OK. Last night I pretended to know something about movies, and talked about the kind of subtle acting you used to see in good films—particularly the kind of acting that’s done with the eyes. The thing about eye acting (if I can call it that) is that it’s a sort of visual subtext. It’s not like in a script, where the directions say, “Rufus goes to the window and looks out.” The eye acting is something the actor himself adds, and it probably hasn’t been explicitly written out in the script.

So how can I claim that there’s an equivalent in fiction writing? If you can’t write it in a script, you can’t write it in a story either, right?

Well, not exactly. Continue reading When words are eyes, Part 2 →

I watched Once Upon a Time in the West on DVD again yesterday. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m kind of in awe of that film.

I have two options when I watch a film on DVD. I can play it on my computer monitor, which has higher resolution, but the speakers aren’t so great. Or I can watch it on my regular TV, where I run the sound through my stereo. (I haven’t sprung for HDTV yet.) This gives me the choice of good visuals or good sound, but not both at once.

This time I watched it on the computer, paying attention to the shapes and colors and people. And I noticed something I thought I could cobble into a couple posts. Tonight I’ll talk about movies and acting, and tomorrow I’ll stretch the point, in the manner of the Inquisition and the rack, and try to apply the principle to storytelling. Continue reading When words are eyes: Part 1 →

I’m going to stay away from the blog for the next several days, so be sure to tell all your online friends it will be safe to read Brandywine Books for a while. Start up a campaign, if you like. Send out the emails, saying, “Phil’s gone now, so go read his blog.” Of course, you can always say people should read Lars’ great blog, but now you have another reason to promote it.

Before I go, let me leave you with a snippet of fiction I wrote. I want to call it short short story, but it’s so brief it may not qualify even for that. Perhaps it’s a blog short. Anyway, have fun while I’m gone.

The Reason I Came

When they invited him to make himself at home, were they planning to treat him like the furniture? He wandered through rooms, receiving muttered acknowledgements from his hosts, who were busy paying bills, cleaning counters, and talking on phones. Maybe welcome was not their native tongue.

He found his nephew’s door ajar, inside the boy just waking up. He closed the door behind him and crossed the room to pick up a familiar book.

“Shall we read more about Robin Hood and his men?” he asked.

“Yeah,” the boy yawned, “I was just thinking about them.”

“That must be the reason I came,” he replied.

Maxine points out a short short contest on a UK blog. I love this type of story. I remember Story magazine did this during it’s short life span. One about a boy wearing a wig at the breakfast table has stuck with me for years. I may enter this contest, but I don’t know how much time I have.

Dave has posted some of the stories submitted to Relief Journal‘s Daily Sacrament contest.

“The Stain” by Mary Grabar

“Four Feasts” by Susan Fish

“Dark House” by Renee Ronika Bhatti-Klug

“Smith and 9th” by Elizabeth Ann Osborn

What do you think?