Back in my old theater days, I was typecast as the villain. I played Cinderella’s stepmother (twice), Shere Khan in the Jungle Book, and—one of my favorites—Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty. I’ll admit, it feels rather empowering to be the bad guy, gliding across the stage, robed in black, the other actors trembling before you… Me …
Continue reading My Villain Manifesto: Reflections on Antagonists in Fiction
Great question. It’s a bit of a murky journey. Here’s a fun fact about me as a writer: most of my story ideas that I’m actively working on came to me in high school or earlier. Unfortunately, though, it’s difficult to determine when an idea first occurred to me or when I started working on …
I’ll admit, I’ve written more beginnings than endings, to the point that I’m tempted to say that writing the first chapter of a book is significantly harder than writing the last. I don’t necessarily disagree with that statement—I myself struggle most with how to best start a book—yet I do certainly think that a misstep …
Fueled by an explosion of inspiration and angst, I wrote Our Company of Fools at the beginning of January 2016. I’d never written a book of that length that quickly. I’d never written a more personally emotional book. I never wrestled so much with a story through the ebbs and flows of editing and revision. …
Continue reading How Our Company of Fools Changed My Writing
After my adventures in Narnia and quest across the universe of Madeleine L’Engle, I ventured back to a (mostly) normal Earth to revisit another childhood favorite of mine: Trenton Lee Stewart’s Mysterious Benedict Society series. Since I read the fourth book when it came out last year, I’ve wanted to reread the whole series. I …
Continue reading Rereading Trenton Lee Stewart’s Mysterious Benedict Society Series
Coincidentally, this post was published on the birthday of the greatest father in the galaxy… Darth Vader! Just kidding. It’s my Dad’s birthday. And he loves Star Wars, as I mentioned in Part 1 of my Star Wars story study. Happy birthday, Dad! * I don’t know what’s more controversial these days, the prequels or …
Continue reading Story Study: Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga – Part 2
Since The Rise of Skywalker recently brought the 9-episode Star Wars: Skywalker Saga to an end, I decided to rewatch all of the main films as a study in story during my break from school in May. Though I am extremely familiar with Star Wars, as my dad is a huge fan, I hadn’t seen …
Continue reading Story Study: Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga – Part 1
Andrew Peterson’s Adorning the Dark is an artists’ retreat captured in book form. That’s the simplest and truest way I can describe its impact on me. Adorning the Dark is part-memoir of Peterson’s artistic journey and personal life, part-spiritual reminders for creative souls, part-guidebook for artists. The book isn’t just for your typical “creatives”—writers, musicians, …
Continue reading Book Review: Adorning the Dark by Andrew Peterson
In recent weeks, I’ve written on how I’m pursuing of Student Affairs as my fulltime career (by attending graduate school first) over writing. Though focusing most of my time and energy on a career besides writing seems like it would conflict with my creative work, there are actually a few overlaps between my two professional …
Continue reading Writing for & Working With Young Adults: The Overlap
Christians and the Creative Writing Process, Part 4 “All things came into being through Him [Christ], and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” – John 1:3 (NASB) “Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He [Jesus] explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” …
Continue reading Outlining, Writing, and the Author of Everything
By Madelynn Orion 