mystery
The Gilded Age: On Invention and Excess
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“We don’t have a choice in the matter, Mr. McAllistar, we must go where history takes us.” In the HBO Gilded Age series, these were Bertha Russell’s brave words to Ward McAllister on the night Thomas Edison flipped the switch to electrically light up the New York Times Building. McAllister had expressed a qualm about…
Dorothy L Sayers and the Thirty-Foot Drain: Searching for Peter Wimsey
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Dorothy L Sayers was my gateway author to the world of crime fiction. I’d read the Sherlock Holmes stories earlier on, but that superlatively singular creation of Arthur Conan Doyle did not lead me any further. Holmes was unique, existing in his own universe, and there he remained. Not so with Sayers and Lord Peter…
Lady Duverger Character Description by Hugh Addison
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Felix motioned to an older woman with an air of sophistication. She was adorned with jewels, so much so, for a moment I was dizzy. She wore a sparkling shawl across her shoulders. Her hair and makeup were perfectly done, but there was a severeness about her. Her eyes were narrow and sharp and the…
The Secret History‘s tragic flaw? Those Kids Are No Fun
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I recently reread Donna Tartt’s Dark Academia classic The Secret History—published 30 years ago this month—for the first time since I was a young identity-less Classics student myself. On the whole, I found the book as enjoyable as I remember (and was also struck by the degree of the homage in Tana French’s The Likeness). One…
The Writer as Magpie
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I am not the kind of writer who finds every plot twist, detail of setting, and character description in my imagination. I am like a magpie when it comes to developing a story, shamelessly borrowing from and building on whatever I see and hear. Here’s an example. As I was beginning to work on the…
Tool Tip: SyncBackFree To Backup Your Writing
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Your computer dies with all your work stuck on your hard drive. It is a scenario that scares every writer and almost everyone experiences once. Fortunately, there is a free solution, SyncBackFree from the 2BrightSparks which you can find here. To date I have only used the free version and it works so well I…
Resource: American Dialect Links
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Today I share another resource. Dialect Guide: American Dialects by Point Park University, a handy site for helping to write authentic dialog. The site is organized by General American, Northern Dialects and Southern Dialects. Under each heading they have Audio Resources, Library Resources, Local Resources (by name), followed by Video Examples, Plays and more. Here…
This Will Change Your Life
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Looking for inspiration that will change your life. This is a great video and the timing couldn’t be more appropriate. Ed explains how variety and having new experiences actually creates new neural pathways in the brain. You want to be smarter? Visit new places, meet new people, get out of your routine and mix it…
100+ Query Letter Examples To Get Noticed
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One of the sources that I found helpful comes from thejohnfox.com 100+ Query Letter Examples (That Got Authors and Agent) The query letters cover are linked and organized by genre. There are a lot of helpful tips and this site should be in every writer’s toolbox. According to thejohnfox.com, a successful query often includes a…