Tag: building suspense

How Breaking Bad Made Me a Better Writer

As I’ve said before, I live in the middle of nowhere. We don’t even have cable TV. In order to get any TV, you need satellite. Well, our phone company about a year or so ago promised us we would have cable this year (2012). Umm, yeah, didn’t happen. So, since we have lovely DSL internet, we decided to do Netflix.

I normally don’t like shows like Breaking Bad. It’s not my normal viewing fare. My hubby got me into watching it—we watch 1 episode every morning as we eat breakfast. At first I didn’t like it, it was drama, drug-related, and in general, rather crude. But something happened after the first few episodes: I found myself looking forward to the next episode. Why? Suspense. Continue reading “How Breaking Bad Made Me a Better Writer”

Who’s your fall guy?

Author Vickie Johnstone

by Vickie Johnstone

Fall guys… ah, we all know about those. Growing up watching Star Trek (my dad’s fave – and he looked a bit like him!) with William Shatner forever getting his shirt ripped diagonally (in the exact same place every time – was there magic tape?), I knew that whenever someone we didn’t really know beamed down to the spooky planet of the week, he wasn’t coming back. But that was okay because we hadn’t really got to know them, and sometimes their death saved the life of someone more important or much fitter, and it was always much better than one of our heroes – Kirk, Spock or Bones – getting squished.

I was thinking about this while watching an episode of the second series of The Walking Dead. I love this show – it’s my latest addiction! Anyway, a character that I really liked got… well… how can I put it? He got dead-ed. Kaput. Squished. Therefore this person (I won’t give it away) won’t be appearing again. I went to bed thinking oh no! I liked this character. He had personality. I’d gone through nearly two whole series with this person, sharing his laughter, sadness, struggles, battles with the yucky looking undead-ed people, seeing what he had for dinner… the whole kaboom. And now… well, you-know-who was zombie spam. Continue reading “Who’s your fall guy?”