1) Just in case you’re incapable of expressing emotion on your own…
2) A nice Dresden Files animation. Video. (link updated)
3) Voldemort didn’t go to a better place.
4) The ten worst lines in sf films.
5) Edible Hogwarts.
6) I can’t believe I didn’t think of this. PostSecrets from fictional characters (and pets) Brilliant!
7) “Damn it feels good to be a Lannister.” Video.
Author Kate Elliott has an interesting post on a new way to classify stories: by the characters who drive them.
Folks in comments are listing the characters (with accompanying story lines) that they can’t stand, and it’s a lot of the usual stuff with some interesting ideas mixed in.
Here’s my list of character genres I can’t stand:
* Anything with rock stars. Even authors I really really like will try my patience with rock musicians and their boring problems. It doesn’t help that I don’t think music translates well to the page.
* Two characters with an instant soul-mate bond. I just don’t find it compelling.
* The troubled cop with the dying wife. Not terrible, I guess, but I seem to have read too many of them.
* The recovering alcoholic detective. Another non-compelling character.
* The Devious Fantasy Character. I bounced off one really well-regarded fantasy series because one character’s Plot To Destabilize Everything still hadn’t come to fruition after 100+ pages. Not compelling.
* The Badass Who Punches Down. You guys recognize that Keith Olbermann reference, I guess? Whatever you think of the man himself, the rule that people should always punch up, never punch down (iow, attack those more powerful than you rather than less) is a good one. And yeah, I consider snark and sarcasm to be punching.
What about you guys? Any “character genres” you particularly dislike? (Be sure to check out Elliott’s post.)
1) Six Beloved 80s Toys With Bizarrely Horrifying Origin Stories
2) A writer tithes to a charity he believes in.
3) Printing in three dimensions, with chocolate.
4) The entire plot of Harry Potter on a single poster.
5) Gundam Karate Battle! Video. Nicely done and more cinematic than the usual fare.
6) Saruman trolling the fellowship. Video. ::ahem:: LOL
7) How to make a book light a light out of an old book. via ardentdelirium
Tim O’Brien’s “How To Tell A True War Story.”
Fucking wow.
Me? Writing about how to write??
I know, not my usual beat, but I think I’d like to highlight a few things:
For today, I want to talk about how we study writing. First, check out this post on passing exposition through character voice by Kelley Eskridge. Go and read it. It’s wonderful writing whether you need the lesson or not.
Second, look at this post by David Hines regarding character identification. In it, he breaks down several sections of A Song of Ice And Fire to examine where GRRM succeeds and fails, partly reinventing the Eight Deadly Words Test at the same time.
I offer these two links from two very different writers not only as worthy lessons in themselves, but as a model for learning to write. There are an awful lot of people happy to talk about the art and craft of writing in purely theoretical terms: how to build tension, how to write dialog, how to endure the midbook slump. I once read a writing advice book that listed the six ways a writer could introduce and establish a sympathetic protagonist.
Here’s a probably apocryphal story: An aspiring thriller writer wanted to be a bestseller, and he heard that Robin Cook, who wrote Coma, studied the thriller market first by reading 100 successful books in the genre. The aspiring thriller, hearing this, decided he would just read Cook’s novel, since all the lessons would be distilled in there.
There’s a lot of pre-digested literary theory out there, but I think the best way to learn is to find work like your own that you also admire and study it closely. Retype a chapter so you aren’t tempted to skim. Reread several times. Look for text where you think things are being done badly. Most important of all, develop your own theory rather than receive them second-hand.
Theoretical conversations can be interesting and fun, but speaking from personal experience, I say study texts.
1) Weird things customers say in bookshops.
2) “Well, at least it’s not towels!“
3) A Game of Thrones of Muppets
4) Han Solo and Greedo bookends.
5) How to have a well-behaved child.
6) His Girl Friday… with all that wonderful dialog edited out! A feature length movie gets trimmed down to under eight and a half minutes. Video.
(Re yesterday’s post: You guys know I generally don’t reply to hypothetical comments, yes? I don’t want to control or direct those conversations.)
Andrew Sullivan does a quick rundown of some responses from social conservatives to the NY marriage equality law and surprise surprise if they aren’t convinced it’s tyranny. The short version is this: Gay rights advocates who want to be able to marry = Bull Connor. Because having the right to visit your partner in the hospital after a car accident is the same as siccing dogs on people.
History will tag these people as the assholes they are.
1) A kiddie mecha for real! Video.
2) George Lucas as OLDBOY? Video.
3) Repulsive Soviet monument rebooted.
4) The 100 best first lines of novels.
5) In my non-academic interest in book trailers, I offer this: Video. Graphic novels make it easy to be lazy with a trailer, but these guys did something more.
6) Nathan Fillion, photobomber.
7) A word cloud showing the 500 most common passwords. Those passwords make up 79% of a database of 6 million users. And I can’t believe that one of them is “8675309”. via @RodRamsey
1) Artist buys cheap landscapes at yard sales, then paints monsters into them.
2) Eel Noir, a webcomic by filmmaker Jonathon King.
3) Does anyone else think it’s really odd that people tape themselves watching TV? How is this even a thing? Anyway, the new BREAKING DAWN trailer came out, and this dude edited together a whole bunch of ecstatic reaction videos. Video.
4) Woman gets a tattoo of 152 profile pics of her Facebook friends. Quick note to everyone reading this on Facebook: I don’t care about you enough to get a tattoo of your face.
5) “It’s not a weasel, it’s a marten!”
6) The best of Anti-Joke Chicken. This made me laugh.
