2025-39: Your own private dictionary
Here’s a huge piece of writing advice I’ve been saving for a rainy day. This one’s an extra big deal specifically for those working on science fiction and fantasy.
Keep a list of character names and world terms, with the appropriate spelling and punctuation, and a little note reminding you what the heck each thing is.
It’s hard enough keeping track of names, titles, the order of all those god damn letters in the real world, never mind in the universes that only exist on the page. Keeping notes will absolutely save your butt.
If you’re like me, you’re often naming things just to keep moving. I don’t want to linger on that one word for that one thing, so I’ll shove something in there and keep the train rolling. But I also make a note about what it was, because that will help me keep it all straight later. And if I decide to make a change because that spur of the moment naming didn’t quite work, I’ll know what to look for.
Even if you’re one of those writers who figures out every tiny piece in advance, you need this kind of dictionary.
And your editors will thank you. Vigorously.
This week’s movie!
Part excellent. Part bogus. This week, I watched Bill & Ted Face the Music.
The original was a favorite of mine as a kid, and I mostly tolerated the second one, which was just a little too creepy for me. What can I say; I do not do well with anything even remotely horror-adjacent on-screen.
It was cool to see these characters again, and to see them triumph in the end, as we knew they would. The whole thing felt a little half-baked, though, which could be a product of the Covid-y times. The future’s never looked so dull.
And I am really starting to tire of the hacky way these overdue sequels undo everything the main characters achieved just to make them do it all again. It’s a cheap, hacky way to build a story. I would’ve much rather seen Bill and Ted facing a new threat to their success, having to grow and adapt to their new roles, then find them down on their luck once again. If you’re a writer, don’t write like this.
Updated Rankings: Jojo Rabbit; The Menu; Thunderbolts; Transformers One; Godzilla Minus One; Now You See Me; Happy Gilmore 2; Superman; Free Guy; Fantastic Four: First Steps; Rear Window; X-Men: First Class; Arrival; Ghost in the Shell; Lucy; Graveyard of the Fireflies; The New Mutants; X-Men: Days of Future Past; Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves; Dark City; Taken; The Old Guard; Captain America: Brave New World; X-Men: Dark Phoenix; Sonic the Hedgehog 2; Beetlejuice Beetlejuice; Uglies; The Marvels; Subservience; Bill & Ted Face the Music; The Super Mario Bros. Movie; Rebel Moon Part Two: The Scargiver; Ladyhawke; Damsel; X-Men: Apocalypse; Into the Deep; Rebel Moon Part One: Absolutely Bogus
Hot take!
Video games really are the most cost-effective form of entertainment.
If you’re patient, and you wait for games to go on sale, you can get hundreds of hours of entertainment for a few bucks. I learned the hard way, multiple times, that preorders aren’t worth it. Waiting for that price drop, and for word to spread about games that are actually good, is absolutely the way to go.
Til next time!
It’s been a super busy week and my brain’s kind of fried. It happens.
See you soon!