The reviewer was eviscerating a new play, condemning it with something like, “As all playwrights know, it’s always about showing and not telling. In this new play characters talk and talk, telling their stories and never doing much of anything.” And I thought SHOW don’t TELL was the mantra of novelists! Keeping expository dialog in check seems to be the goal of all storytellers. It’s tricky because there’s a great deal of sharing background stories in real conversations. We recount events from our pasts, describe experiences, and compare observations—all in an effort to get to know one another. In fiction,
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Talking to Ghosts
No, I don’t believe in ghosts. But I have had many conversations, in my head, with my long gone grandmother. I think she’d be mystified by my life—intrigued by my independence, but disappointed that I never had a child. She serves as “monitor” with whom I check in. I also talk to my characters. They are another kind of specter—here but not here, real but not real, meaningful but not corporeal. The other day, I found myself having a discussion with one of the characters in the novel draft that is now in cold storage—on hold until the right time
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The Strange Case of Identical DNA
I’m always getting caught up in odd science and medical news stories. When I was cleaning my bulletin board I found an old, yellowed, newspaper clipping about a burglary in a department store in Germany. The perpetrator had left DNA behind, but the authorities were flummoxed because the DNA match was for a pair of identical twins. The paper had been there for a few years and the second half of the article was missing so I tossed it into the recycling bin, taking away the haunting tidbit of strange news. Identical twins share DNA, but life—even development inside the
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A Solstice Tea Party
Welcome to the Midsummer Night’s Tea Party! I’m sharing this post with the PARAYOURNORMAL Blog Party… Lewis greeted his guests with a Cheshire Cat on his shoulder and a choice of tea “With or without?” “With or without what?” Alice replied with a whimsical smile. “With or without consequences and hidden agendas, of course. What else could I mean?” “Oh. It could have been sugar and milk, or lemon, or a shot of whiskey or…” “My tea always comes with a shot of whiskey. Without it I cannot write poetry. It comes in handy when
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Don’t Mind Me—Keep Talking
I listen to strangers talking all the time. Most of the time it’s dull. Sometimes it’s educational. And, on occasion it’s frightening. The other day I was heading on my way to buy groceries, walking along a particularly busy stretch of sidewalk a few blocks from where I live, when I overheard a man shouting into his mobile phone. “You f-ing find her and get my shit back. Or I’ll go out there and find her and f-ing kill her! I want my stuff back!” His language, tone, demeanor and facial expression didn’t leave any doubt. He meant what he
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One Draft, Two Draft, Read Draft, Through Draft
Yes, I agree — I am NOT Dr. Seuss, but multiple drafts of multiple projects (short stories, novels, novellas, etc.) sometimes make me feel like I’m living in an odd Seuss-ian juggling act. It’s a one fish, two fish for writers. Right now there’s a novel in COLD STORAGE. One Beta reader loved it; another said that it was not working. The reality is most likely in-between the two poles, but that is simply not good enough. After spending the better part of a year on the tight draft (of my third outing on this basic story) I didn’t have
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The Big Cat in the Little Cat
As I write this, my 10-pound cat is sitting next to me. He is definitely a little cat. He’s not even big for a housecat. But the evidence of his connection to big, ferocious felines is there. It’s in the way he pounces on a toy, sits in rapt attention on the windowsill when the pigeons are preening, and in the way he stretches and cleans his paws. Not being a real nature girl —and living in the center of a city— I find myself studying my cat as an example of a non-human creature. Although most of the monsters
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Venice X 2 —Not an ordinary vacation…
Venice X 2 The first time Frank heard the melody his bag was clacking on the pavement as he walked from the canal. The music floated down from an open window in the narrow calle. The song was somehow both familiar and strange. The fine brown hairs on the back of his neck stiffened—half with delight and half with fear. He looked up and the street sign read Rio Terra Dei Assassini. He chuckled and moved on to the hotel. “Have you been to Venice before?” “Yes, but only once and it was years ago.” The concierge gave him
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Must Everything be ENHANCED?
It’s not strange to find me wandering around a museum. I’m usually focused on the art, but sometimes I turn my attention toward the patrons. I listen to snippets of conversation (great training for writing dialog), check out the fashions (weird, wonderful and everything in-between), or simply observe how other people interact with art. I’m definitely not the first one to observe the “museum-selfie” phenomenon. For a certain number of museum visitors a self-portrait photo with Van Gogh’s Starry Night or Salvador Dali’s The Persistence of Memory (AKA the melting clock painting) is a required Museum of Modern Art experience.
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Werewolves at Work
If you haven’t heard, the new Candy’s Monsters Contest has begun! It’s the Working Werewolves Contest. Yes, I’m making myself crazy again, hosting a contest with TWO prizes that go to ONE winner —an Amazon gift certificate and a short story written using the premise provided by the winner. Last year the Vampire Real Estate Contest (the best/worst places for a the undead to live) resulted in a fabulous assortment of suggested locales —from the Bermuda Triangle to the land of the midnight sun. The winning entry was the suggestion that I locate a vampire in a classic New York
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