A to Z Challenge: A Review

First, I want to give a bit shout-out to all those who are involved in the running of the A to Z Blogging Challenge. It’s got to take a lot of time and dedication to keep track of so many participants, making sure that non-participants are removed from the list, and ensuring that participants get the attention they deserve. Kudos!

Second, a double-huge shout-out to all my fellow participants who made it (sometimes kicking and screaming) to the end of the challenge. Some of those letters were pretty difficult, but you did it! You rock! 😀

Third, a triple-huge shout-out to all those who stopped by my blog during April and commented on my posts. I had some great conversations this month, met some cool new friends, and gained a number of new followers. I hope you all stick close by, because it’s been a blast, and I’ve been truly happy to meet you all. 🙂

The challenge has been a great deal of fun, and I got a lot of great comments on my 26 posts, so as part of this review I present a list of links to each of my posts in case anyone missed anything or is just dropping by now and would like to check a couple of them out.

Day 1: Ariel (the Little Mermaid)Day 2: Buffy Summers (the Vampire Slayer)
Day 3: Castiel (the Monster-Fighting Angel)
Day 4: Deadpool (the Lunatic Assassin)
Day 5: Eric Northman (the Viking Vampire)
Day 6: Freddy Krueger (the Nightmare Demon)
Day 7: Gau (the Wild Orphan)
Day 8: Han Solo (the Cocky Starpilot)
Day 9: Iron Man (the Smarmiest Avenger)
Day 10: James T. Kirk (the Star Fleet Captain)
Day 11: Kefka Palazzo (the Magitek Monster)
Day 12: Lisse (the Child of the Dystopian Future)
Day 13: Magus (the Lost Wizard)
Day 14: Neville Longbottom (the Heart of Gryffindor)
Day 15: Other-Mother (the Other World Evil)
Day 16: Peter Parker (the Spider-Man)
Day 17: Qui-Gon Jinn (the Jedi Knight)
Day 18: Ryuk (the Shinigami)
Day 19: Sherlock Holmes (the High-Functioning Sociopath)
Day 20: Tyrion Lannister (the Exceptionally Clever Imp)
Day 21: Usagi Tsukino (the Sailor Senshi)
Day 22: Victoria MacKinnon (the Lost Princess)
Day 23: Winchester Brothers (the Monster Hunters)
Day 24: Xander Harris (the Lovable Sidekick)
Day 25: Yuki Miaka (the Girl from Other World)
Day 26: Zelda (the Hyrulian Princess)

In case you somehow missed it, my theme for the challenge was “Fictional Characters”. Each one of these characters, even the ones chosen out of duress of very difficult letters, holds a special place in my heart for one reason or another. The TV shows, movies, comics, cartoons, and video games mentioned were overwhelmingly a great part of my childhood, and in some cases an incredible part of my adulthood. If you’ve got the time, check some of them out. You totally won’t be disappointed.

And finally, before I sign off, I wanted to share with you a couple of the blogs that I’ve come across during this particular challenge. I came into contact with so many awesome fellow bloggers this past month that it’s impossible to mention them all, but these are a couple of the ones I fully plan to keep tabs on even now that the challenge is over.

A Scenic Route – Kirsten is a fellow writer who blogs about her “journey into noveldom”. This month she wrote a wonderful series of posts with the theme “Backstage at the Blog”, in which she gave some wonderful tips, hints, and ideas for fellow bloggers, in addition to sharing info about her own blogging journey.

Sophie’s Thoughts and Fumbles – Sophie is a writer of many genres who uses her blog as a place to talk about reading, writing, all the topics in between, and whatever else she so desires. She is also the brains behind the mini-challenge that a few of us participated in in addition to the A to Z challenge: the Supernatural A to Z Challenge. She wrote about ghosts and ghoulies this month, and while I didn’t often comment on her posts because my WordPress reader doesn’t make it easy for me to deal with other blogging websites, I still thoroughly enjoyed reading about all the creepy creatures that she posted.

Alex Hurst – Alex is one of my favorite new people because she is fun, bubbly, and friendly, and we apparently have a great deal in common. The fantasy writer spent the month talking about different aspects of writing and being a writer. Her post “J for Jargon” cracked me up because so many of the definitions she came up with were SO TRUE.

I would love to share some more blogs, and perhaps I will in the future, but this has been such a busy month that I simply do not have the time it would take to go through all the wonderful blogs I’ve found during this challenge. However, if you’re really, truly interested in finding some great new people to follow, check out the A to Z sign-up list and just start clicking. There are literally hundreds of wonderful blogs amongst that list.

And now, with all that aside, I must say adieu, and take a much-deserved nap. Cheers everyone! ❤

A to Z Challenge Day 20: Tyrion Lannister (the Exceptionally Clever Imp)

I can remember when the first book in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series first came out. I remember, not because I read it, but because a favorite web-comic writer of mine did, and he subsequently ranted to the world about how George R.R. Martin is an evil creature who spends hundreds of pages building up a character, making you love them with all your heart and soul, before mercilessly murdering them as though they were the absolute least important of characters. These days, what with the hit HBO show, the fact that Mr. Martin is a vicious heart-breaker who likes to torture his readers unrelentingly is pretty common knowledge. But, at the time I remember thinking, “Well then…I guess I’ll stay away from those books because it sounds like the author is a bit of an arse.”

And I did – stay away from the books that is – for well over a decade. The first book came out in 1996 and I didn’t go anywhere near the series until somewhere in the area of 2010. I’d watched, every so often, as my web-comic writer fav cried over the books, praising them in one sentence and damning them in another, but I never jumped on the books myself until the HBO show was announced. Even then it wasn’t of my own will; my husband had read about the upcoming show and thought the books sounded like something I might enjoy, and so he gifted me the set of four novels that were available at the time.

Of the five books that I’ve now read, I’ve loved four (I’m sorry, Mr. Martin, but I had to really force myself through “A Feast for Crows”), and of the three seasons of the HBO show that have aired thus far I’ve loved every second, but if I’m totally honest neither the books nor the show would be even half as great if it weren’t for the character they call “the Imp”, Tyrion Lannister. His quick wit, cunning, and flair for being a mouthy little creature make him an absolute joy to read about or watch (and come on, does Peter Dinklage not portray the character flawlessly?), and he’s the excellent sort of character that pulls you back and forth and in a dozen different directions. Throughout the story you can never quite decide if he’s a good guy or a bad guy, or a good guy who does bad things, or a bad guy who happens to have a few morals. All you know is that while there are characters you love and characters you hate, in the entire world that George R.R. Martin has created, this is the character who you are constantly rooting for. Trust me on this one.

Laugh, Cry, and Scream

Recently I’ve been doing a lot of jumping between stories. Within my own work I’ve been moving between zombie apocalypses and werewolf romances, between epic fantasies and personal journeys. At the same time I’ve been reading books, watching movies and TV shows, and playing video games. All this going back and forth between different stories with different characters has gotten me thinking about what makes a truly memorable character. What is it that makes a particular person in a book, tv show, movie, or game become this amazing character whom you can’t get enough of? What makes a character great?

I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I’ve come up with three answers, three things that make a character great, in my opinion.

Great characters make you laugh.

Humor is almost a given, isn’t it? Laughter is like a drug, one for which the only side effects are happiness and maybe some pleasantly sore muscles. Mentally and physically, our bodies get high on humor, which is why we love comedies so much, why we appreciate friends and loved ones who can make us chuckle, and why we tend to gravitate toward peers who share our appreciation for what is or isn’t funny. Sense of humor is not universal, of course, but almost everyone will find themselves drawn toward a character who can make them laugh, especially if that laughter is of the deep-down, belly-rumbling, gasping-for-air variety.

Characters who give me the giggles:

Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory – He’s just so absurd and stoic in everything he says and does that it’s absolutely hysterical. I genuinely don’t know how the actors of this show make it through their lines sometimes.

Tyrion Lanister from the A Song of Ice and Fire series (G.R.R. Martin) – I’ve rarely read a character so damn witty. His humor is rude and crude one minute, and exceptionally intellegent the next. Every second line out of his mouth makes me go “HA!”

Great characters make you cry.

Sadness is a little less obvious, but whether you might believe it or not sometimes we crave a good sob-fest. Why else would movies like The Notebook be so popular? The thing is, crying is cathartic; even if you didn’t realize you were stressed out or upset, crying gets all the pent-up bad mojo out, and while no one wants to be sad for real-life reasons, being sad for a character allows you to experience that release of emotions. Being able to feel for a character, to be truly empathetic toward them and experience their pain, releases a host of hormones and chemicals that leaves you feeling somehow refreshed and rejuvinated.

Characters who give me the sniffles:

Dean Winchester from Supernatural – It’s one part great writing and one part awesome acting on behalf of Jensen Ackles, and the combination is a character who has made me exceptionally weepy on more than one occasion (but don’t tell my husband…I always turn to my side so he doesn’t see).

Simba from The Lion King – There is one scene in particular that I’m talking about, and if you don’t automatically know which one I’m talking about you can’t possibly have ever seen The Lion King, so GO WATCH THE LION KING RIGHT NOW, YOU FREAK.

Great characters make you scream.

Fear is another thing entirely. Though there are always going to be some people who run in the other direction when faced with fear, quite a lot of us love it. Fear gives a person a unique rush of adrenaline and “fight or flight” hormones that can be obtained in no other way, and how better to experience such a thing than from the comfort of your own home while reading a scary book or watching a horror movie? When a character makes your heart beat faster, the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and gives you a nervous twtich because of the incredible tension, that is something real and visceral that you won’t soon forget. If the eventual result is actual nightmares, the character has really done their job.

Characters who give me the wiggins:

The creepy ghost girl from Shutter (original Thai version) – There is one thing I will give to the Asians…they know how to do ghosts, and this chick in particular had me literally watching the movie from between my fingers. Bonus points for totally freaking out my husband and father-in-law.

The Joker from The Dark Knight – He may not be scary in the “I’m going to have nightmares forever!” sense, but Heath Ledger’s maniacal version of The Joker creeped me out more than I can tell. He was truly, entirely mad, and that is a frightening concept.

There are, of course, lots of other factors that go into making a good character. The protagonist should be likable but also have real flaws, the antagonist should be hateful but have relatable qualities as well… You’ve heard it all before, I’m sure, or if you haven’t I’m sure you know most of the rules without even realizing it; that’s how you as the consumer recognize the characters you like. But in my opinion, the three things I’ve mentioned above are what take a character from simply enjoyable, to positively incredible. And if you can somehow incorporate all three of these types of characters into one story…wow. Just wow.

Character (groups) that have made me giggle, sniffle, and wig out:

The cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV) – Fear doesn’t necessarily apply anymore, but I watched this show when I was young and significantly more innocent, so hear me out. Back in the day the monsters creeped me the hell out, the banter between characters (good and bad) constantly had me laughing, and the misery that several of the characters went through made me (on more than one occasion) bawl like a little girl. To me, that is seriously a winning combination, and that is why this show is one of my all-time favorites to this day.

The characters from Invitation to the Game (Monica Hughes) – The characters in this book were witty and amusing, went through a tense, frightening situation that threatened their lives, and experienced a plethora of negative emotions and miseries. I’ve read this book dozens of times and I still experience an emotional rollercoaster whenever I read it.

As a writer I now find myself in the position of trying to incorporate these factors into my characters, which is a much more difficult endevour than simply pointing them out in the books I read and the movies and shows I watch. Humor isn’t my strong point, although I’ve been told by readers of my fanfiction that I’ve made them chuckle a time or two. I strive to incorporate fear into my horror and fantasy pieces, and I hope it comes across, but I haven’t been in the position yet to have anyone tell me one way or the other. Misery seems to be my “thing” (what does that say about me…?), as I love to torture my characters and I’ve had a number of people inform me that I was successful in drawing out those tears. It’s a very difficult thing striking all three, but as other writers will attest, writing is rarely easy and creating excellent characters can often feel like an exercise in futility. Regardless, now that I’ve beaten down exactly what it is that creates characters I’ve come to love, you can be damn sure that I’ll be keeping these three factors in mind whenever I put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard.

What about you? What characters have made you laugh until your belly hurt? Sob like a baby? Cower under a blanket? Are there other factors that make a character great for you? Please share!

Going Beyond Your Depths

A reminder: This post courtesy of Julie Jarnagin’s 101 Blog Post Ideas for Writers.

90. Adding depth to your writing

Oh man, this post could go in so many different directions depending on how we think about the word “depth”. My brain is beginning to hurt just thinking about it. Couple that with the fact that I’ve never so much as submitted a manuscript to an editor, agent, or publisher, and I find myself wondering if I’m really one to talk. But as with several of the other posts I’ve written in response to the 101 Blog Post Ideas, I’ll go ahead and give you my thoughts and opinions, and you can take them for what they are. For additional info, I suggest wandering over to Kristen Lamb’s Blog. She’s written advice on almost every aspect of writing and she’s about as close to an expert as I’ve ever come across.

So…depth. There’s no doubt about it, you want your writing to have depth, but that’s a fairly broad term. Are we talking about emotional depth, depth in the plot line, or depth within our characters? Are there other forms of depth we could be considering? Probably, but these three are the ones that come to mind right now, so let’s talk about those.

First of all, emotional depth and character depth, which actually go hand-in-hand. Maybe this isn’t an important aspect to all readers, but for me it’s an absolute necessity. If I, at some point during the reading of the story, do not feel emotionally attached to a character (not necessarily the main character) then I feel like the author has not done his or her job. If the book in question is part of a series, failing to make me feel emotionally invested in a character will result in my failing to continue on to the second book in the series. That’s not to say that every character has to have an elaborate back story that endears me to them, but someone in the story has to make me care about them. Otherwise why do I care what happens to them? This sort of depth is best achieved, in my opinion, by finding reasons for your readers to bond with your characters. Harry Potter gains our empathy because he’s an orphan and we feel sorry for him for having to grow up with his awful relatives. Eddard Stark gains our approval because he’s an honorable man who cares deeply for his family and finds himself in a difficult situation that pulls him from them. Frodo Baggins has us rooting for him because he’s clearly the underdog with no discernible skills or abilities. Your characters have to have both upsides and downsides, merits and faults. The main reason that so many people hate the character Bella Swan is because she’s too goddamn perfect. Even her “faults” are played off as things that make her more adorable and endearing to the other characters. It pulls the reader away because you find yourself wanting to see her fail just to prove that she’s capable of failure, and that’s not a great way to think about the character who is meant to be your hero. Your characters have to be human (even when they technically aren’t) or else your readers can’t get inside their heads and feel for them, become them, and find themselves desperate to see them succeed.

As for depth of the plot, this is something that will vary from book to book, genre to genre, but the basic element remains the same. You do not want your story to be predictable. Now obviously a psychological thriller is going to have a lot more plot depth than a supernatural romance, but the point is that you have to occasionally give your reader something surprising or upsetting. If your reader is constantly thinking “this is what’s going to happen next” or “this is totally the big reveal” and it turns out that they’re right, that’s not a good thing. Sure, some level of predictability is to be expected, and there are always going to be those readers who somehow always seem to know what the author was thinking while writing the story, but most readers crave some kind of mystery to their books. You don’t want to be able to figure out exactly what is going to happen because otherwise you could just write the story yourself. One of the reasons the A Song of Ice and Fire series is so interesting is because it constantly has you guessing. You’re never quite sure who is a good guy or a bad guy, or what might happen next, or what just happened ten pages ago for that matter. You don’t have to create a labyrinth of mystery, confusion, and intrigue, but you have to give your readers something worth looking forward to. Reveal a good guy to actually be a bad guy or vice versa. Throw in something magical or otherwise supernatural just because it would be surprising and interesting. Kill off a character that the reader would have thought was important or had become attached to (this one doubles for emotional depth). Keep your readers guessing, basically, because that’s what keeps them moving on to the next page, and the next, and the next. Why do you think so many television shows end on a cliffhanger every single freakin’ episode?

In general, when writing your book, think about what it was you liked about the books you’ve read. Think about the types of things that made you like the characters, what events made you gasp or cringe or cry, what about the story made it impossible for you to put the book down. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and that all the different types of books have already been written, and any truly good author will tell you that part of being a writer is stealing from other writers. Use those concepts to figure out what is good about other books, and to imbue your own stories with those successful elements. Build depth by learning to recognize it in the writing of others. And when in doubt, remember what I always try to remember: if my writing doesn’t affect me, emotionally and mentally, then how can I possibly expect it to affect others?

Hook, Line, and Sinker

A reminder: This post courtesy of Julie Jarnagin’s 101 Blog Post Ideas for Writers.

72. Developing a compelling hook

I’m quite certain that a great deal of literature has been written on this subject, but unfortunately I have not read any of it. All I can really give is my opinion, based on the fact that I’ve been an avid reader since I was about 8 years old.

To me, the trick to developing a compelling hook is to be both realistic and unrealistic at the same time. Sure that doesn’t make sense, but hear me out. First, you have to be somewhat realistic with your characters and settings, because even when your reader is looking for fantasy, sci-fi, horror, or any of the other crazy options there are, they want to feel some kind of connection to the story. If your character is a gorgeous creature who was born with a silver spoon in their mouth and is absolutely perfect in every way your reader is going to have a hard time giving a rat’s behind about them. In fact, they’re more likely to hate them and not want to read about them anymore. But if you give your character some flaws that the reader can relate to (they were teased mercilessly as a child; they have an alcohol problem; they’re embarrassingly clumsy; etc etc etc) the reader is more likely to connect with them and want to follow them through the story. George R.R. Martin’s writing is a great example of this. In his A Song of Ice and Fire series you can easily find yourself rooting for multiple characters on different sides of the battles, because even the most evil characters have certain traits or beliefs that force you to relate with them. Sure, they’re still creeps, but you can’t help feeling that they could almost be your friend in a different situation, which makes you want to find out what happens to them.

Moving on, once you’ve established this sense of realism, you have to move on to being unrealistic in your story. See, the thing is that (for the most part) reality is pretty boring. The world is a pretty amazing place, yes, but the everyday world is, well…every day. People don’t read fiction because they want to read about the same things that they see every day in their own lives; they read fiction to put themselves into another world, a place that’s strange and different and lets them escape from the mundane. To continue using Martin as my example, his world first seems like a perfectly realistic medieval land, but suddenly you find out that it’s also full of magic and dark creatures. You’re relating to the characters and the world they live in, but you’re also surrounded by the odd and unusual, the kinds of things you secretly wish were real.

This doesn’t exactly help develop a “hook”, but I think that these are two important things to keep in mind when attempting to do so because any plot idea you do come up with will be a lot more enjoyable to read if these two ideas are kept in mind.

Or maybe I’m wrong. If so, feel free to debate it with me!

What’s in a Name?

A reminder: This post courtesy of Julie Jarnagin’s 101 Blog Post Ideas for Writers.

50. Character names

Choosing the name for a character can be one of the difficult parts of planning a story. Some people love choosing their character names, while others (like myself) find it a grueling, miserable process. You can’t choose just any name that strikes your fancy; you have to think about who the character is, what they are, and what they represent. You want your readers to picture your character using the information you give them and be able to say, “Yeah, he/she definitely seems like a _____.”

Think about it for a moment. Would Eddard Stark seem so noble and admirable a character if he had been named Bob Smith? Would Harry Potter elicit the same feelings of familiarity and empathy if Rowling had named him Stan Tanner? Hell, would Christian Grey get so many crazy women’s motors running if he were named Walter Fitzgerald?

So we (presumably, unless we are naturally talented in this particular art) labor long and hard while working out what our characters names will be. I myself always have a hard time with this. When I was young and foolish I would always name my main characters after myself. I’ve used my real name, my nicknames, and my usernames in the past. Of course this is not an accepted practice in the real world of writing and is generally looked upon as a red light for wish fulfillment fantasies. These days I try to picture my characters and imagine names that suit them, the same way you might see a person walking down the street and guess what their name might be based only on their physical appearance. Sometimes I meet with success – the main character in my zombie apocalypse manuscript is Nancy King, and I can’t imagine her having any other name. Other times I have hiccups that won’t go away – the main character of my fantasy epic has had her name changed no fewer than four times and it still doesn’t sound right.

I think it’s almost like a game that you have to win before your story can be whole, and certain stories crank the difficulty of the game up to “Author Must Die” mode. But this is just another hurdle we must leap on the way to creating wonderful stories.

Gimmi that idea!

A reminder: This post courtesy of Julie Jarnagin’s 101 Blog Post Ideas for Writers.

30. The book idea you wish you’d thought of first

There are so many books I could choose for this. My mind is racing through a list of amazing books that were made into amazing movies and are well-loved around the world. Hell I could even pick from the list of terrible books that, regardless of their massive crappiness, have made their authors millions of dollars.

In the end, even though it’s probably a little predictable, I have to go with A Song of Ice and Fire, the fantasy epic series by George R.R. Martin. Not only is it a hugely successful novel series and a riveting HBO special, but it is also a genuinely, flat-out amazing story. It has it’s issues (“Why hello there, random, completely unimportant character! What’s that? You have a life story you’d like to share? Well pull up a chair!”) but they don’t stop you from both reading and enjoying. The characters are written in a way that you can never be sure who is a good guy and who is a bad guy until they do something drastic, and even then you’re not always sure. The subplots intersect in a way that I can’t even fathom having to coordinate, which just amazes me as someone who can barely keep two thoughts straight at the same time. I could go on and on about the series, but that’s not the point of this post. The point is…damn, I wish I’d thought of that idea first (and had the ability to pull it off)!

15 Day Book Challenge – Day 10

Day 10- Write a review of the last book you read

I’ve read reviews on all sorts of things and something I’ve learned is that I’m not particularly good at writing reviews. There’s a kind of knack to it, I think. That said, please excuse my awful review of A Game of Thrones, the first book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin.

I’ve mentioned before that this book amazed me. Within the first third of the book I found myself developing a major “author crush” on Martin. He creates an amazing, deep world full of lovable (and hateable) characters whose stories weave a complicated tapestry that keeps you hooked page after page. The journey begins with a prologue that hints at the existence of supernatural creatures of evil…which then fail to show up again until within the final chapters of the book. You’d think that would be a down-point, but I mention it because even though it seems like it would be annoying, you don’t even realize it’s happening because the other plot points are so incredibly interesting that until the creatures show up again you totally forget about them. That is how great Martin’s writing is.

If there’s one complaint I have about the book (and believe me, it’s tough to complain about this book), it’s the overwhelming number of characters. Many of the characters are obviously important and it is necessary to know about them, but there are torrents of characters who, as near as I can tell, are just background noise, and yet we’re forced to know a ridiculous amount of back-story about them. Maybe it’s just me, but I found this writing style made it extremely difficult to keep track of the important people and information. I’m getting used to it now, while reading the second book in the series, but it definitely hurt my head more than once.

In conclusion, you might have to draw a map to keep track of things, but A Game of Thrones is a must-read for anyone who loves fantasy stories.

15 Day Book Challenge – Day 3

Day 3- Your favorite author and favorite book by them

If you asked me a year ago I’d probably say Stephen King and his more recent book, Under the Dome, which was a particularly interesting and creepy story.

These days if we’re going to talk about favorite authors, I’m going to have to go with R.R. Martin. The thing is, I can’t give you my favorite book because I’ve technically only read the one so far…that is, A Game of Thrones, the first in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. How can I choose Martin as my favorite author when I’ve only read one of his books? If you’d read the book yourself you probably wouldn’t be asking that question. I am positively amazed at this man’s ability to interweave a fistful of different plots while keeping track of dozens of characters in a vast world full of a slew of different cities, lands, beliefs, creatures, and any number of things I’m forgetting. As I was reading A Game of Thrones I couldn’t help picturing Martin in a huge room with nothing but a writing desk and a multitude of hand-drawn/written maps, character descriptions, and plot trees covering every inch of the walls, ceiling, and floor. I just can’t fathom any other way that someone could possibly create such a tapestry of information while still making the story genuinely good and fun and interesting. Kudos, R.R. Martin. Freakin’ kudos.