1) Interview of a One-Year-Old Child. Video. Way funnier than it sounds.
2) Moebius did concept art for the movie WILLOW. Check out the art design that could have been.
3) Astonishing bike stunts in abandoned industrial facility. Video. Music’s nice, too.
5) Everything you need to know about the video game industry in one graphic.
6) The 10 Most Brutal Moments in ‘The Savage Sword of Conan’!
1) Obscure names for 25 Everyday Things.
2) Ten things you didn’t know about the original Star Trek.
3) How Terry Gilliam did his cut out animations. Video.
4) The 16-bit Game of Thrones RPG (not really, but hilarious) Video.
5) How nightclub bouncers decide who to let in with only a glance.
6) Looking for a new status purchase to impress the gold-diggers in your life? Why not diamond-encrusted contact lenses?
Seen via Sherwood Smith: Steve Miller wrote up a list of dos and don’ts for convention attendees.
It’s not really my thing, since I don’t attend conventions, but I figured you guys might be interested.
And so… a contest! Since my favorite thing about conventions is the stories of awful misbehavior that flow out of them like water from a leaking dam, I would like to hear YOUR best (worst) story of awful convention misbehavior. It has to be something you personally witnessed, not just something you heard about second-hand or watched on video (like the Ellison boob-grab).
Also, I’d like to avoid stories of actions that could have/did earn the perpetrator prison time, because that can be upsetting to many readers (including me).
The winner will be chosen by me, based on my own personal social hangups and anxieties, will win a complete set of all three Twenty Palaces novels, mailed to the library system (or other institution) of your choice.
Post your horror story in comments.
I’m taking a moment to log in at the library that there’s a new Mind Meld up at SF Signal. “What’s this?” you exclaim. “Harry has never linked to a Mind Meld column before! What makes this one so different?”
Well, click through, my friend. The only way you’ll find out is to click through.
(And me without my Spock ears.)
1) The largest Hot Wheels track ever. Four years in the making and it’s already sold for millions.
2) The 50 most delicious foods in the world. Points off for “Texas Barbecue Pork.”
3) More on joke Amazon.com reviews.
5) The Wesley Crusher Pullover Collection.
That looks crazy-awesome.
Author Kate Elliott has an interesting post on a new way to classify stories: by the characters who drive them.
Folks in comments are listing the characters (with accompanying story lines) that they can’t stand, and it’s a lot of the usual stuff with some interesting ideas mixed in.
Here’s my list of character genres I can’t stand:
* Anything with rock stars. Even authors I really really like will try my patience with rock musicians and their boring problems. It doesn’t help that I don’t think music translates well to the page.
* Two characters with an instant soul-mate bond. I just don’t find it compelling.
* The troubled cop with the dying wife. Not terrible, I guess, but I seem to have read too many of them.
* The recovering alcoholic detective. Another non-compelling character.
* The Devious Fantasy Character. I bounced off one really well-regarded fantasy series because one character’s Plot To Destabilize Everything still hadn’t come to fruition after 100+ pages. Not compelling.
* The Badass Who Punches Down. You guys recognize that Keith Olbermann reference, I guess? Whatever you think of the man himself, the rule that people should always punch up, never punch down (iow, attack those more powerful than you rather than less) is a good one. And yeah, I consider snark and sarcasm to be punching.
What about you guys? Any “character genres” you particularly dislike? (Be sure to check out Elliott’s post.)
1) Six Beloved 80s Toys With Bizarrely Horrifying Origin Stories
2) A writer tithes to a charity he believes in.
3) Printing in three dimensions, with chocolate.
4) The entire plot of Harry Potter on a single poster.
5) Gundam Karate Battle! Video. Nicely done and more cinematic than the usual fare.
6) Saruman trolling the fellowship. Video. ::ahem:: LOL
7) How to make a book light a light out of an old book. via ardentdelirium
Tim O’Brien’s “How To Tell A True War Story.”
Fucking wow.
Me? Writing about how to write??
I know, not my usual beat, but I think I’d like to highlight a few things:
For today, I want to talk about how we study writing. First, check out this post on passing exposition through character voice by Kelley Eskridge. Go and read it. It’s wonderful writing whether you need the lesson or not.
Second, look at this post by David Hines regarding character identification. In it, he breaks down several sections of A Song of Ice And Fire to examine where GRRM succeeds and fails, partly reinventing the Eight Deadly Words Test at the same time.
I offer these two links from two very different writers not only as worthy lessons in themselves, but as a model for learning to write. There are an awful lot of people happy to talk about the art and craft of writing in purely theoretical terms: how to build tension, how to write dialog, how to endure the midbook slump. I once read a writing advice book that listed the six ways a writer could introduce and establish a sympathetic protagonist.
Here’s a probably apocryphal story: An aspiring thriller writer wanted to be a bestseller, and he heard that Robin Cook, who wrote Coma, studied the thriller market first by reading 100 successful books in the genre. The aspiring thriller, hearing this, decided he would just read Cook’s novel, since all the lessons would be distilled in there.
There’s a lot of pre-digested literary theory out there, but I think the best way to learn is to find work like your own that you also admire and study it closely. Retype a chapter so you aren’t tempted to skim. Reread several times. Look for text where you think things are being done badly. Most important of all, develop your own theory rather than receive them second-hand.
Theoretical conversations can be interesting and fun, but speaking from personal experience, I say study texts.
