Despite Jude Law’s caution, critics are doing what’s easy instead of what’s right. Here’s what they are getting wrong about the latest installment in the Harry Potter franchise. — The continuity fetishists have taken over movie and television criticism. And they are most displeased. Wretched retcons, suspended storylines, and mercurial motivations plague an already beleaguered production. In the Critical World, clever course corrections don’t make for diverse discourse and ingenious bits of screenwriting are being overlooked for more hateful…

How a Bible verse also applies to writers — “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” — Matthew 20:16 New Oxford Annotated Bible Oh, and by the way, I intentionally posted these paragraphs in reverse order. Reading stories or watching movies and tv shows out of order is a great exercise for writers. The…

A new trend in Carolina restaurants upends a semantic staple — Two similar restaurant concepts launched in North Carolina recently. The first, BB’s Crispy Chicken, just opened its second location in Durham (the first one in Raleigh welcomed customers for the first time last October). The other spot, milkbread, is a creation from the same folks who brought us Kindred, an…

“We have so much time and so little to see...” “You realize, of course, that everything I say is horseshit.” — Kurt Vonnegut START BIG Go macro. A grand sweeping statement full of cosmic ideas on the nature of windows (or whatever your story is about). It lends authority to your voice…

Humphrey Bogart’s famous line holds true — Early in the Netflix’s newest sci-fi time travel romp, The Adam Project, the film’s co-stars cross the street. For the most part, it’s an expository scene, one meant to get the characters and audience on the same page. These types of scenes usually don’t contain much action. They can be…

And it will never happen. — Freedom isn’t free. Until it comes to the cost of energy. Then Americans apparently want a handout. Americans have had their own noble instincts toward free and fair markets weaponized against them. They are told this is how “free and fair” works. But clearly it isn’t working. So, whom are…

For millennia humankind has looked up at the night sky and wondered, “yum?” “Space,” it says, “is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts…

One request I hear from aspiring writers all the time: “How do I write good dialogue?” My answer: Argue with yourself. Self-help as Story-help The photo above reminds me of the scene in the movie version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when Voldemort enters Harry’s mind. Basically, Harry ousts…