National Comics Publications, Inc. v. Fawcett Publications, Inc.
![C. C. Beck - Cover from Whiz Comics #2, February 1940](https://i0.wp.com/shoemaker.space/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Whiz1-Featured.jpg?resize=1200%2C640&ssl=1)
Writers should know that ideas can’t be copyrighted, only the tangible expression of those ideas. The words of a story. The notes of a song. The lines of a drawing. If those are substantially similar in the eyes… Read More
Write What You Don’t Know
![A Student of the University of British Columbia studying for final exams.](https://i0.wp.com/shoemaker.space/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/img_0966-scaled.jpg?resize=1800%2C840&ssl=1)
“Write what you know” is trite advice. It’s a good example of my Tools, Not Rules philosophy: it’s useful to draw from what you know to inspire your writing (indeed, I think it’s unavoidable); but you shouldn’t limit… Read More
Power Up Your Writing!
![](https://i0.wp.com/shoemaker.space/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/GRRWG-Workshop.jpg?resize=800%2C400&ssl=1)
by Grand Rapids Region Writers Group (GRRWG) Join us as multi-published authors Alex Kourvo and Lara Zielin show us how to Power Up Your Writing! Sign up at eventbrite! About this event Ticket price ($40 for GRRWG members,… Read More
Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost
![Lost Woods by RicardoEstrada. licensed through DeviantArt under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License](https://i0.wp.com/shoemaker.space/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Lost-in-the-Woods.jpg?resize=800%2C538&ssl=1)
(With acknowledgments to J.R.R. Tolkien and Alistair Cockburn) This is not an original idea with me. It was inspired by Alistair Cockburn’s “Three Levels of Listening” (Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game), which introduced the idea in the… Read More
Nobody Knows Anything
![](https://i0.wp.com/shoemaker.space/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/William-Goldman-Featured.jpg?resize=1200%2C640&ssl=1)
Nobody knows anything… Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what’s going to work. Every time out it’s a guess and, if you’re lucky, an educated one. William Goldman, Adventures in the Screen… Read More