Episode #345: Breaking The Fourth Wall Like "Crazy Eddie"

Flashback to the years of yore, when the local farm in the middle of suburbia had milk cows grazing in the fields. I believe they still run a fruit and vegetable stand in the summer.

Note about the title: Crazy Eddie's was a short-lived,  loud and brash electronics store from the 1980's in the tri-state area (NY, NJ & CT), who's gimmick was that the spokesman would go on epic 20-30 second rant about electronics and shout "Shop at Crazy Eddie's, his prices are insane!" 

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I was reorganizing/condensing a couple of half inch binders into what I thought was a suitable one inch binder for a short story collection to publish in the future, when I came across one of my rewritten short stories from a few years ago.

Glancing through the pages, I noticed that I had managed to write something quite odd in the story. This wasn't the first time that I had noticed this oddity, since I had previously come across a sticky note that said I should write a blog post about it

What this sticky note was alluding to, was the oddity that I had written into the story, which was having the narrator step out of the story, thus breaking the proverbial fourth wall, and talk directly to the reader. I've seen this particular trope done in movies and t.v. shows, but never seen it done in a story before.

Anyways, it was about three sentences in length where the narrator steps out of the story to address the reader directly about a pivotal event in the story, before stepping back into the story to continue his narration.

Now this was not something that was planned ahead of time. If I recall correctly, this just happened, rather sloppily, organically the first time around, so just cleaned it up on the rewrite.

But as a favorite former blogger would often say whenever he went on a slightly irrelevant tangent, I blogress. So, back to the topic at hand.

The story in question was written mostly in the 1st person/present tense p.o.v. I say mostly, because the narration would shift to 3rd person for events that the narrator wasn't there for. Once that particular arc was completed, it slipped back into the 1st person p.o.v.

I basically did this throughout the story, with the narrator doing his thing, then he would shift over to being a peripheral part of a particular scene (if it all), then shift back to narrating. I don't think you call it 'head hopping' in the traditional sense of the phrase, as he was the only persona presenting the entire story through his point of view. So I didn't have multiple 1st person p.o.v. throughout, just his.

For my short story collections, I wrote fourteen short stories, with may two original (that is, non-rewritten) and one essay, and that was the only story that was written in this weird 1st/3rd p.o.v. hybrid. All the others were written in the normal 3rd p.o.v. that we all know and have a love/hate relationship with.

I have a couple of other previously blog published short stories that I want to rewrite. And because you just know that I love to challenge myself, I decided to rewrite these stories from the inside out. In other words, I have a beginning and I have an ending. What I need is a new larger middle that will get me from the beginning to that ending as bumpy and as raucous as humanly possible.

I'm not quite sure if I had a purpose with this blog post, as it was more of general observations on how I did something radically different with my story completely by accident, and how it workout when the dust had settled.

I guess my question to everyone would be this: did you do something with a story that went completely against the rules for storytelling, yet somehow it worked out in the end?

{c} 2026 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #344: And Your Archetype Is....?

I was taking a moderately long break during my morning walk, as my legs can no longer keep up with the stamina that I actually have these days, when I decided to take this pic. Even though it's early September, it's still summer in New England.

Many years ago I used to participate in a monthly blog hop sponsored by a writing group called The Insecure Writer's Support Group, and in their monthly newsletter, they would often have a question that you could use during the blog hop.

The suggested question for the month of September I found intriguing enough to actually use it for one of my blog posts. The question that everyone was given is this:

"Do you have a favorite character archetype that you tend to gravitate towards in your writing?"

Now this is something I actually had to look up, because I did not have a clue on what a 'character archetype' was. After a modicum of research, I now have a basic understanding of what one is.

I would have to say that the one I gravitate the most to, is one that Hollywood has been brutally  mutilating for the better part of two decades: the girl boss.

You've undoubtedly seen the Hollywood version: the woman who can do everything, solve everything, control everything, treat people, like men, as insignificant dolts who can't do anything without a woman to hold their hand and guide them along, etc.

Because virtually all of my stories are female-centric, I can say with complete confidence that my female main characters and even the secondary characters, are written in the true 'girl boss' archetype.

While they do ooze that 'girl boss' persona, they are quite confident in their ability to lead, to delegate, and to even ask for help. They are quite compassionate to friends and family, and can be merciless to their enemies. Most importantly, they know their limitations.

My actual 'girl boss' characters will never be mistaken for the Hollywood version of the Mary Sue 'girl bosses'. because we all know that imperfection makes a character resonate more deeply than the shallow that is seemingly forced upon us on a monthly basis.

I believe the 'girl boss' archetype will always be part and parcel of whatever type of story I choose to writer (this was epically showcased in my currently unpublished fantasy series). My stories have been female-centric from the very beginning of my career, and using this particular archetype correctly is something that I will always enjoy writing about.

Thank you for stopping by today and spending a couple of minutes out of your busy day to read my blog. And remember, "no," is the world's shortest sentence, no matter what language you speak. And quite often, the most difficult to understand.

{c} 2026 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #343: I Think, Therefore, I Continually Create Stories

A bobble-head that cost me about 20 Bazooka comics and $10 back in the early 2000's. I also have a half dozen Bazooka Joe t-shirts purchased the same way.  Obviously taken where I used to work back in the bad old days of being a wonky worker bee.

It's been a loooooong while since I did a writing updater. But a lot of things have been going on since my last update, so I thought now would be a good time to do just that.

Since 2021, I have periodically alluded to four different writing projects (originally five, but one was published shortly after retiring): three that involved either re-writing or polishing up and one that involved republishing a previously published novella.

As you already know, I have succeeded on the first three projects: this novella, followed by this novella, and completing a fantasy series under this tag. The fourth project, which was republishing a currently published novella, took me a few years to complete, as I would periodically work on it while working on other things.

During the second half of August, I was able to work with yet another graphic designer, who came highly recommended to me, on a fresh cover for my upcoming novella, entitled "Evil Has A Conscience."

For comparison, this was the original cover for the same novella, entitled "A Taste Of Pain".

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I've also been busy on the short story front. For the past few years, I've been going through my over-sized pile of mediocre short stories that were previously published on my now closed short story blog, and cherry picking those that seem to hold the most promise for being revisited and rewritten.

To date, I've written fifteen short stories overall, with three being one hundred percent original. All of them range from G-rated to that R/NC-17 rating that would sometimes make people cock their eyebrows, and I would like to think that applying a skill set that has evolved over the nearly fifteen years since they were originally written, vastly improved the original content of the story.

My main goal with my short story writing is to finish with at least twenty, so that I can create two balanced short story collections. A small side quest to this particular goal, is to write more original short stories, because if I'm being perfectly honest, what I have left for short stories to pluck from is more than a little south of 'meh.'

However, on the bright side, I acquired the ability of writing from a basic outline, as I'm now treaty those originals as a jumping off point in which to create a better story from those original elements.

That's about it for a writing update: republishing a new and improved novella, and learning something new when it comes to re-writing short stories. I sincerely hope that your week is going in the direction that you're driving towards, and that moving at the speed of slow is always a good thing to explore.

{c} 2026 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #342: The Sputtering By-Product Of Wood Pulp: Newspapers

Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you. This was taken in mid August at my local Dollar Tree store. I won't even show you what I found the next aisle just yet, but you can probably guess on the first try.

For those of you who may not know anything about my previous employer beyond the fact that I am a retired govt employee, my very first job with he state of Connecticut was helping prepare old CT newspapers for microfilming (preservation).

Short info dump: back in the late 80's/early 90's, CT, along with dozens of other states, received grant money from the feds to catalog/microfilm old local newspapers from the 18th through the 20th century.

History lesson: during that extended time period, local newspapers is where you really got the nitty gritty of local town life, both the good, the bad and the fugly (any true crime podcast with integrity will often use local media sources for the bulk of their research).

Back then, local newspapers were, more often than not, the purveyor of good solid journalism. If you wanted a good take on a particular event that was maybe covered in a regional paper with a short paragraph, local was the way to go.

Unfortunately, by the late 1980's/early 1990's, all of that good journalism slowly made its way to the sewer system, as consolidation started taking place and it was not for the better. Just like today, where less than six companies control AM/FM radio and the podcast world nationwide, back then you had a lot of companies scoop up and purchase small town weeklies to make 'money' and to promote uniformity.

One of the most egregiously crass companies (in my opinion) that help accelerate the trend of "all the news that you will read will be printed", was a media company called The Journal Register Company. Apparently, they thought that dominating the market would bring them credibility.

Problem was, they went about it in such as horrendously bad way, that they made everyone else that you would have a low opinion of, look good.

Lets use my home state of Connecticut as an example of what this company did to the majority of the weeklies (and a couple of dailies) that they ultimately acquired.

Prior to being bought out by JRC (now 21st Century Media), the average weekly in Connecticut was between 48-72 pages and cost about 75 cents to $1 per issue (this was in the 1990s). Each one was unique to the community they served.

After being bought by JRC, the following changes were made:

1. the page count was slashed to 16 +/- pages with a 25%/75% ratio of print to ads (larger percentage to ads), plus a 50% price increase.
2. the masthead was changed to conform to a particular corporate standard. In other words, no individuality that would make the paper unique to the town.
3. what little news was published wasn't really local, but more regional than anything else.

We had a wonderful weekly in my town, but the corporate mandate gutted the newspaper so thoroughly that they turned it into a free weekly mass mailed before they quietly discontinued the title.

Now if I want local news that's fit to read, my fix is divided between a classified weekly that gets mailed out to a tri-town area that features 6-10 pages of local town news; and a monthly magazine that has local and syndicated news (mostly all purpose like home improvement, medicine, etc), with spotlights on various residents and businesses.

My state is simply a large sample of what this company did to the media properties that they had acquired. I believe this uniformity, plus other corporate malfeasance, led to the downfall of this company, and ultimately led it to being acquired and rebranded.

This kind of crappy corporate behavior, in my opinion, is a majority contributing factor to why the American media is on such a downward spiral to irrelevance. You don't treat subscribers as a commodity that can be bought and sold, and express shock (SHOCK, I SAY!) when people go elsewhere for their news.

This kind of bull fritters is why I stopped being a newspaper consumer going on now for two decades, and instead get my news fix elsewhere, where I can get more bang for my dollar.

Have a fantastic week, and remember, newsprint is a fantastic way to waste your money that could be better used on that Dunkin' Donuts mocha latte with a shot of espresso.

{c} 2026 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved