Regardless of how long you’ve been writing, or how successful you’ve been in your literary career, you have more to learn. This series of essays is dedicated to that proposition. Each is a boiled-down observation on some element of the craft I’ve been trying to master for more than fifty years. I offer these thoughts to my colleagues and welcome your lessons in return.
Write Away Essays:
by David Benjamin MADISON, Wis.—A growing phenomenon in film and TV entertainment, especially over the last quarter-century, is the morally vacuous villain, a badass so totally devoid of redeeming qualities that he or she is not character but caricature. This trend is manifest in the proliferation of films, and an entire studio—Marvel—rooted in comic books.……
Read More...by David Benjamin MADISON Wis.—I’ve decided to end the year cathartically with a rant against one of my career-long nemeses, the literary agent racket. I recently remembered an exchange with an agent named Alice, whose name I won’t mention because these people are vindictive. Before sending Alice my query, I had researched her thoroughly. I……
Read More...A return to the topic of satire, this time to offer a few tips to the aspiring satirist and a little homage to two of the discipline’s most extraordinary practitioners. by David Benjamin PARIS— In my last essay here, I discussed the challenge and the spirit of writing satire. Since then, I’ve pondered the……
Read More...One regrets writing satire because usually its topic passes too swiftly from currency. One does not regret well-crafted satire, however, because it offends the high and mighty, or confuses the literal thinker, or launches a hurricane of blowback. by David Benjamin PARIS— Whenever I complete one of my satirical pieces, I fight a pang……
Read More...by David Benjamin MADISON, Wis.—At a book festival recently, I listened to a young author named Hannah who specializes in thrillers, a genre in which also I’ve worked. During the Q&A, a reader asked whether Hannah feels troubled while describing scenes of detailed cruelty or bloodshed. Flatly, Hannah said “No.” She explained that, as a……
Read More...Fiction agnostics—readers who consume only non-fiction—tend to be unaware of how profoundly flights of imaginative fancy, have enriched their language and illuminated their lives. by David Benjamin “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey orders given it by……
Read More...Every writer’s cast of characters is finite. The sources of those characters begin in the many facets of the writer’s own self. The astute reader can often perceive the recurrence of character from story to story and appreciate the writer’s skill in drawing variation from repetition. by David Benjamin Sometimes, a recurring character can recur……
Read More...One of the ego boosts that an author enjoys is being deemed an “expert” on topics included in his or her stories. With most writers, who are by nature promiscuous of ideas, expertise is an illusion. (The image is my Paris-based novel, Skulduggery in the Latin Quarter. The art is by my wife, Junko Yoshida.)……
Read More...There is a line where writing somehow crosses over and becomes “art.” No writer in the world knows where that line is, and no sane writer makes it his or her mission in life to get there and cross over. Better to just do one’s very best to entertain the reader. by David Benjamin……
Read More...Some misguided souls refuse to read fiction, explaining—when I ask—that they want to learn stuff, as though there is nothing to learn in Aeschylus, Shakespeare and James A. Michener. The truth is that every storyteller begins with a ton of homework, lest his or her readers refuse to suspend disbelief. by David Benjamin Even the……
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