The Boltonian

Mike Grist Interviews / Reviews 2 Comments

About a year ago my old school in Bolton got in touch with me about writing something for the alumni school newsletter. I think they had seen the review of this site in the Guardian newspaper, and figured something on haikyo would be pretty interesting. I put something together along with a few photographs, fired it off along with my address for the chap to send a copy of the newsletter, but then unfortunately never heard back from him. I assumed he hadn’t run my piece, and forgot about it. A few days ago I was in touch with an …

Dawn in the Gravery

Mike Grist Dawn Rising, Featured Story, Jabbler's Mons, Story Art, Writing Leave a Comment

Dawn is the central character of DAWN RISING, my epic fantasy novel. He is an orphan boy living in the last Abbey to the Heart, insulated from the caste-driven chaos in the city outside, his life regulated by the Sisters who have been his only family since his mother died. It’s a lonely life, and Dawn spends his days lost in imagination, dreaming of adventure and ancient heroes from the Book of Saint Jabbler, wondering when his turn will come. Here Dawn clutches the Book to his chest while looking up at his heroes in the stars: This is the …

Dawn and the Fetchling

Mike Grist Dawn Rising, Featured Story, Jabbler's Mons, Stories, Story Art, Writing 1 Comment

I commissioned this sketch of Dawn from an artist I found online. Dawn is the lead character in the book I’m working on now- Dawn Rising, set in my Jabbler’s Mons fantasy universe. The artist took a few passes at rendering Dawn and his scars, but in the end unfortunately gave up before finishing, so the image at right is what I’m left with. His scars look a little too much like war paint, but otherwise I think this is close to what Dawn (he is a boy, yes) looks like. I’m talking to a few other artists now about …

story craft #14 How Not to Threat

Mike Grist Story Craft Leave a Comment

There’s a killer on the loose. He killed five people already. He cuts them to pieces and eats them- yuck. You get home, and the door’s been forced. There’s blood on the floor. Your heart yammers. He’s there, you know it. You round the hallway for the bedroom, and he leaps out, wielding a hatchet, wearing somebody else’s face. You kick him in the crotch. He goes down. You call the police. Hurrah! Feeling fulfilled? Unless that was a spoof movie, you’ve lost the audience forever. It could be a movie or a book, but if you write this, it’s …

The Farthest Shore

Mike Grist Book / Movie Reviews, Writing Leave a Comment

The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin was the book I was waiting for in the Earthsea series. After the failure of Tombs of Atuan to capitalize on the tantalizing promise of A Wizard of Earthsea, I was desperate to see this book step up to the plate. Ged had to get out there and fight something big, something so large sacrifices were required, something that was threatening the fabric of the world. And Le Guin delivered. Amen. The Farthest Shore tells the story of magic fading out of Earthsea. Reports come back to Ged, now Archmage on the …

Adventures in Website Marketing: michaeljohngrist.com 5.0

Mike Grist Marketing, Site Updates 10 Comments

A few days ago the 5.0 version of this site went live. I’ve been hard at work redesigning and coding for the past few weeks, learning how to do all the things I wanted to do through simple CSS and html. It can be an incredibly frustrating experience at times- but when finally the pixels click into place, the target image floats properly left, it can feel like a momentous achievement. Big changes include: – everything is now within borders and wrappers – the front page is laid out as a magazine – it’s a calmer and more serious color …

story craft #13 Going Hot

Mike Grist Story Craft 1 Comment

Going hot is a term Orson Scott Card uses (in his book Characters and Viewpoint) to describe entering a character’s stream of consciousness. We go into their head and work through their motivations and drives alongside them. It’s something I’m dealing with a lot now in the (third?) redraft of my fantasy book Dawn Rising, learning how to add it in as an intrinsic part of the story. In the first few drafts I hardly did it all, so the book (may have) read like sections of a Dungeon Master’s hand-book, cold and with little sympathetic investment.

story craft #12 Kill All Wimps

Mike Grist Story Craft Leave a Comment

I`m over the first hurdle with Dawn, into the second half of the first book*, and find myself dealing with a spate of wimps. My characters are so shocked by what happened in the first half that they stand around gawping, lost in self-pity, filled with indecision. They don`t know what to do and don`t know how to do it. They become wimps. And wimps need killing.

story craft #11 Cover Letter Mistakes

Mike Grist Story Craft 4 Comments

This week I went to the Tokyo Writer’s Workshop for the first time in years. I took with me 8 pages of the first Dawn book, plus its cover letter to agents, hoping to get advice on how to make both more eye-catching and intriguing. The feedback I got was incredibly valuable, and pretty darn surprising. In short, they really liked the 8 pages of actual story, but strongly disliked the cover letter. That’s a big problem, because the cover letter is what agents and publishers see first. In some cases it may be the only thing they see. They …

story craft #10 Ethics of Plagiarism

Mike Grist Story Craft 21 Comments

Recently I’ve been looking to borrow quotes. None of the sources are from authors still living, indeed most of the people I’m looking to borrow from have been dead for hundreds if not thousands of years. They include passages from the Book of Revelations (up there with Ecclesiastes as my favorite Bible book), quotes from ancient translated Indian caste law, quotes on Medieval law from various British kings, quotes on social ills by Socrates, Aristotle, Cicero, etc… Is it wrong to do that?