[Return to The Runner Who'll Never Die: An Interview With William F. Nolan, part one]
William F. Nolan is so prolific that to try to list all his books, short stories, [...]
RE's Nonfiction
The Runner Who’ll Never Die: An Interview With William F. Nolan (part two)
Characters on the Couch: Depression
Wars, gunfights, predatory monsters, alien invasions, displaced populations, doomed kingdoms – genre fiction’s strong themes lend themselves to strong emotion. But how do you keep characters’ depression realistic, nuanced, and above all, readable? Staff Writer AJ Grant continues her series of psychology primers for writers.
Writing Visual Dialect in Fiction
Standardized spelling is the magic trick that lets readers and authors know they share a vocabulary. But let’s face it – different people pronounce words differently, and a fieldworker from Cornwall is unlikely to use American collegiate English. What can authors do to make words on the page sound the way they do in the air, without alienating readers? Tony Burton, author of “Bluetick,” opens up his writer’s toolbox.
Usage: The Nice and Exacting Practice of Using the Correct Words Correctly
Last summer I spoke on two panels about grammar – one to a group of writers, the other to a group of editors. At both panels, audience members aired some [...]
Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Betrayal, by Aaron Allston
A new Star Wars series pits Luke, Leia, and Han against their children.
The Man Who Sees Tomorrow: An Interview with Grand Master Frederik Pohl
Frederik Pohl has been writing science fiction for longer than most of us have been alive; he’s published over a hundred books and many more short stories, and edited magazines like Galaxy, If, and Worlds of Tomorrow – winning three Hugos and multiple Nebulas in the process. In this interview, he talks about China, science fiction fans, bad movies, and his new short story collection.
Characters on the Couch: Introduction
Are your characters depressed? Phobic? Hallucinating? As authors, we know we should understand our characters as well as possible, but the brain is a complicated organ, and psychology can be a forbiddingly complicated science. Staff writer AJ Grant tells you what you need to know in a new series about mental illnesses that commonly appear in genre fiction.
In addition, our Research section continues to expand, this time with a series of comparative religion links about Christianity. Need to pull up an ominous biblical quote for a horror story? Want to know how and why the Christian church—and its views toward sin and science—developed the way they did? Fantasy authors and historical fiction writers alike will find inspiration.
Is the Matrix Really Green and Black? A Writer’s Intro to Hacker Culture
There’s something to be said for being misunderstood—it gives you staying power. Two decades after hackers first began to gain prominence in the media, news writers are still talking about [...]
A Cliché by Any Other Name
Are clichés all wet, or do they leave you high and dry? Can they be short and sweet, but in it for the long haul? Science fiction author Bruce Golden gives us a tour through Clichéland in this April Fool’s special.
Superluminal: A Scientific Look at Science Fiction Stardrives
The main barrier to interstellar travel is the vast distance from one star to the next, and the universal limit known as lightspeed. This hasn’t stopped science fiction authors from imagining ways to speed up the process, and here Paul Lucas takes us through the main theories behind faster-than-light travel, their origins, and their scientific underpinnings.
Dream a Little Dream: RE’s Favorite Fantasy Titles
You’ve seen our science fiction pics. You’ve seen our favorite horror. Now we’re back with a highly biased, hugely enthusiastic list of the fantasy books we couldn’t live without. If you want to share your fantasy favorites, drop us a line via our blog.
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 [...]
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 [...]
Confessions of a Slush Monkey
What do slush readers really love – and really hate? And how do you get past them into the hands of an editor? RE’s own slush reader (or slush monkey, as the reader prefers) gives the inside scoop on a slush reader’s process.
Zen and the Art of Telling Versus Showing
A common piece of advice given to new writers is to “show, don’t tell.” On the surface, it appears to be a very straightforward piece of advice. But in practice, [...]