TV Shows

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Top Ten Mysteries

I’m a huge fan of mysteries. “Top Ten Tuesday” is a list-making meme currently hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and the theme for this week is a FREEBIE. Since I’ve noticed a troubling lack of mystery-related lists for Top Ten Tuesday, I offer up my list of the top ten…specifically, the mysteries which most took me by surprise or had the most satisfying twists!

1– Have His Carcase, Dorothy SayersTop Ten Mysteries — Kimia Wood

Mystery author Harriet Vane is on a walking tour along the coast of England when she discovers a body with its throat cut. Along with her suitor and friend, noble sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, she sets out tracking down suspects, busting alibis, and cracking conspiracies.

The twist is truly original, beautifully foreshadowed, and is surprising yet inevitable – and thus very satisfying.

All in all, an excellent mystery story, with a smattering of romance mixed in.

2– Gemini Rue (2011)

Top Ten Mysteries — Kimia WoodThe hook for this sci-fi puzzle game is a former assassin hunting for his long-lost brother. But there’s way more in this story about organized crime, friendship, and whether we can really trust our memories.

Read my full review to see how the twist totally floored me and made me a fan for life! Continue reading →

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Top Ten Relationships

“Top Ten Tuesday” is a list-making meme currently hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, and the topic for this week is “Love Freebie (Romances, swoons…) etc.

I’m not actually a fan of romances, and I’ve already shared my top “ten” romantic hits-and-misses and the top ten fictional guys I really admire (and would have crushes on if I did the “crush” thing), so to avoid just talking about the Master Chief again I want to share the Top Ten Relationships (friendships, platonic bonds, etc.) that I find most compelling.

1– Frodo and Sam (Lord of the Rings, Tolkien)

Frodo is the meta heroic protagonist who goes from quiet-living aristocrat in an ivory-tower corner of the world, to laying down his life to save all creation.

Sam is the down-home, unassuming, cleaning-the-toilets type who’s there to take care of his employer…and ends up helping to save the world. Continue reading →

Why MacGyver’s Terror of Guns is Silly
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Why MacGyver’s Terror of Guns is Silly

Season 4, Episode 2, of MacGyver is a story called “Blood Brothers” where MacGyver protects two teens from drug dealers while experiencing flash-backs of the childhood tragedy that set him against guns and handguns. From Wikipedia:

Back in his childhood home town, MacGyver is haunted by memories of his youth where a friend was killed by a gun while preventing his friend’s son from using a gun to defend himself against hoodlums.

While the episode works very hard to evoke a specific emotional response, and while it explains MacGyver’s phobia of guns, the moral it tries to convey (“When are they going to do something about guns?“) doesn’t apply – not in our modern day of 2017.

(Note in passing: after all the times MacGyver blows up Murdoc, or drops him in acid, or knocks him off cliffs, or drops buildings on him, etc., Mac’s aversion to firearms seems a rather weak stance.)

Back to the specific episode, I shall break down the specific issues point by point.

* * SPOILERS * * Continue reading →

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Top “Ten” Romances

Ten Eleven Romance Hits and Near-Misses!

The Top Ten Tuesday topic for today is “All About Romance Tropes/Types.” I’m not a huge fan of romance for its own sake, but I do have some favorite fictional couples and almost-couples:

1. “The Big Show” — Dragnet

In this episode of Dragnet, a military officer’s wife doesn’t see him for two years, and in her loneliness has a baby out of wedlock. To avoid hurting her husband, she decides to secretly give up the baby. It might not sound very profound explained like that, but the profound part is when her husband returns to the country, he not only forgives her, but takes the baby as his own. Now, that’s the kind of romance I can get behind! Continue reading →

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Top 5 Namesakes

Five Reused Names

The Top Ten Tuesday subject for today is “Ten Characters I’d Name A Child/Dog/Cat/Car/Etc. After”. Fictional characters frequently have cool or memorable names, don’t you think? I’ve only been able to think of five examples of fictional namesakes – and yet it’s curious how many names we’ve snitched over the years.

1. On April 27, 2006, I created a ranger character for a D&D campaign my dad was game-mastering. I named this character “Elwin“, after Elwin Ransom in C.S. Lewis’s space trilogy. Continue reading →

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Class Your Character

What Would Your Character Be?

smaller I came up with a cool way to explore your characters. It’s all about archetypes (which are like stereotypes, but good).

Here it is: what role-playing class would they be? Not just in their fighting styles, but in their essential method of dealing with life.

Maybe you’ve already thought of something similar, but it sounded like fun to me. I’ll use some examples from popular fiction, and from my own works to show the brainstorming in action. Warning: major geek alert! If you’re not up on the World of Warcraft/DnD field, here’s a quick crash course (with pictures!). Continue reading →

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As You Know, Columbo,…

Harder To Spot Than You’d Think

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Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

I’m not sure of its official name in the circles of writing craft coaches, but you might recognize it as “As you know, Bob”-syndrome. Essentially, editors and readers frown on writers feeding necessary (or unnecessary) backstory and world dynamics to the audience via dialogue between characters who already know what they’re talking about. Continue reading →

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Show, Don’t Show

IMG_6085 Every writer on the planet is probably familiar with this adage of writing advice: “Show don’t tell.” The phrase boils down to the fact that people will find something much more compelling if they see it with their own eyes, as opposed to just being handed it as a fact. Would you rather go to Paris, or read the encyclopedia article about its history? (Airline fees and Muslim rioters notwithstanding.)

Continue reading →