The stories of Bryan Young

It's been a hectic month, to be sure, but I wanted to stop in with some good news and some announcements. Firstly, Operation: Montauk has been nominated for a Cybil award in the Science-Fiction and Fantasy category in the Teen age group. There's quite a few nominees, including Silence in the Library's other book released this year, War of the Seasons: Book 2 - The Half Blood. You can check out the full list here.  If you still haven't read the book and want to see why it would have been nominated, pick up a signed copy in the store , at Amazon or Barnes and Noble . I'm not expecting to win (especially if I'm up against War of the Seasons) but it's a thrill to be nominated. I also wanted to thank everyone I met at Anime Banzai this weekend. The response to the books was great and I was humbled to hear how many people enjoyed them. I'm told I caused many sleepless nights at the con because people didn't want to put down my stuff and it wa...

I've just released a new, three story collection of werewolf themed shorts on Amazon and Barnes and Noble called "Curse of the Werewolf." The stories contained inside vary in length, but it runs about 16,000 words total, which Amazon calculates out to about 45 pages of horror content, just in time for Halloween. The first story in the collection is a brand new tale called "The Black House" about a lovesick teenager trying to unravel the mystery of the Black family, whose decrepit house and unusual daughter have caught his eye. The second story is called "A Pistol Full of Silver" which first appeared on this website and my " Man Against the Future " collection and features the story of a man hunting something monstrous that has attacked his family. The third story is another all new, original tale called "Fenrir's Lament." It's set in the desert in the 1950s and reads like I imagine some of that era's more pulpy...

In my opinion, Scott Snyder is one of the best writers working in comics today. He's currently writing Batman, Swamp Thing, and his own American Vampire and more comics are on the horizon. I interviewed him last week for Big Shiny Robot! and the Huffington Post about the return of the Joker in his upcoming Death of the Family arc. Scott's been an inspiration of mine for a while, and it's not just that I envy his career and want to be where he is, it really is that he's a great writer and brings something to his stories. I took a minute to talk about writing with him and I wanted to pass off some taste of his knowledge to you guys. I asked him what he would go back and tell himself before he started working on these projects and the biggest advice he'd give himself (and, in turn, us) is to not quit. That seems rather obvious, but if you're writing, you really do need to go all in and stay there. We all get better the more we write and if you quite, you'...

This is truly one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen. Back about 7 or 8 years ago, I wrote a short story called " Late Term Abortion ." It was the second story I ever published to this site and you can click the link and still read the beginning of it. It's since been published in the collection called Man Against the Future (which is available digitally or signed from my online store ). It tells the story of a family who wants to abort their son after he becomes too rebellious. It's clearly fiction and was written to point out the absurdity of hating dissenting voices and showing the lengths some will go to to eliminate that dissent. It was farce. The story is so wonderfully absurd, I was convinced I'd turned the world off the idea. I was wrong. Meet Charlie Fuqua, an Arkansas politician running for their state legislature. He wrote in a book released this year:  The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family...

I've been out of commission for a while, out of town, and catching up on deadlined projects. I went to Star Wars Celebration VI and Dragon*Con, speaking on panels at both about Star Wars, writing, and books. Now that I'm back and starting to catch up (slowly but surely) I thought it would be the best time to come back with another piece in the writing series. As you know by now, I'm sure, these "rules" (more like guidelines) come from  a list of fifty rules I've been collecting as a writer over the years . These have been helpful to me and I thought they might be helpful to you. Originally, I thought the list would be enough, but as I've talked to people I've realized that I have a lot more to say about each one of these than just what's written. Like I say, these are guidelines based on my personal philosophy on writing, and that's subject to change at a moments notice. I'm constantly learning as a writer and I don't ever plan o...

I'm heading out to Star Wars Celebration and Dragon*Con next week and wanted to get another installment of these posts elaborating on my " 50 rules and tips for writers " out before I left. This series is all about fleshing out each individual rule and offering myself (as well as other writers) some food for thought on the process of writing. You can read Part 1 here . You can read Part 2 here.  You can read Part 3 here. These next three all generally have to do with dialogue. Dialogue is very crucial in prose and screenwriting. And giving characters unique voices is a challenge for any writer, even the best of them. These next three rules in the series are, more than anything, here to make you think differently about dialogue and how it looks on the page and what you can do to make it better. Sometimes, considering a different perspective is all you need to put you on the right path. 15)   Monologues are for the theatre. Break up long stretches of dialogue wit...

I'm continuing my series on the " 50 Rules and Tips for Writers " that I began a couple of weeks ago. These were 50+ rules and tips I'd collected over the years as a writer. As I think of one or read one in a book, I'll put it down in my notebook and save it for later. I've been collecting this list for well over a decade and it will continue to grow as time goes on.  This series is all about fleshing out each individual rule and offering myself (as well as other writers) some food for thought on the process of writing. You can read Part 1 here . You can read Part 2 here.  You can read Part 4 here. These next three words are largely for use during the editing process. You can't obsess about self-editing while you're writing a first draft. Sure, you want that draft to be as clear and concise as possible, and as close to a final as you can get, but you need to focus on putting down each and every word that will allow you to put down the next word...