Since Mr. Writing Person seems to have a small group of fans here, I'm going to post updates. I won't keep making threads for them, though - that's just a little pretentious, even for me - so I'll just bump this one whenever I make an Ask Mr. Writing Person post. I'll try to do those on Friday, and then post a follow-up on Monday or Tuesday. Here's my main page URL:

http://mr-writing-person.blogspot.com/

Beth wrote something on another thread about how I troll for topics on Hatrack, and well, that's not exactly far from the truth. Various books on writing, Uncle Orson's Writing Class, some stuff from SFWA, and this place make up the bulk of my material. (How could I satirize good writing instruction if I don't know what "good" is?) So to you folks I owe a debt of gratitude, or at least lunch.

If you have any suggestions for future Ask Mr. Writing Person topics or follow-ons, I'd love to hear them.

Ask Mr. Writing Person: Plum Great Dialogue

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Welcome back to Ask Mr. Writing Person, where the weather is a puppet and the characters are vexed! Joining us today is Bruce Boondocks, from Bitter End, Tennessee. He's a long-time fan of mine [Ed: two days, is it?], and just as excited as can be to participate. Isn't that right, Bruce?

Q. Oh, yeah. I'm so plum excited, I'm gonna wet myself.

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Ask Mr. Writing Person: Serial Romance

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It's Ask Mr. Writing Person time, in which we discover the meaning of schadenfreude [Ed: which I feel all the time] and how to steam up the windows of any novel, no matter how tame. Hooper Harlitt joins us from Los Angeles, California. He has a question about writing romance novels:

Q. I want to get published by Harlequin, but all of my attempts at writing a romance novel fall flat. I keep getting rejection letters that say, "Not steamy enough." How do I steam them up?

A. You came to the right person, Hooker.

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And a follow-up from last week's:

Harry Potter and the Crackling Dialogue of Storgé

I almost used evil robot monkeys, but settled on geriatric disco chimps instead. The evil robot monkeys just weren't speaking to me.

Also, make sure you check out Mr. Writing Person's "Fack".

Seuss's New Metaphors (and one-legged puppies)

Ask Mr. Writing Person: MacGuffin the Magical Pants

I actually taught a real concept in this one, which is quite shocking. It's also a response to a real reader who had a real-ish question (okay, so his dilemma was completely made up), which is kind of a milestone, I suppose.