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Literature

Should Art Be Free? On Rights and Motivation

November 16, 2019

Literature

art, artist, economy, meaning, society

Visiting Home for Fiction today and tomorrow, you might see a banner advertising that my book The Other Side of Dreams is free on Amazon for a couple of days. What you perhaps didn’t know until now is that all my art is in essence free: All you have to do to get a free digital copy of any of my books is to ask for it*. Should art be free? This will be today’s topic.

* It’s even easier nowadays: Simply visit this page on the main Home for Fiction site, for an immediate free download! For some of the reasons, partly contradicting some of what you’ll find below, take a look at my explanation why I decided to offer my books for a free download.

The dialectics balance between the “rights” of the author and the “rights” of the public. We’ll have to define both concepts in order to make sense of this.

In a way, the answer to the question “Should art be free?” is a matter of motivation and expectations: What is the motivation of the audience to implicitly demand free art, and what are the expectations of the author?

should art be free
Should art be free? It depends on the artist, the art, and the audience
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The Appeal of True Stories in Gothic and Horror

October 31, 2019

Literature

Gothic, horror, true story

Based on a true story. You must’ve seen this many times in the opening credits of a film. This is particularly the case with works of the Gothic or horror genres. But why do true stories in Gothic or horror fiction appeal to us so much?

Moreover, does the phrase “a true horror story” make sense or not? Remember, good horror fiction should be about the supernatural – no ambiguities allowed. Movies like The Exorcist accept the supernatural (and treat it as such). Compare that to Scooby-Doo Gothic, where there is always a natural explanation for everything.

The “based on a true story” trope is older than you might think. Moreover, just in case you wondered, “based on a true story” is not a writing gimmick but a case of legitimate creative manipulation.

In this post we’ll take a look at its origins and, more importantly, its significance.

true stories gothic horror
“True” stories in Gothic and horror function as a booster of affect
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Five Questions about Dracula Answered

July 16, 2019

Literature, Society

academia, Gothic, popularity, questions, social masses

Let’s do something fun this time. Or rather, let’s combine fun with knowledge and – horror of horrors – the academia. Before you run away from this page, shrieking in horror, hold your breath and wait: I’m planning to take the five most popular questions about Dracula as they appear on Google searches and answer them.

As you probably already know, Google’s autocomplete feature reveals the most common questions about a certain topic as you begin typing. Now, this also reveals some incredible stupidity out there. For instance, if you begin typing “is the moon”, the first results include “is the moon a star”, “is the moon a planet”To be absolutely fair, there might be a legitimate question there., and even – brace yourself – “is the moon made of cheese”.

At this point, I have no idea what I’ll get if I begin typing questions about Dracula, so I’m ready to be surprised myself. Let’s get started!

Questions about Dracula
Five questions about Dracula and vampires you always wanted to ask
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