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  • Myr

    Thriller/Suspense Genre Deep Dive 10

    By Myr

    Top Read Stories In Thriller/Suspense Deep Dive 9 Top 2 Most Read Thriller/Suspense - Environmental Thriller thrillers tied to environmental events that are typically threatening the world.  Ex: The Day After Tomorrow, Geostorm Journey To Proxima Centauri b by Lee Wilson Complete Neon by William King Temporary Hold Top 10 Most Read Thriller/Suspense - Espionage The spy thriller is a genre of literature that centers around a storyline with secret agent
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Need a beta reader or three

Right, as I've threatened recently, I've another Ben and William short I'm working on. (Though does it still count as a short story if it's 9K+ words? I dunno)     Anyway, I've been trying to stretch some with this one and have a more deliberate structure and theme to the story. That's a good thing, I think, assuming I managed to do it, but it makes it tougher to tell; with a good adventure story you just have to make sure that the thumping happens in more or less the right order, the descrip
TheZot

TheZot

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So just die, already

It's a grey and drizzly saturday, and I'm sitting here rewriting this goddamn fight scene. Again. This is its third go-round, and it's pissing me off. This is S&S stuff. It's supposed to be straightforward, "kill the monster, take its treasure, move on." I mean, there's formula. Possibly sacred formula, I'm not sure -- the genre both demands it and is antithetical to it, which might make it obligatory to acknowledge and ignore it -- but definitely formula. You'd think it was easy to follow,
TheZot

TheZot

2

I hate it when I forget the moral

It's damned annoying, that's what it is.     Not, in this case, a "what the heck was that moral, again?" but more a "damn, I had a moral and I lost track of it!"       I mean, here I am, typing away, pretty much done with the story and I realize that the big end fight scene (c'mon, it's a sword'n'sorcery story, fight scenes are obligatory) is disconnected from the rest of the piece. I have what I think is a pretty nice setup, and I managed to let the banter side track me.     Pesky cha
TheZot

TheZot

2
Life

Worshipping at the Alter of the Mouse

Well everyone... it hasn't happened in 14 years...   I'm going on vacation.   I will be worshiping at the Alter of the Mouse in sunny Orlando, Florida.   Please behave. I do not intend to be online at all and if anything happens that requires me to get called on vacation... let's just say that you will no longer be a member...   I have lots of plans and lots of stuff on tap for when I get back. I should be nice and refreshed after 9 days away from the Internet and depressing news. I a
Myr

Myr in Life

3

Dates in the mirror are closer than they appear

So I've been beating up Busted, and I've been finding (as so many people do) that making it good takes a whole lot more work than just making it exist. I'd planned on having it done and shopping it around by the end of the year, assuming my HR department was OK with it. I'm not sure if that's going to happen now, unfortunately. It may, given that it's not yet Halloween, but I'm not holding my breath.     Still, the work going into the rewrite is definitely worth it. Even if the book ultimatel
TheZot

TheZot

4

I stink!

The title is quite literal... I really stink right now.   Earlier this evening, I went outside to get something out of my SUV, and it was dark. That's fairly normal at night, so they say.   As I opened the rear hatch, I noticed something moving out of the corner of my eye, between the rear of the SUV and the corner of my house, just a couple of feet away. All I could see was a flash of white.   Then the smell hit... Ugh... I quickly figured out that what I'd seen was a skunk. It got me
C James

C James

13

Teenagers in Iran tortured and executed in Iran, for being gay.

Teenagers in Iran tortured and executed in Iran, for being gay. May they rest in peace.   Let it not be forgotten that those two executed gay young men were not alone; there have been at least hundreds executed in Iran for homosexuality in recent years. There's a word for that, it's called genocide.     For anyone who doesn't know, Iran's president recently said that they don't have homosexuals in Iran. He and his ilk are trying to make that into a fact, one gallows at a time.   T
C James

C James

20

Rewrites, rewrites, rewrites

And more rewrites.   I'm not dead, but you'd never know it from the postings, would you? When Real Life hasn't been getting in the way, I've been beating up the draft of Busted, trying to get it in shape to shop around for publication.   It's been a !@$! pain in the ass getting it ready, too.   I thought the worst part about this would be throwing out scenes. I've already tossed 30K words, the last third of the book. Not that it isn't bad; some of the stuff I tossed I really, really like.
TheZot

TheZot

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Oh, Rats!

Oh, Rats!!!   In my prior blog entry, I described some of the storm damage to my house. Well, the good news is that I found a roofing contractor willing and able (they have 4x4's) to drive out this far. The bad news is they have only one 4x4, a pickup, and so it's been one or two guys working on the roof.   Sadly, none of them fit the stereotype of hot young shirtless roofers. Oh well.   There has, however, been an unexpected fringe benefit; I have house guests! Yes indeed, unexpected v
C James

C James

10

Nature's Fury

In a normal year, Arizona's Monsoon season (summer thunderstorms) starts in mid-july, and ramps up by mid August, often resulting, here in the high mountians of northern Arizona, thunder daily, but rain once ever few days at most.   This year, a years-long drought has broken, and we've had rain daily, over a foot between mid_July and yesterday.   Yesterday, I had major damage to my house (wish I was joking on that). A thunderstorm hit, and in the mountains they can be very violent. This on
C James

C James

4
Books

Harry Potter (SPOILERS!)

My goodness. The journey has at least come to an end. It's suprising the amount of things that different fanfiction writers got right.   Albus Severus Potter. Hell of a name for a son, eh?   I couldn't beleive the number of deaths.     Something else!! Bravo!
Myr

Myr in Books

4

Twists on an old standard

or semi-old standard, at least. Cliches always bother me, and I've been pestered the past week or so by some characters and a bit of plot. I'm not going to work on it now -- writing time's dedicated either to the rewrite of Busted (which is crawling along, dammit) or working on Wild Life, which I've put off for way too long -- but still, they interest me. Maybe they'll interest someone else, enough to do something with them.   In this case it's the "kid shows up on the doorstep a decade or mor
TheZot

TheZot

5

Ooooh! Spiffy-keen client side goodness!

As part of the forum revamp, it looks like the blog module now properly supports XML-RPC access. (It used to claim to, but I never had any luck getting it to work) That means client blog editors (like, say, ecto, the one I rather like. It's well worth the cost) work. Which means I can blog from the train, with a text editor that doesn't suck, and that has built-in spelling checking. (Though I do see the latest version of Camino enables that in text widgets, which is kinda nice)   Being able to
TheZot

TheZot

3

Rewrites suck

It's always so much easier to write things in the first place. Not easy, exactly, but easier. Of course, the problem is that the ideas for the new stuff don't stop when I'm struggling to fix the old stuff. (I've only managed to get to the point where Joe's found Stephanie, dammit)   So, while I struggle, have the last few pages of the thing that likely comes next. And all I need now is everything that comes before it. It's going to have to be pretty good, since there's definitely no happily ev
TheZot

TheZot

7

Is it right to mourn the words?

I've been re-plotting Busted (yeah, I'm keeping that title for now, as it's better than the replacements I've managed) and I've come to the part of the process I really hate -- chopping out the good bits because they just don't work.   Chopping the crap out's relatively easy. Embarrassing, yeah (I mean, I wrote it in the first place, and what was I thinking?), but easy. So that flashback scene to when Chris was a kid? Gone. Poof, and no worries.   Unfortunately it also means that Steve's ra
TheZot

TheZot

5

Werewolf stories always disappoint me

So much macho posturing nonsense. Bleah. I hate it when they start off all promising and go downhill too. (They're much like vampire stories that way. At least with vampire stories you know that they're going to suck...)   I made the mistake of reading one the other day. I swear, at some point I'm going to sit down and write one myself, but until then I'll make do with this scene. (I'm not sure if it works without context, but it's funny in my head)       Clay looked down at Max, lying in
TheZot

TheZot

11

Toymaker, part 2

[Hrm. Looks like my tendency to mushy background stuff is getting in the way. 1700 words and nothing's exploded! Have to fix that in the next piece...]   William finished dressing himself a few minutes later. Gone was the barbarian prince, and in his place was an ordinary, unremarkable merchant. He was wearing a tunic and brown overshirt, belted at the waist, and a pair of dark green leggings. He'd exchanged his doeskin boots for a pair made of sturdy leather. He tugged at the collar of the sh
TheZot

TheZot

2

Dirty Basement's done!

And up, thanks to Joe. Ben and William are back, and as domestic as Heroes ever get.   Go read, and marvel at the joys of home ownership.
TheZot

TheZot

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Toymaker chapter 01

[i'm feeling the need for some good melodramatic monologuing and denoument (it's all Dio's fault!). Ben and William are always good for that, so while I'm sitting on Busted, and polishing up the last draft of Dirty Basement (the second complete Ben and William story) I give you... Toymaker! Or, rather, the first draft dump of it. That seemed to work pretty well with Busted. My son likes these, so this one's going to be PG, at worst]   William reined in his horse as he crested the hill. The mid
TheZot

TheZot

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Busted end notes

Right, some notes for the end of the story, and (hopefully) an entry to hang people's comments about things that need fixing or addressing. Yeah, it's quiz time -- please weigh in with the problems you had with the story. I've got my list, but I can't fix what I don't realize is wrong. (This is not the time to be nice)   I need a title! I don't know that 'Busted' really fits all the way through. The folder on my hard drive's labelled "Ghost Cop" but that's not all that good either. You've got
TheZot

TheZot

6

Busted chapter 74 + 75 (fin!)

[Ah, I can't wait, so instead I edit and re-release. I'm done. Yay!]   Snuffles may have cleared Chris head, but he also broke the spell that hid Joe. The maniac stiffened as he realized they weren't alone any more.   "You! How are you
TheZot

TheZot

5

Busted chapter 73

[Damn, this is slow going. Sorry...]   From the kitchen to the upstairs took Joe all of seven seconds. He heard the nasty laughter as soon as he'd rounded the corner and hit the stairs, and it led him right to the master bedroom.   He gave a strangled little cry as he stopped in the doorway. Chris was sprawled out on the floor next to the bed, his head against the nightstand. He looked dazed, his eyes a little unfocused. The lamp that stood on the nightstand was wobbling, throwing odd flashe
TheZot

TheZot

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Busted chapter 72

[Only one or two parts to go. Racing to the end now]   That sent a chill down Chris' spine and left a lump in his stomach. 'Hungry' was always bad with the violently insane. Not that he had a whole lot of experience with those. He was a detective in a small city police department. He had to deal with drugs and gangs and the occasional psychopath. As deep as he'd dived into the case, the state guys were right. He hadn't ever dealt with this stuff. Not that they had, but that was a problem for a
TheZot

TheZot

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