Complications Ensue: The Crafty Writing Blog

One of the folks I'm working with here in Hangzhou started playing the Rocky Horror Show soundtrack on the taxi's speakers (which is...

Many years ago, I was asked to fly down to Cape Town as the Head Writer on a strange sf tv show called CHARLIE JADE, along with two fellow C...

 We're working on an opening sequence. I proposed a couple of short scenes. Other folks came back with scenes that I felt were long and ...

Looks like my talk on how to give and take creative criticism from last year's ECGC is up on YouTube. Has been since August. Who knew?

My father, Howard Epstein, passed away this afternoon, peacefully, after a long struggle with Parkinson's.  A boy from Queens, NY, Dad s...

In animation there's an effect called the "uncanny valley." We have no trouble with a cartoon character. But an animated chara...

I'm writing a graphic novel, a new medium for me. Like a novel, time in a graphic novel is infinitely stretchable and compressible. And ...

I chatted with someone who's sidling into the video game industry on the strength of her superpowers in other media. She said she doesn&...

I'm a regular customer of Charles Stross's Laundry Files series, and I've read Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon a few times each. Oh...

This is just a short note to remind the actors among you that when people like me are looking for actors, and don't find a reel online, ...

I continue my conversation with Rhianna Pratchett:  Complicity Alex: We were talking about what stories games do that you can't do as w...

Rhianna Pratchett is a veteran games writer, journalist, screenwriter, and comics writer. She is known for her work on Heavenly Sword, Over...

Mary Kenney is a veteran games writer who has written on Marvel’s Wolverine, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and The Walking Dead: The F...

“If you’re dumb, surround yourself with smart people. If you’re smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you.” — Aaron S...

 Mel Brooks tells a joke:   Moishe and Mendel meet on the street. Mendel says, "I heard about the fire. It's terrible!" Moishe...

I have given notes well and I have given notes badly. I like to think the notes themselves are usually pretty good. But when I give notes th...

Once upon a time there was a tv show called The L Word. It featured sexy lesbians sexing other sexy lesbians. So it had two guaranteed audie...

Showbiz writers have their own lore. For example, supposedly an actor told Steven Bochco, a legendary showrunner ("Hill Street Blues,&q...

 I have some questions about the scene you're writing: What does your protagonist want? Why doesn't the other character want to give...

Here’s a weird thing about acting in video-games. I’m working on two big characters in two pretty massive new games and I don’t know anythin...