Author - Dana Lockhart

I struggle with trying to create and maintain a writing style that screams me .  In general, I feel like the way I write isn’t unique by any means, and yet, I think I’ve finally stumbled upon a common theme in the way that I write that stretches across multiple stories of mine.  A part of my style.  It’s a weird one, and it’s kind of hard to explain.  But I’ll do my best. -Narrative vs. Perspective- It has to do with how I perceive narrative and perspective as two separate concepts.  Whether I’m writing in first or third person, there is a trend I keep returning to where I’m almost breaking the narrative, and yet, I don’t.  Not in my mind.  Perspective, in general, is just a way of identifying how you perceive the information given to you.  In first person, you’re limited by the thoughts and observations of one singular person.  In third person limited, you’re likewise limited.  In third person omnipresent, you get to see the wor...

Ask me what I write and I will have a little difficulty telling you. There’s a lot of things I like to write, but there does tend to be a focus towards urban fantasy. Bear with me as I try to explain how I feel about this. -Compare and Contrast- I don’t really like what urban fantasy means to me. Mostly just because of the name and the connotation of it. Something about the word “urban” turns me off, especially because I prefer “rural” settings in my own personal life. Urban sounds noisy, modern, crowded, and superficial. It makes me think of “urban myths,” like the crocodile in the sewers, and that makes me not take it seriously in some regard. And then pairing urban with “fantasy.” Fantasy, to me, conjures up everything I love – rich, wild worlds with magic and sword fights and fantastic creatures. How could something so amazing be paired with something so ugh? It seems to me like an oxymoron. I also don’t like urban fantasy because it feels lazy. Those high-fantasy novels I...

One of the greatest compliments I ever received was from one of my high school teachers who said he thought it was great that I took it upon myself to stand up for the unpopular opinions, even when I didn’t believe in them myself. -Dare to Say No- At my school there once was a local essay writing contest that a teacher made everyone in my class submit an entry for.   The prompt was “Does your generation have a role in America’s future?” Well, you see, their mistake is that they phrased that as a question.   And me, being the cynical person I was, I dared to answer the question with “No, they do not,” if only for the reason that I knew nobody else would.   What resulted was a fabulous essay with colorful metaphors and quotes by Homer to prove my point that my generation were like encroaching vines that couldn’t survive in the real world except by tearing down those above them.   As one such victim who got torn down by peers with years of bullying, I ha...

As I come closer to self-publishing my first novel, the very important question came up: Should I use a pen name? -I Have a Weird Name- My given name isn’t easy for your average person. I’ve come to get used to it. I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that my name was misspelled no less and probably more than ten times during the process of buying my first home. You’d think with something that important that everyone involved would double check an odd name and make sure it was right before they printed out cashier checks, sale contracts, HUD statements, and insurance and remodeling estimates (yes, these are just a few examples of the documents that had my name spelled wrong). After that fiasco, it was very clear to me that if I published, I needed to use a pen name. I can’t have people not being able to find me because my given name is too hard. Do I want to use a pen name? Well, no. I’m not ashamed by my name, I don’t hate my name, and I really would like t...