Writers, Know Your Archetypes: The Herald

In Part 3 of my series, “Writers, Know Your Archetypes,” I will examine the role of The Herald archetype in a story: 1. The primary function of herald characters is to give the protagonist “The Call to Adventure.” Or, to put it in more modern terms, their function is to kick off the plot. The …

The Worst Writing Advice I Ever Received

There's a lot of writing advice out there. Some of it is great. Some, even from professionals,  isn't very good at all. The worst advice I ever received came from a professional screenwriter. He declared that writers should only write screenplays like the ones that had been produced by Hollywood the past ten years. Stay …

Book Review: The Twelve By Justin Cronin

The Twelve by Justin Cronin is the second of his post-apocalyptic/vampire trilogy. The first book in the trilogy is The Passage. I wrote a spoilerific analysis of one of the major characters in The Passage a while back. This review will refrain from divulging any major spoilers. That makes it very difficult to write this …

Why We Love Tragic Heroes (And Hate To See Them Die)

WARNING: BIG SPOILERS FOR THE PASSAGE AND GAME OF THRONES A friend of mine and I were talking about Justin Cronin's post-apocalyptic vampire novel THE PASSAGE a while back. He said he loved the first part of the book but hated the sudden shift in the story about a third of the way through, where …