Life’s Seductive Beauty
Is truth found in the beauty all around us? Welcome to the blog of author and editor Patricia J. Esposito.
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The Vampire Path to Rebirth and Wonder
“I was a newborn vampire, weeping at the beauty of the night.“ Anne Rice, Interview with a Vampire The Vampire Path to Rebirth A “newborn vampire”—when I saw this quote out of context, the term newborn struck me. Being newborn is to experience everything anew, with wonder. It’s to be present, in the moment. We…
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Good Characterization Requires a Little Mystery
What makes a character in a book or a movie memorable? What makes the character interesting? Sometimes what attracts us to someone is a bit of a mystery, and good characterization requires a little mystery too. Seeking the Carnivalesque In the screenplay book I’m reading, Writing the Character-Centered Screenplay by Andrew Horton, the author uses the term…
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Interviews with Horror Writers: Blurring the Line Anthology
Horror can range from stories that elicit heart palpitations to cringing and nausea to an unease that won’t let go. Horror that makes me jump and then laugh at the adrenaline rush can be fun, and I can appreciate the imagery of a well-done slasher scene—both designed to shake us, give us a quick thrill?—but…
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Commonly Misused, Misspelled Words and Phrases
Spell check doesn’t necessarily catch words that are spelled correctly but chosen incorrectly. Here’s a list of some of the most common I’ve found in my editing experience. (Written in a certain vein, because vampires need proper grammar too.) accept/except: Of course I’ll accept (agree with, allow) your tongue at my throat. After the summer…
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Grammar: Which vs. That
For proper grammar, think about how you’re using the words which vs. that. Essential or NonessentialGenerally, the word which introduces a clause that is not essential to understand the meaning of the sentence (nonessential) and can be set off with commas. The word that generally introduces an essential clause, which is needed to understand the…
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The Appeal of Vampires: a Sensual Awakening
I’m no longer sure there is an appeal to vampires that’s any different from the appeal of other antiheroes, such as pirates or cowboys/girls or folks in uniform or witches and warlocks. One reader says the appeal of vampires is the heightened senses conveyed in their stories, another says it’s the bad boy allure, another…
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How Genre Influences the Story
The instigating event: She walks with her sister down the apartment complex sidewalk. In the green, four teen boys bat a volleyball around. They look; she looks. She talks quickly to her sister about their visit. Rapid talk. And while her mouth says things like, “She looks healthy, happy.” Her mind says, “Hot boys. Don’t…
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Show, Don’t Tell: Another Look
“Show, don’t tell.” All writers have heard the importance of learning this technique. But good writing isn’t as easy as following a list of ten rules. In too many blog tips and how-to lists, the concept has become oversimplified to a quick-and-easy fix, as if changing an adverb to an action fulfills the quest for…
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A seduction
From the peach tree, ripe fruit drops to the dark hillside. Under his cool lips, her skin is tender and ready to be pricked. Full-leafed branches tremble at the wind. With her shiver, a rain of ready fruit drums to earth, thunder in her gut, her blood ready to pour. More vampire writings at
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Writing Exercises
Writing exercise 1: Choose a photo in a magazine or online, someone you don’t know. Choose a mood (eager, excited, sad, angry, in love, in lust, vengeful). Then free-write a description of the person. Through black-rimmed glasses, his eyes squint under the tug of pure pleasure. He smiles, his high-boned cheeks a shine, hair fringed…
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Five-star review for new vampire novel!
Two Lips has given my vampire novel Beside the Darker Shorea five-star review, saying “It is not your usual vampire tale. There is no sex in the book, per se, but it is one of the most powerfully sensual books I have read. When humans offer their blood to vampires, the eroticism of the bloodletting…
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To Spin on a Thread, Eating the Sun and Moon
In Romania, the Varcolaci vampires hunger, not for the red blood flow of humans, but for the light of the sun and the moon. Sometimes depicted as small animals, but also as pale and parched humans, one legend has it that they’re created at midnight if a woman spins without candlelight. They travel wherever they…
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Publishing in the 21st Century
“The future of publishing: eighteen million authors in America, each with an average of fourteen readers, eight of whom are blood relatives. Average annual earnings: $1.75.” — Garrison Keillor
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My novel Beside the Darker Shore is due out this June. Arturo and Stephen are getting antsy waiting. They’d like to say hello via a short scene. Stephen is a human blood prostitute in love with Boston’s human governor David Gedden. He wants the vampire Arturo to change David into a vampire so he can…
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Characterization: Keeping a Little Mystery
In the screenplay book I’m reading, Writing the Character-Centered Screenplay by Andrew Horton, the author uses the term “carnivalesque” when explaining how to develop real and memorable characters. Character is never complete, set, finished, but always glimpsed in motion from a certain perspective, he says, and quotes Seymour Chatman, “The horizon of personality always recedes before us.”…
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You and me and I
A vampire’s quick look at the proper use of “I” or “me” in sentences: Most everyone is accustomed now to using “I” as the subject pronoun in a sentence: “The vampire and I slipped through the city’s shadows, a chill without source.” NOT “The vampire and me slipped through the city’s shadows, a chill without…
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What’s in a name? What’s in a title?
Every now and then (once in ten years?), the perfect story or novel title comes to me in a flash of brilliant perfection. For all the other thousand times I need a title, I fret, I struggle. In discouragement, I settle, and then I rethink, toil again. And still it’s just not right. Titles are…
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Commonly Misused, Misspelled Words and Phrases
Spell check doesn’t necessarily catch words that are spelled correctly but chosen incorrectly. Here’s a list of some of the most common I’ve found in my editing experience. (Written in a certain vein, because vampires need proper grammar too.) accept/except: Of course I’ll accept (agree with, allow) your tongue at my throat. After the summer…
Got any book recommendations?