Category: fantasy

Star Wars Rogue One New Trailer!!

SQUEEEEEEEEE!!! … … … AHEM! Please pardon my mansquee. That was completely unprofessional. So the final trailer has been released… and it… looks… awesome!!!! It really looks like the perfect combination of practical effects and CGI. The Story? I get the feeling that this will be somewhat reminiscent of the Dark Forces story… Why? Because these can’t be a coincidence: Jan Ors: Jyn Erso: … Read More Star Wars Rogue One New Trailer!!

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Rare Review: Star Wars: LOST STARS

Book info: Age Range: 12 – 17 years Grade Level: 7 – 12 Lexile Measure: 880 (What’s this?) Series: Journey to Star Wars: the Force Awakens Hardcover: 560 pages Publisher: Disney Lucasfilm Press (September 4, 2015) Language: English ISBN-10: 1484724984 ISBN-13: 978-1484724989 Author: Claudia Gray Synopsis: Eight years after the fall of the Old Republic, The Galactic Empire now reigns over the known galaxy. … Read More Rare Review: Star Wars: LOST STARS

The Antihero

I’ve always loved the antihero character archetype. To me, the least interesting character has always been the main hero, the good guy, the knight in shining armor. All too often the good guy is the same basic formula; A naive individual called upon to take up a weapon (either literal or metaphorical) and go on a quest to vanquish evil. Throughout this quest s/he … Read More The Antihero

Character Portrayal

My previous topic dealing with how I create characters got me thinking. How often have writers seen actors or other personalities and written their characters around them? Or even better, how many of us have ever thought about who we would like to see portray our main characters in a movie or TV show. I know I have… so for those of you who … Read More Character Portrayal

Societal Acceptance of Bronies???

Well… I guess being a fantasy writer, this was going to come up eventually. As someone who goes to comic con almost every year, I’m no stranger to seeing grown men carrying MLP stuff around, or perusing MLP artwork tables. Being someone who TRIES not to judge people, I assumed they were buying the items for their daughters and shrugged them off. However, over … Read More Societal Acceptance of Bronies???

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Character Development

Hi Jim, I’m trying to come up with characters for my book. I was hoping you could maybe provide a little insight into how you came up with yours. I specifically liked Xaphine, could you use her as an example? Thanks, Rich. Hi Rich, General Xaphine seems to be a recurrent theme in character discussions… perhaps I should write her into another story. You … Read More Character Development

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Alternate Universe?

Hi Jim, I hope you don’t mind, but I saw your posts about asking a question and thought I’d shoot you an email. I saw from your other posts that you think using an alternate universe is poor story telling. I wanted to write a sequel to one of my books, but essentially it would be going back and exploring what would have happened … Read More Alternate Universe?

Schadenfreude is NOT Scary!

I’ve been a huge horror movie fan for a while, but there is one thing that always irked me about a certain ongoing trend in them. I was going to ignore it until I noticed that it was happening in suspense/thriller novels as well. Here’s the deal, everyone has seen these movies. The story starts off with a group of people. These people are … Read More Schadenfreude is NOT Scary!

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Lady Mechanika Review!

Lady Mechanika is a creator-owned comic book series by Joe Benitez, inspired by the steampunk genre. “Steampunk” is all about re-imagining history, usually combining the elegance of the Victorian Era with more advanced science fiction technology. The tabloids dubbed her “Lady Mechanika“, the sole survivor of a mad scientist’s horrific experiments which left her with mechanical limbs. Having no memory of her captivity or her … Read More Lady Mechanika Review!

No Permanent Death in Fantasy

This is something that has been irking me for some time now. It’s a recurrent theme in most fantasy fiction, in stories, comics, and in movies. No matter what happens in a fantasy universe, there is always a way to bring a character back. No matter what. If the character is popular, there will always be an incantation, or special portal, or some sort … Read More No Permanent Death in Fantasy

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Why Does Preachy/Safe Book and Movie Writing Fail So Badly?

Okay… I’m going to try to put a stop to this, because my focus on movie writing lately has taken my blog WAY off topic, almost to the point of Hollywood Advocacy, and it needs to stop. So hopefully this will be the end of it. However, there were some things that I needed to get off of my chest about the effects of … Read More Why Does Preachy/Safe Book and Movie Writing Fail So Badly?

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WTF… Tim Burton…

So now it’s been announced that there will be a Beetlejuice 2, and thus there is now even more evidence, that Hollywood has lost it’s touch. I don’t know about this… I’ll wait and see on this one. However, I’ve had some time to reflect on many movies recently and I have reached one inescapable conclusion… I CAN’T STAND Tim Burton! Honestly, to me, he … Read More WTF… Tim Burton…