Category: Bookish Thoughts
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An Opening to Intrigue You
In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three. – Howl’s Moving Castle (yes, again) I love this opening because it establishes so clearly that this novel is going to poke fun at fairy-tales. The…
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Talking Down to Readers
That Pedantic Tone of Writing You know the style of writing – “Now let me tell you a story…” or “As you shall see in the end…” The style of writing where a strong narrator’s voice almost intrudes into the story, reminding the reader that it is a story. Often this is thought of as…
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That’s Not Shakespeare! Or Maybe It Is
“Alas, poor Yorick!” – Howl, from Howl’s Moving Castle, quoting Shakespeare When I first read Howl’s Moving Castle, I didn’t realize this was a quote from Shakespeare until I read Hamlet a year later. Funny how we tend to attribute things to the last person that we remember said them, whether or not they actually…
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Breaking the 10 Simple Rules for Writing a Novel
There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. — W. Somerset Maugham Well, while surfing the net I stumbled across a lovely article advising people on how to write a novel in 2012 – you know, if that’s your New Year’s Resolution or something. And some of the…
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Happy Endings vs. Sad Endings
And Everything In Between Endings are one of the hardest things for me to write. Obviously, I feel the weight of the readers’ expectations—hey, if anyone is reading this, they’re trusting me to end this satisfactorily! And I’ve read so many books where a so-so ending kept the book from becoming great. But both happy…
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A Thought From Anne of Green Gables
I just have time to put up a quote: “I’d like to add some beauty to life,” said Anne dreamily. “I don’t exactly want to make people KNOW more. . .though I know that IS the noblest ambition. . .but I’d love to make them have a pleasanter time because of me. . .to have…
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Do You Need to be Younger than 40 to Write Great Novels?
The other day, Little Brown Mushroom Blog linked to an article in the New York Times – an article which claims that most great novels are written by authors under the age of forty. The Little Brown Mushroom Blog was interested in this because they wanted to know if the same was true for photographers.…
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Why Scathing Critiques are More Fun To Read
Some of you may be of the opinion by now that I hate Wuthering Heights, Romeo and Juliet and other assorted romances that don’t fit into my standards of “healthy romances.” I assure you I do not. As some of the comments pointed out, classics become known as classics because they relate to something in…
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The Top Literary Couples as Bad Examples
Healthy Romance Makes Bad Novels, Part II Last week, I argued that healthy, functioning romances (which we’d probably all enjoy in real life) have trouble generating the kind of conflict that drives romance novels. Logically, the next step would be for me to look at some famous literary romances and see if they were healthy…
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The Lesser Known Works of the Better Known Writers
Or, Wait–She Wrote That? Sometimes an author is so good you want to read everything they wrote–so you go out and read every single thing on their list of publications. You know, like when you finish Lord of the Rings and go out and find The Silmarillion (somewhat of an interesting surprise for people!) Sometimes…
Hmm... 