Netflix just launched its latest series, The Haunting of Hill House, an atmospheric, timely addition to its October fare. So it seems like a good time to resurrect that show’s source material as we set out the pumpkins, coat the door with ectoplasm, and cob the webs for All Hallows Eve. In an earlier column, I talked about setting as a literary character in itself, something inseparable from the story. I used Manderley, in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938), to … Read More »

No matter what the genre, a bit of sexual tension can perk up your storytelling. Years ago I wrote romance novels. This is what that experience taught me. Love is a lot more interesting when it’s all about the conflict. Readers are surprised when I tell them that a romance is a love story. But not all love stories are romances. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a love story. The conflict in that classic play is not between the lovers. … Read More »

Despite what some people say, you can absolutely learn to be funny. No one is born with it any more than you were born with the ability to write. And it’s something I can teach you right now. I’ve been a newspaper humor columnist for over 21 years, and have written several humorous radio plays, stage plays, and short stories. I’ve also had long discussions with other humor writers about different humor techniques, and my father was even a humor … Read More »

If you write science fiction or fantasy, or aspire to, you’ve probably heard of worldbuilding. In a nutshell, worldbuilding means constructing an imaginary setting. If you do and it’s consistent and logical within its own parameters, however outlandish they may be, you’ve won readers. Build a world without really thinking it through and veteran readers of the genre will abandon it in droves. And what better teacher to start with than one who pioneered worldbuilding? H.G. Wells was a thinker … Read More »

Writing first chapters makes me think of wallpapering a room. If you don’t get that initial strip of gingham checks on right, every new addition will be askew. The finished project will be totally off kilter. I have a novel I’ve been revising for years. The first chapter never quite worked, but instead of fixing it I kept on writing. What was wrong about the first chapter bled into the second and things just got worse and worse. Big mistake. … Read More »

Good historical fiction is doubly hard to write. Not only are there the usual problems of writing good “fiction”: well plotted, richly detailed, stuffed with fascinating characters. But “historical” demands that whole additional burden of research, so that the end result is a convincing representation of a past time and often distant place. Why should we even bother? Now Feels Pretty Good In the first place, we and our readers find it entertaining, like a good History Channel program. It’s … Read More »