PENSTRICKEN

  • Fiction: Reality Refined

    Fiction: Reality Refined

    There are two kinds of story in this world. Those that are not at all true to life and therefore are completely unsatisfactory, and those…

  • 5 Sci-Fi Tropes I Could Live Without

    5 Sci-Fi Tropes I Could Live Without

    For some reason, sci-fi is just chock full of certain clichéd tropes, some of which are so very ridiculous that it frankly beggars belief that…

  • 100 Word Story: Little Thieves Are Hanged

    100 Word Story: Little Thieves Are Hanged

    What follows here is entirely my own work and has not been published anywhere else in the world, whether on print or online, nor do…

  • How Many Drafts Should I Write?

    How Many Drafts Should I Write?

    Ernest Hemingway (one of the greatest writers of the modern age) pointed out, ‘the first draft of anything is s***’. Now if Ernest Hemingway couldn’t…