From Concept to Published book in 30 days – National Novel Writing Month #NaNoWriMo

I made a decision while making a video the other day on the bootcamp mindset that I was going to do National Novel Writing Month. Of course, being me, I felt I had to up the stakes and the challenge from “writing 50,000 words” to “put out a novel in 30 days.” This process will involve all four phases of book creation (planning, drafting, revising, and publishing) in an extremely condensed and (though limited) intense fashion. NaNoWriMo (as some call it) focuses entirely on phase 2 – drafting, encouraging people to get to that mythical 50k mark in the space…

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Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – Movie Analysis and Review (video)

Awhile back I did a video on what is technically a prequel to the Harry Potter novel series, a movie called Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. With the screenplay penned by series author J.K. Rowling (rather than a screenwriter adapting one of her books), the film is interesting for several reasons. First, it isn’t actually an adaption of Rowling’s book, it is more the story of the fictional character that “wrote” that book, which is a companion book to the main 7 book Harry Potter book sequence. Second, it breaks many of the “Rules” of modern cinema, avoiding the tropes…

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Movie Review: The Dark Tower – David V. Stewart and Matthew J. Wellman

Recently I got to watch the new Dark Tower movie, very, VERY, loosely adapted from the epic 7 book series by Stephen King. We didn’t go into the theater with expectations of a true-to-text adaptation – after all, it wasn’t called The Gunslinger and Roland was played by a black actor when he was explicitly white in the book (which actually mattered, as a black character had racial issues with him). This positively affected our experience, but we still felt the movie had significant problems. Watch our video to hear them in detail!

 

Rogue One: A Pointless Star Wars Interquel

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is an interquel (yes, like a prequel, but taking place between two other works) that takes place just before the inciting events of the original 1977 Star Wars film, effectively fleshing out the yellow text roll of that original movie into a movie of its own. Therein lays the biggest and most unavoidable problem with Rogue One: it’s pointless and redundant. From the get-go, the concept is unlikely to work, as all of its importance can be summed up in a few sentences slowly crawling up a movie scene. This redundancy doesn’t mean there…

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Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 – Review and Analysis

OMG I’m reviewing a contemporary movie! Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is a space fantasy / space opera film made by Disney and takes place in the Marvel universe, though it is not a super hero film. I review and analyze the film’s production, writing, story, and overall effect.

Sign up for my mailing list – http://eepurl.com/cQOfWH

Pre-order my new fantasy novel Water of Awakening here (only 99 cents for the ebook) – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071G49GH9

 

The Chronicles of Narnia Analysis/Review (series overview)

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, besides being a significant achievement in children’s literature, is often the first fantasy series that readers are exposed to due to its widespread popularity, solid stories, and accessible language. In the video below, I go over what you can expect from the series, including its christian allegory, its format in relation to the development of children’s literature, and why I think it is still worth reading today. I will continue this series, going over each book in the series in greater detail and analyzing the themes and stories present in more depth.

If you are interested in my own fantasy books, be sure to sign up for my mailing list for advance access to my projects. My latest novel, The Water of Awakening, will be released on July 7 and may be pre-ordered on Amazon.com. 

David V. Stewart is a fantasy and Historical Fiction writer, the author of Muramasa: Blood Drinker and Prophet of the Godseed.

Warcraft (the movie) sucks – The Failure of Story and Aesthetics in a Video Game Adaptation

Matthew J. Wellman and I sat down to finally watch the Warcraft movie, almost a year from its release. Those of us who know us might be very surprised we waited so long to watch this epic fantasy movie, but we were doubtful as to whether this movie would be effective from the beginning. A big red flag for us was the huge amount of cgi, and while that worry was confirmed, it was confirmed in the opposite way we thought it would be. The cgi orcs, it turned out, were far more effective than the human actors, and it…

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New Fantasy Book Cover Reveal – The Water of Awakening

So, the silence on the site when it comes to new fiction content shall at last be broken. The secret book is finished, and in the video below I show off the cover, talk about the artist (Kerem Beyit) and give you some insight into this new book, which is solidly in the heroic fantasy/adventure fantasy genre. I’m really excited to bring this experience to you, and will be putting up a pre-order on Amazon very shortly.

In the meantime, be sure to subscribe to my email list (you can do so on the right side of the page or follow this link) to get early access to the book and also get some books for free to keep you busy until The Water of Awakening launches!

The Hobbit Movie Adaptation SUCKS!

Matthew J. Wellman joins me once again to discuss the many, many problems with Peter Jackson’s movie adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s classic epic fantasy tale The Hobbit. How could he be so successful with Lord of the Rings and yet fail so spectacularly with The Hobbit?

Writers of the dawn is:

David V. Stewart – Fantasy and Historical Fiction Author, musician

Matthew J. Wellman – Urban Fantasy author, musician

Return of the King Movie Adaptation – Analysis

Fellow fantasy author Mattew J. Wellman joins me to talk about Peter Jackson’s movie adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s Return of the King, the third part of Tolkien’s epic fantasy classic, The Lord of the Rings.

Writers of the dawn is:

David V. Stewart – Fantasy and Historical Fiction Author, musician

Matthew J. Wellman – Urban Fantasy author, musician