Rogue One and Editing Part 1 – Showing and Telling

I cringe every time I hear someone say, "Show, don't tell," as if it's an unbreakable rule. As with any of the rules of writing, it just depends on what's best for the flow and pacing of the story. When is it best to show? When is it best to tell? Well, I decided to…

My First Novel’s Final Revision Is Finally Complete

It’s been more than eight and a half years since I started writing my first novel, but rather than at an end, I feel that I’m only at the beginning. Way back on May 21, 2013, I began jotting down some notes for an idea I had to poke fun at sci-fi clichés, and only…

How Face the Music Misses the Point

WARNING: Spoilers ahead for Bill & Ted Face the Music. Keep reading at your own risk. …unless you simply don’t care, then go ahead and keep reading and feeling good about it. Anyway, I just finished watching a movie I was looking forward to seeing from the moment I took in the first trailer: Bill…

Power Rangers (2017) and the Power of Editing

This post contains SPOILERS for the 2017 film Power Rangers. If you haven’t seen it, please go, go watch it before reading the rest of what’s written here. Thank you! Recently, I watched the 2017 attempt to turn Power Rangers into a film franchise. Unfortunately, the attempt didn’t pan out from a financial perspective as…

The Rise Of Skywalker And Why Swapping One Antagonist For Another May Not Be Such A Good Idea

This post includes story spoilers for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. If you haven’t seen the movie, please do so, then come back and read this post. I was recently in a Twitter conversation concerning Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – I know; me talking about Star Wars, big surprise – and I…

The Problem With Character Resets: Talking About Jumanji: The Next Level

There are SPOILERS ahead for Jumanji: The Next Level. If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out. I think you’ll enjoy it. If you have seen it, I hope you enjoyed it. I sure did. 🙂 Anyway, to be blunt, in Jumanji: The Next Level, I feel the writers made what I would label…

A Good Lesson for Writers: Question Everything in Your Writing

I know I’m picking on Star Wars: The Phantom Menace here, but it’s only because I’ve seen the movie so many times that I know it really well. Anyway, in my previous post about The Phantom Menace, I talked about the bad pacing of the film and how better editing can make the film flow…

The Importance of Good Pacing: The Phantom Menace and Editing

So, I’m watching Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace yet again. I’m doing this after hearing someone say the movie is “boring.” I want to understand why. What makes the film so uncompelling? I pause after the opening scene to reflect on it. Yes, it drags in places, with interruptions to the flow of…

The Tragedy of FN-2187, Finn: How Not to Handle a Character

Now that the circle is complete on Disney’s Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, we can look back on it without hearing the classic excuse, “They’ll fix it in the next film.” There is no next film. The trilogy is finished. We got what we got, and unfortunately, what we got was a lot of good intentions…

“And Then This Happens” Storytelling Starring Hellboy (2019)

SPOILER ALERT! This post contains spoilers for the 2019 release Hellboy, and while it’s arguable that calling the movie awful could come across as a compliment, I’m going to encourage you to see the movie anyway. So, if you have a local library that carries DVDs or Blu-rays, then check it out, or stream it…