Eggs according to Pepin.
Fried.
The U-boat that shouldn’t have been there
In the fall of 1991, deep wreck diver John Chatterton found a German U-boat under 230 feet of water off the New Jersey coast where no U-boat had ever been recorded sunk. According to all the history books, it simply couldn’t be there. It took Chatterton and fellow diver Richie Kohler six years, multiple dives…
7. Backstory.
7 Tips for Writing Crime Fiction by Dana Stabenow (written for Writer’s Digest) 7. Backstory. Every single character gets one, including the guy who shows up once to deliver the mail. It can be as little as a sentence or as much as a subplot running through the entire narrative. The supporting cast is what…
Tony Horwitz follows in the footsteps of Captain Cook
In Blue Latitudes journalist Tony Horwitz follows in the footsteps of Captain Cook, beginning with a week working as a member of the crew on board a replica of Cook’s ship Endeavor. I’d always thought of Cook as this stereotypical British officer, all his buttons properly polished and looking down a very long nose at…
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Snerts: File down your fingernails.
[And my Snerts blog post from 2006, because Lars couldn’t find it. *waves*] Folks have asked for instructions on how to play Snerts. Snerts is a multiple-player solitaire game. Yes, really. You need at least four players to make it really fun.
…of all the founding fathers he may have been most essential in creating what our nation is today, good and bad…
It’s easy to see how this book, or rather the character of Alexander Hamilton inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda to write Hamilton, although the constraints of a musical means some of the best stories get left behind. Like the one about Benedict Arnold, who has already turned his coat when Washington and Hamilton and Lafayette show up…
5. Never neglect setting.*
7 Tips for Writing Crime Fiction by Dana Stabenow (written for Writer’s Digest) 5. Never neglect setting.* It’s key to everything that follows. What does it look like, smell like, sound like, feel like? What effect does the setting have on the characters, and why? Once you figure out setting, you can figure out who…
4. Make your protagonist a hero.
7 Tips for Writing Crime Fiction by Dana Stabenow (written for Writer’s Digest) 4. Make your protagonist a hero, if not in his own eyes then in everyone else’s. A hero is better than you and me; that’s why they are heroes and why they deserve their own novel and you and I don’t. How?…
3. Put your protagonist at risk.
7 Tips for Writing Crime Fiction by Dana Stabenow (written for Writer’s Digest) 3. Put your protagonist at risk. Physically, mentally, emotionally, any or all. Liam Campbell jumped out of an airplane (on purpose), was nearly flattened by a herd of walrus, and has been shot at and missed far too many times. We won’t…
2. Love your creeps.
7 Tips for Writing Crime Fiction by Dana Stabenow (written for Writer’s Digest) 2. Love your creeps. Put the villain on display and do it early in the narrative. Get your reader invested in the character and then betray the hell out of both of them. Read the rest at Writer’s Digest here.
