I didn’t blog a ton, but I did get a few good posts out about stories and writing! So here are my best posts (judged purely on the basis of their popularity with the internet!) from this year:
In Jane Austen, Nice Guys Finish First
“Authors can easily write their ‘nice guys’ as Mary Sues. I’ve read many novels where the romantic hero is very, very boring. He’s supposed to be the epitome of good, and he is, to the point of dullness. The solution to this, it is said, is to add faults. But add too many faults, and you just end up reinforcing the trope, ‘All Girls Want Bad Boys.’
It takes a genius like Jane Austen to make the nice-guy heroes be exactly the kind of person real-life women would fall in love with.”
When a Hurricane of Clichés Equals a Great Movie
I try to figure out what makes Casablanca so amazing. (Yes, this year was the first time I watched it!)
Join Mark Zuckerberg’s Book Club, Rediscover Why Books Matter
I’m guessing this post was popular because of the name in the title 🙂
Writing Reality – Or Escaping It
“And now I believe there can be two types of creators/writers – those who don’t flinch from portraying problems and showing the ugliness of reality. And those writers who help escape from reality, and use fiction to remind us what it’s like to hope.”
Hmm... 