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Review of The Glasgow Coma Scale

June 24, 2024

affect, art, book, literary fiction, literature, metatextuality, plot, restraint, review, social masses

Whenever I go to the library, trying to find something to read, I often end up frustrated. Call me picky if you want. Yet as I’m going through the blurbs (nowadays even they are buried beneath the asinine, useless “INSTANT BESTSELLER!” tags), what I see is more and more authors overly enamored with plot. I decided to write this review of The Glasgow Coma Scale by Neil D.A. Stewart before I’d read ten pages of it.

The reason?

Because it at least didn’t try to reinvent the wheel. The blurb didn’t promise some sort of epic saga spanning three continents and six decades, or some sort of in-between state between fantasy and reality.

As it turned out, it was actually a damn well-written book to boot. Truly, a masterclass on what quality literature should be.

review of Glasgow coma scale. photo of street graffiti. — Much of the book is about *juxtaposition*, the interplay between antithetical qualities. Yet at the same time, the title of the book is not only a reference to the location where the events take place – Glasgow, Scotland – but also the eponymous test assessing brain damage and response to stimuli. In a novel about giving up, this becomes a highly relevant metaphor

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How to Write a Short Story: Examples of Structure and Intent

November 15, 2021

Fiction Writing Tips, Writing

affect, literature, plot, short story, writing

A short story is not just “a little novel”. In other words, short stories – despite their misleading name – are not about length. Rather, compared to novels, short stories are a different format altogether, with unique requirements and different dynamics. The trick in understanding how to write a short story lies precisely in comprehending these requirements and dynamics.

As I often say, fiction is not about telling a story but about instigating an emotional response. It’s about affect, not plot. Short stories aren’t different regarding that. However, what differs is the way there.

To put it simply, a novel with a word count of 80,000 words or more has a certain flexibility in its expansion. In other words, although narrative pace and the overall balance are something to keep an eye on, a novel is more forgiving in terms of digressions.

This is certainly not the case with a short story.

As a result, the way to learning how to write a short story that “delivers” passes through structure and the associated intent. We’ll look at these in more detail in this post, together with examples that can show you how to pack the optimal power in your short stories.

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Interested in Story Development Software? Narrative Nods v2 Is Here!

April 19, 2021

Fiction Writing Tips, Programming, Writing

characters, narrative, plot, programming, software

Many authors, at one point or another, have used what is known as story development software. Free, paid, on Android, on PC, old, new, in some form or iteration you have likely used a program that helps you design your plot, develop your characters, and so on.

Let me guess: You “kind of” liked it, and yet something was missing. Well, that has been exactly my experience, with everything I’d ever tried, and that’s why I decided to create a piece of story development software the way I wanted it to be. Presenting Narrative Nods v2!

Although it shares the same name and basic framework with my Android app with the same name (no longer available), it’s nowhere near the same program. Not only is it much more mature, intelligent, and effective, but it’s also platform-independent. You can use it on Android or iPhone, PC or Mac (or Linux), and overall, on any device using a modern browser.

Let’s take a quick look at its features and where to find it!

*Narrative Nods v2* is a piece of story development software that helps you transform your ideas into coherent, powerful plots

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