They probably pitched it as one thing, and then they went with something else because, hey, nobody’s watching. —Craig Bartlett, on the phone I did something freaky yesterday: I called up someone I hadn’t talked to in thirty years. It was my old friend, Craig, who used to stay up… Read more“<em>Pulp Rag:</em> Making your life work”
Category: Writing
Pulp Rag: Marking the milestones of a life
A couple of weeks ago I finally read Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt. It turns out Angela didn’t have any ashes. Sadly, McCourt died earlier this summer. It was in the news. Only thirteen years earlier, Angela’s Ashes had rocketed out of nowhere as a memoir without a particularly focused… Read more“<em>Pulp Rag:</em> Marking the milestones of a life”
Pulp Rag: Inflicting cause-&-effect upon your reader with Henry James
“I went to confer a favour and you will go to ask one. If they are proud you will be on the right side.” —Henry James as Mrs. Prest, “The Aspern Papers” Henry James was a writer of the first order, with an understanding of character astonishing in its depth,… Read more“<em>Pulp Rag:</em> Inflicting cause-&-effect upon your reader with Henry James”
Pulp Rag: Crafting an impossible plot with Maria Dermout
“All of us, always, when we’re young, have to hold something for those who are old, and we drop it and want to get away, and draw a ship in the sand to reach a new country, and we always forget the ballast—there is no ballast but the earth of… Read more“<em>Pulp Rag:</em> Crafting an impossible plot with Maria Dermout”
Scanning far and wide
So far I have managed to spend almost the entire day wrestling fruitlessly with my website. Always a rewarding exercise. Today I’m going to highlight stuff off Twitter I wish I had time to engage in long, witty discussion about, like: Agent Jenny Bent‘s unexpected decision to hate sentence fragments…. Read more“Scanning far and wide”
Pulp Rag: Joining the gang
So I’m linking today to Donald Maass and his free book The Career Novelist, in which he asks first and foremost: are you writing for approval? or are you writing for the sake of writing? But here on Pulp Rag I’m going to get into yet a third reason: to… Read more“<em>Pulp Rag:</em> Joining the gang”
Pulp Rag: Molding and being molded
We’ve talked about the quest. Now let’s talk about the relationship novel. People getting in trouble alone—People getting in trouble with others. The two stories there are to tell. There’s a legend that after Faulkner left Hollywood someone found a piece of paper in the garbage can by his desk…. Read more“<em>Pulp Rag:</em> Molding and being molded”
Pulp Rag: Aiming past ecstasy
The ultimate aim of the quest must be neither release nor ecstasy for oneself, but the wisdom and power to serve others. —Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, via Kathryn Estrada So let’s talk about the quest plot structure. Because writing itself is a quest, and if you don’t know… Read more“<em>Pulp Rag:</em> Aiming past ecstasy”
Gearing up for NaNoWriMo
Let’s call this Monthly Mania Monday. This month—in case you’ve been living in a cave—you might not know it’s the upcoming November National Novel Writing Month. Are you doing NaNoWriMo? I’m not. That’s because a) I don’t have time, and b) I’ve already put in my obligatory decades of practicing… Read more“Gearing up for NaNoWriMo”
Pulp Rag: Planting a suspicion, revealing a glory
A week or so ago I posted an essay on hook-development-climax that was almost entirely quotes from great works. I quoted hooks. And I quoted climaxes. I would have quoted development, but my fingers got tired. I wanted you to see exactly what constitutes a hook (why it’s short!) and… Read more“<em>Pulp Rag:</em> Planting a suspicion, revealing a glory”