One thing that makes me put down a book or a submission is a world where the behavior of the inhabitant doesn’t bear any resemblance to what you can expect of people as a whole with a their cultural history. The Pearl Harbor attack affected the American psyche because it was the first attack on […]
Posts Tagged ‘the art and science of writing’
The Inextricable Link Between Culture and Behavior
Posted: 14th March 2016 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: advice, brain fodder, human behavior, reality, research, science, the art and science of writing, wtf
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Oh The Weather Outside Is Frightful: Nemo & Writing
Posted: 9th February 2013 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: irene radford, storm, the art and science of writing, weather, writing
One of the things a lot writers have to do is jump outside the known, into the stark cold reality of “making shit up” and not just making it, making it up and making it sound good. If you’ve never left the southern tip of Miami, or live on a beach in Panama, you probably […]
Brain Fodder: Web TV, Chromosome Segregation, Cufflinks on Your PJ’s, Color, Baby Blinding and More
Posted: 27th December 2012 by onyxhawke in Brain FodderTags: psychology, the art and science of writing, writing
The boffins at Amazon have pulled together six new web series they want folks to rate. Your cat could make your baby blind. Chromosome segregation is something we can all embrace, especially since cancer cases have a 90% prevalence when it breaks down. There may just be a habitable planet orbiting Tau Ceti. If there […]
NANO & National Adoption Month
Posted: 5th November 2012 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: human behavior, random musing, the art and science of writing
Somehow I failed to notice that it it was National Adoption month. Fortunately the nice folks at Adopt Us Kids tweeted a reminder: Which prompted me to think: Why aren’t their any notable, positive adoption stories in science fiction and fantasy? I’ve read close to a five digit figure of science fiction and fantasy stories […]
Battlefields, Introverts vs Extroverts, Anti-Snoring Devices, Writing and Research and more
Posted: 29th October 2012 by onyxhawke in Brain FodderTags: advice, brain fodder, dave freer, human behavior, psychology, reality, the art and science of writing, writing
Battlefield maps aren’t really difficult to come by, but getting one map with absolute brain breaking loads of the them from a source known for quality? Just about unheard of. Click here and drool. One of the fascinating differences between introverts, like say Charles Darwin or Albert Einstein on one hand and extroverts such as […]
Endangered Species: Dark Hero
Posted: 22nd October 2012 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: dave freer, questions asked, the art and science of writing, writing
Once upon a time, in a book far away the hero was not the cuddliest man for miles. It sounds like fiction, and in a way it is. Fiction reflects its germinative society. In fact it not only reflects that society, it is by necessity and evolution a symbiote of that society. Neither can endure healthily […]
Creator Convienient Content
Posted: 15th October 2012 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: the art and science of writing, wtf
There are lots of forms of this, in writing there’s the ancestral sword that happens to be sharper and stronger than normal metal. My absolute least favorite is the plot convenient personality traits. The character who has an issue with authority so big they pick fights with anyone who tries to direct them. Most of […]
Shocking Revalation
Posted: 25th September 2012 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: human behavior, people are strange, reading, the art and science of writing, writing
People think differently. Because of this they behave differently. Every so often I’m reminded how differently people behave. They behave differently because theythink differently. The behavior follows the thinking and is as closely linked as light source and shadow length. Some people don’t get this. For some the entire concept is invalid. For others they […]
Lyndon Johnson Speeches
Posted: 19th September 2012 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: history, Lyndon B Johnson, the art and science of writing, video, writing
You have to wonder sometimes how some impressive speeches get left out of public discourse. Is Johnson as charismatic as Kennedy or King? Probably not, but sometimes a simple approach to things that comes across cleanly is just as strong.
Those Words I Hate
Posted: 14th September 2012 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: advice, bad words, pulpit pounding, the art and science of writing
I have a pretty simple criteria for words I don’t want to see in books. It probably hasn’t changed in years. I don’t think I’ve ever explained exactly what it is. Your mileage may vary, but for me it is real simple: If I haven’t heard a word spoken in conversation at least three times […]
New Degree Specialization Needed
Posted: 4th September 2012 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: random musing, reality, the art and science of writing, writing
As a geek, I read a lot. Most of it I understand, some of it I enjoy, but often it is just horribly written. So while discussing things with the dynamic Kate Paulk as we lamented not being at either of the big cons, I came up with an idea that would probably solve a […]
Creating Your Notionalbiology: More Building Blocks
Posted: 29th August 2012 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: random musing, science, the art and science of writing
Life as we know it is built out of DNA. DNA is composed of four nucleic acids. They pair up and construct short sections of three to grow into everything we know. Humans, rabbits, star fish, hummingbirds, spiders, all the same tiny pieces arranged differently. Guanine, Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine all appear in amounts that are […]
Writing The Second Reformation
Posted: 18th June 2012 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: human behavior, random musing, the art and science of writing
As a student of history, and enough of a glutton for punishment to observe today’s politics I wonder if it could happen. Could we see, in the next five to fifty years a new Reformation? The Catholic Church was rocked by the sex abuse scandal. It is still dealing with backlash from its actions and […]
Perspectives On Voice
Posted: 10th May 2012 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: chuc, chuck gannon, dave freer, evil agentry, irene radford, james enge, publishing, pulpit pounding, the art and science of writing
I keep telling people an important thing about my blog: I am not a writer. Really. I don’t have that urge to create. If i blog I have something to say. If i don’t blog reason number one is that anything that occurs to me to write is likely to bore me to sleep before […]
Series Death
Posted: 23rd March 2012 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: questions asked, random musing, the art and science of writing
As a reader I’ve been unfortunate enough to see two of my favorite series die recently. They are still being published, and the writers are still packing words between the covers. Unfortunately at some point the core value of the series died, at least for me. I’ve read both series for the last half decade […]
The Well Drawn Villain
Posted: 13th March 2012 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: human behavior, the art and science of writing
One of the weird quirks of fiction is that it frequently has to be more believable than reality. Reality being a wholly subjective thing, it’s something one has to make a lot of compromises to get broad appeal on. In writing its even harder than in movies or television to get the villain right. The […]
Logic And History Rarely Do They Meet
Posted: 21st February 2012 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: history, people are strange, the art and science of writing, wtf
I was tripping the light fantastic across the internet and came across this fantastic piece of work: That Time We Beat the Americansa piece of writing by a Canadian, referencing the War of 1812. The logical faults of the article are legion, but for a quick look at them: Canada wasn’t even Canada then. It […]
Worldbuilding: Congruity, Politics, Media, Malcolm X, Tim Thomas
Posted: 24th January 2012 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: Celebrities and Athletes, dave freer, friends and fiends, people are strange, Politics, random musing, the art and science of writing, wtf
Sorry for the long absence, nothing I’ve thought of related to writing and publishing has arrived in my head lately that wasn’t fit to peel paint and melt the steel or concrete behind it. I’ll be delving into politics today, with the reminder that I am not a member of any political party. One of […]
Pearl Harbor Day & Fictional History
Posted: 7th December 2011 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: reality, the art and science of writing
Today is the 70th anniversary of the single largest military sneak attack on the United States of America. A fleet was destroyed, thousands died or were injured. A nation was scarred. A giant awoken. Thank you to all the men and women in the armed services past, present and future. One of the few […]
Primer 1
Posted: 4th September 2011 by onyxhawke in UncategorizedTags: people are strange, Primer, professionalism, reality, the art and science of writing, writing
These are some of the posts that will make a passable introduction to what I think, what I like, and what I’ve seen. The Essential Why, a June 09 post on what it takes to draw people in . Prologue Sin #2 (which was the first of the prologue sin posts I’ve written, ya […]