Are We Paranoid?
Author Mark Ravine on why conspiracy theories captivate readers and how writers use them to build suspense in thrillers.
Mastering the Art of Pacing: How to Keep Readers Hooked from Start to Finish
Discover how pacing in writing keeps readers hooked, with tips tailored to different genres like thrillers, romances, and epics. Learn how to balance action, reflection, and suspense to create an engaging narrative.
Rabbit Holes and Red Herrings
Everyone has the faults – I have more than my fair share. As an author, these flaws can gather enormous momentum, barrelling the writer down a path to a point of no return. I’ll talk about two of them here – rabbit holes and red herrings.
The FBI In Isolation
Follow the two-metre rule, they said. Wash your hands regularly was the advice given. Please take this sanitiser six-pack with you, they offered. You’re on your own as far as beer is concerned. Ha, ha – very funny.
The assignment, should you to accept it Jim, is to watch Mark Ravine.
The Lighthouse Effect
I enjoy all kinds of books, written from any and all perspectives. To me, each style has its own distinct, and sometimes, distinctive advantages and disadvantages. Let me explain.
Is Your Identity Safe?
The smartphone is as ubiquitous as the internet, the two intertwined to the extent that a valid complaint is that it’s taken over our lives. The question often asked of me is quite simple, the answer perhaps more complex. Is my identity safe?
It happened to me too
I’m sure that I’m not in a minority here, book lovers who lost their passion for reading books. I’m most definitely in a minority in that I regained it. Here’s my journey.
Movies as a Muse
My fingers gripped the arms of the narrow coach seat as the aircraft hurtled towards the airport in Hong Kong, a knot forming in my stomach. Michael Douglas, in one of his earliest film roles, with future soulmate Catherina-Zeta Jones probably a prepubescent preteen at the time, fiddled with the camera, making adjustments, while Jane Fonda prepared herself for the interview.
The Balancing Act
I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching after I published the Tech and the first set of reviews started pouring in. Many questions were asked, all of them valid. Before I continue, I must thank all the reviewers, one and all, for their forbearance in reading close to 500 pages of what some of them must’ve certainly felt was rather a long book.
The History of Science Fiction
Frankenstein. Rockets to the moon. Buck Rogers. R.U.R. What do they have in common? They’re all iconic firsts, marking the beginning of science fiction in their varied forms – novel, movie, radio and television respectively.
The Ways AI Is Changing Our Lives
Many of you probably don’t know the reality of modern Artificial Intelligence and the way it’s changing our lives, but more of you are scared of it. And it’s not just the extreme views of conspiracy theorists that see it as a very real threat taking away our jobs, or worse the implausible – become humanity’s mortal enemy as in I, Robot, Terminator or ex-Machina.
The question really is – should we be scared?