compelled to move [...]
Ganymede of the Thames
Of course, I teach him everything he knows. But being a thing, as it stands, of flesh, and twine, and dust, he turns his pride a little to the meat [...]
Creeping Inside the Father of Modern Action Novels: An Interview with David Morrell
David Morrell created the character John Rambo in First Blood in 1972, and the action/adventure novel was born. Creepers, his latest novel, continues the Morrell tradition of fast-paced action mixed [...]
A Man Needs a Reason
Lorcan raised his red right hand as the young man stumbled down the dusty road. “I canna let ye pass, lad.”
The man—cheeks gaunt, eyes sunken—stopped. “I have no quarrel with [...]
How to Torture a Vampire
He wants pain. Pain is his thing, what he needs, the thing he begs for. Down on his knees with tears in his eyes, he implores me to find a [...]
Midnight
1. Sunset
The sun disappeared at noon, right on schedule. The six travelers watched the southern sky from the top of the tower in the middle car of their little train.
“A [...]
Writing Negative Space
In art, negative space is the area around a focal object: white paper behind a line sketch, space between the arms of a sculpture, the background of a photograph. The [...]