Hey, I wrote another piece for Lit Reactor called “Building a Mystery.” Kev Harrison included it in his “5 Must Read Horror Articles 27 March 2023” for This is Horror, writing, “Writer Roy Christopher looks at the moving parts of some well-known stories and explores how writers can use these examples to create their own, in this fascinating writing advice piece for LitReactor.”
More on that below.
But first…
Talk Your Talk
I’m on Talk Your Talk with my man Alaska this week. I’m the first guest on this spin off from his usual show, Call Out Culture with Curly Castro and Zilla Rocca, on which I was also the first guest. I did the artwork for their Michael Myers/Nas-themed “Killmatic” episode, too.
In this new one, we talk about my books, new, old, and not-out-yet, as well as a few high-minded social-science theories… and the raps, of course.
You can listen to our brief discussion via the podcasting network of your choice.
Building a Mystery
Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko (2001), has been a source of inspiration for me for years. I recently wrote another piece for Lit Reactor called “Building a Mystery,” in which I speculate about what might constitute a taxonomy for storytelling, something akin to the usual concerns about character, plot, and structure, but different. Donnie Darko is one of the movies I analyze in the piece. Here’s an excerpt:
In a 2005 interview with Daniel Robert Epstein (R.I.P.), Pi director Darren Aronofsky likened writing to making a tapestry: “I’ll take different threads from different ideas and weave a carpet of cool ideas together.” In the same interview, he described the way those ideas hang together in his films, saying, “every story has its own film grammar, so you have to sort of figure out what the story is about and then figure out what each scene is about and then that tells you where to put the camera.”
Now, when watching a movie or reading a book, I often find myself trying to break down its constituent parts. Also, when writing or creating, I sometimes try to establish a loose taxonomy of the elements involved in the project, a list of the salient aspects of the story. These are orthogonal to the usual concerns about structure (e.g., the three acts, beat map, midpoint, climax, etc.), but they’re as important. Necessary but not sufficient.
Read the whole thing over on Lit Reactor.
No Sell Out.
The first print run of Boogie Down Predictions has sold out! There are copies still available at shops and various places online, but a second printing is imminent.
Mad thanks to everyone who copped one! We are stoked to have moved so many so quickly.
And if you don’t have it, what are you even doing?
Thank you for your continued interest,
-royc.
http://roychristopher.com