REVIEW: 'The Crimes Of Grindlewald'

Hello. It's me. I'm back again.

How To Write Gay Characters

We live in a cursed time when any sign of diversity in the media is taken as a political statement instead of just natural order. This means we're going to see less gay characters within mainstream media. When there is a gay character, it's going to receive enormous fanfare and the entire marketing will be built around it...and the character will probably only show up for five seconds.

This is my attempt to stop this. If you're a writer, this is how you make you add a drop of rainbow to your work:

The Star Wars Prequels Have A Good Plot

I know. My first blog post after Trump and it's about Star Wars.

On Re-Animating The Dead (in fiction, obviously)

It's often said that what is dead may never truly die. This is of course a part-truth. Death is death. My poor beloved cat won't suddenly re-appear outside my room to beg for food . But Terry Pratchett's last book has just been released and it's shot up to the number one bestseller despite Terry losing his defiant battle with Alzheimer's earlier this year. His name is still everywhere. He's dead, but certainly not forgotten - something we all aspire to.

"The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword"

At face value, it's clear the pen isn't mightier than the sword. Maybe you could ride into battle with The Complete Works of Shakespeare to use as a sort of warhammer, but try it with Heart of Darkness then let me know how much of your face remains afterwards. And let us not forget that this blog post doesn't actually exist within this universe. You're peering through the black mirror into a digital world that cannot harm you unless you allow it to.

Adam Sandler Has The Secret Of Writing

Adam Sandler. On the Internet, you don't hear much praise for the guy...and for a very good reason. His films, for a variety of reasons which may or may not have anything to do with Adam Sandler himself, are more pleasant than the sound of bagpipes at a mass crucifixion.

But Dr Sandler actually mastered the secret of writing. Yes. Chances are that Adam Sandler is a better writer than you. Please don't mention my name anywhere on your suicide note.

No One Knows What They're Talking About

For a while I was a critic. I do still sort-of consider myself an unpaid critic even though I've never been paid in the first place. I cannot help but view a piece of artwork and judge it even though I know that people have worked hard on it and I don't want to crush their dreams. There's a reason why artists hate critics, which is why I'm surprised so many artists are also critics themselves.

How To Write A Crap Fantasy

Welcome hacks, incompetents, and/or people who only create art for money!

There are three genres that are hugely popular yet are even more difficult to get right than most works: horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. They’re difficult to get right because there’s a formula that writers always feel obliged to follow, and this in turn creates work that’s at best bland and at worst is intolerable.

So, want to break that formula and write something no-one’s ever seen before? Then sod off. This is how to write a really, really awful work of fantasy that’ll cause nothing but misery and despair. 

Why are People Afraid of Contractions?

And by ‘contractions,’ I mean the contraction of “is not” to “isn’t,” “I have” to “I’ve” and so on. Not the ‘contraction’ you get in pregnancy. I feel sick just thinking about that…

Show, Don’t Tell

No, I don’t mean “weave exposition into the narrative.” I mean “insert academia into your art.”

Let me explain. You’ve heard of Freud, right? The man who wrote hundreds of influential essays regarding the study of psychoanalysis – but who is known in popular culture as the guy who talked about sex a lot and presumably ruined the mood at a lot of social gatherings?

Is It So Bad To Plagiarise?

If you don’t know, I also run a gaming blog. In that, I reviewed a really bad game called Unturned. I promptly realised that the game was made by a 16 year old and then felt awful because I’d crushed the dreams of a promising young individual.

Being Boring

The question I get asked all the time: “Max, why have you never written a gay protagonist?”

Well…I don’t know.