Penstricken
Andrew Ferguson – Author
Archives
Author Interview: D. Wallace Peach (Part 2 of 2)
Posted on June 11, 2021 1 Comment
I had the pleasure of chatting with D. Wallace Peach, whose books, including the ‘Shattered Sea’ duology, are available to buy now on Amazon. This is part two of that interview.
Author Interview: D. Wallace Peach (Part 1 of 2)
Posted on June 10, 2021 2 Comments
I had the pleasure of chatting with D. Wallace Peach, whose books, including the ‘Shattered Sea’ duology, are available to buy now on Amazon. This is part one of our interview. Don’t forget to check back next week for part two!
5 Basic Star Trek Plots
Posted on April 21, 2021 Leave a Comment
I have compiled this list of five basic Star Trek plots to help you on your way to writing a traditional, cheesy Star Trek story.
Book Review: Ready Player One
Posted on April 15, 2021 Leave a Comment
‘Enchanting. Willy Wonka meets The Matrix’ (USA Today). That’s what the little quotation says on the front cover of Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.
High praise indeed. High enough to make me buy it and read it. But I know what you’re thinking: ‘did it deliver?’
Super Snappy Speed Reviews – TV Edition (Vol. 2)
Posted on April 10, 2021 Leave a Comment
I’ve picked 5 TV shows entirely at random from my DVD rack/Now TV/Lovefilm/etc. accounts and reviewed them all in no more than four or five sentences.
Author Interview: Sharleen Nelson (part 2 of 2)
Posted on April 9, 2021 Leave a Comment
I had the pleasure of interviewing Sharleen, whose debut novel The Time Tourists is available to buy on Amazon and other retail outlets. This is the second half of that interview.
Author Interview: Sharleen Nelson (part 1 of 2)
Posted on April 8, 2021 Leave a Comment
I had the pleasure of interviewing Sharleen Nelson, whose debut novel The Time Tourists is available to buy on Amazon and other retail outlets. What follows is part one of that interview. Be sure to check back next week for part two!
The Collapsing Empire: A Review
Posted on March 28, 2021 Leave a Comment
I love a good space opera and the manifold positive reviews I read all suggested that was exactly what I was going to get, so I thought it was a safe bet. But I’ll be perfectly honest. I have mixed feelings about this book.
Writing Non-Human Characters #4: Mythical Creatures
Posted on February 11, 2021 Leave a Comment
Well you’ll be relieved to hear that this will be the last week of my impromptu series on writing non-human characters. We’ve already covered animals, aliens and robots so this week we’re going to finish up with what I’ve very broadly defined as mythical creatures.
When I Googled ‘mythical creatures’ to help me prepare for this post, I was presented with a very helpful list of about thirty different kinds of mythical creature. Gods-and-Monsters.com managed a much longer list of about 72 distinct creatures from mythology. And so writing a single 1,000 word post on how to write any mythical creature is going to be quite a challenge so I hope you’ll bear with me while I go over a few very general principles.
Writing Non-Human Characters #3: Robots
Posted on February 10, 2021 Leave a Comment
Well, it’s week three on my impromptu series of posts on creating non-human characters for your stories. We’ve already done animals and aliens, so this week, I want to focus on creating robots. Now I don’t want to waste too much time getting bogged down on the technical differences between robots, androids, cyborgs and so on, so for the sake of this post, I’m using the word ‘robot’ simply as an umbrella term for any kind of mechanical or artificial person. Suffice it to say there are important differences between robots, androids and cyborgs and you would be well advised to understand them before attempting to create one for your story.
If you’ve been keeping up to date on the last few posts, you will have noticed a common theme running through them: the idea of anthropomorphising (that is, giving human traits to) your non-human characters to to make them more relatable to your audience. However, as we have also seen, the extent to which you anthropomorphise your character and how you go about anthropomorphising your character will vary greatly depending on the kind of character you’re trying to create and what their purpose is in your story.
Penstricken 