The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: The Stand

  • The Han Solo Effect

    I’m not a very social person. I try to be nice to people, but overall, I have a very small group of friends. It’s hard to maintain a large number of friends and give them all the attention they deserve.

    The same applies to your cast of characters in a work of fiction. Keep them under control. It may seem like a lot of fun to sit and make up characters, but in the end, you risk losing the focus of your story and confusing your reader.

    There is a story about The Stand that I came across in which Stephen King realized his cast of characters had gotten out of hand. His solution was to immediately kill several off. This resulted in the closet bomb scene that you may remember, if you are a fan of the book.

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  • Judgment Day

    “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” ~ Bill Cosby

    The Stand and Left Behind
    Two very different books about the Apocalypse. My mom read one of them. I’ll let you guess which.

    More than a decade ago, I thought I had what it takes to be a writer. I had studied English, with an emphasis on creative writing, at a liberal arts university in the Heartland. I went on to hone my craft for several years, writing — but never publishing — several short stories. And after starting and stopping a couple of novel-length manuscripts, I decided it was time to take the plunge.

    If you’re a frequent visitor to the Confabulator Cafe or my blog, The Creativity Well, you’ve probably heard me mention my not-so-great first novel, and how I never found someone to publish it. Today, you’re going to understand why it remains unpublished.

    You see, back in 1997 — when I decided to write my magnum opus — I fancied myself to be the next Stephen King. And the novel I wanted to write was not dissimilar to King’s great doorstop-of-a-novel, The Stand. My manuscript, tentatively titled Devotion, had a huge cast of characters from all walks of life, coming together to confront a great evil in a small town in rural Kansas. (more…)