Tag: PulpRev
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Red River Part 9
SafeKeep The House of Shadows looked nothing like a church. It was a simple brick building, five stories tall, painted in cheerful blues and reds. The signboard said ‘SAFEKEEP SELF-STORAGE SOLUTIONS’. There were no altars to the Lord and Lady of Shadows in a three-block radius. No iconography, no goons hanging around. A perfectly innocent…
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Red River Part 8
To The Knife Even the New Gods had rules for war. Never shed the blood of the innocent. Never whack a cop in cold blood. Never, ever, target the Speakers of rival gods. But the Court of Shadows weren’t sticklers for rules. The Speakers of the New Gods served many roles. They defined and codified…
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The Art of Designing Nontraditional Monsters
When I began work on Dungeon Samurai, I challenged myself to employ only non-traditional monsters. They would not be orcs, goblins, or other such fantasy mooks seen in anime, manga and RPGs the world over; they would be monsters worthy of the name, dangerous and horrifying and bloodthirsty man-slayers that roam the dungeon seeking souls. Why…
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Red River Part 1
The Nightmare Scenario This was the nightmare scenario. Multiple active shooters and hostage takers, possibly Elect and/or Husks. Multiple hostages. No way of confirming details, no means of reaching the subjects. No backup. No margin for error. Madness. Will Connor lived for this shit. The SkyBear gravtruck soared silently through the clear autumn morning. Standing…
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Between Tradecraft and Thrills: Johnny Wylde
It is accepted wisdom in the thriller community that highly-trained characters must display excellent tradecraft to thrill the reader. Yet this isn’t always so. In my first post in this series, I explored the Orphan X series, in which the protagonist’s poor tradecraft sets up superior scenes; in my previous post, I showed how taking…
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PulpRev’s Wicked Problem
A couple of weeks ago over dinner, Troy Tang and I discussed some of the fundamental problems facing PulpRev. PulpRev makes for a fine umbrella term for writers to rally around, but every writer has different ideas about the direction of their own writing. This makes it hard for people to define what, exactly, is…