LIZORAE

Hey authors! Welcome back to my 5th Week Update series! This is only the third post so far, but I've been enjoying writing these so much. I'm definitely going to be continuing this in the foreseeable future! Without further ado, let's get straight into it! Milestones  If you don't already know, I'm Aussie, so it's Winter over here as I type. Why am I bringing this up, you ask? Well, this post is the last one for Winter 2020. *applauds self for surviving another three months*  I'm actually typing this in advance, but when this goes up on my blog, I'll be celebrating with chocolates and watching a movie. We've got to take any chance to celebrate, amirite? This post is also the 37th post I've written. It's not a lot compared to other bloggers, but I'm still going to celebrate. I'm improving! Extra chocolate for moi!  For the last few posts I've written, I've made slight changes to how I do the title. I've caps locked importa...

Love triangles are pretty much a staple in YA fiction. And romance. And almost every other genre. It's become so popular that it stinks. To find a bearable love triangle is rare. To find an exciting love triangle is a gem.  I heard Jane Austen's love triangles were brilliant. Skeptical, I decided to give it a try. So far, I've read  Pride and Prejudice , Emma and Sense and Sensibility . Boy was I impressed. (Okay, yes. This was also the first time I've read Jane Austen . It's embarrassing to join the fandom so late, but at least I've joined, right? :p)  1. Give your characters personalities.   Source: Tenor Typically in a Jane Austen love triangle, there's our female protagonist and two male love interests. The most notable aspect is that they all have personality. Even the girl!   Their personalities vary book to book, but there's two general ideas Austen uses in the male interests. One seems to be a Prince Charming while the other...not so much. W...

One of my favourite parts of writing a book is discovering the characters. Maybe it has something to do with my INFJ tendency to find people fascinating. Maybe it's because I love psychology. Whatever the reason, it's da bomb. I've multiple WIPs at the moment (none of them close to having the planning finished, haha)  and as much as I love characters, it's taking a lot of time to fully discover and develop them. I've experimented with questionnaires, interviews and archetype plots, but none of them clicked with me.  It's only recently that I have found these methods, but I'm 100% won over. Let's get to my three favourite methods for uncovering characters.  Disclaimer: I'm not really sure how necessary this warning is, but these methods all require a basic understanding of your character's journey and personality. It doesn't have to be much, just a bit is enough. 1. Music Playlists  Source: Tenor I love musicals. I love music. Why not use m...

"Show don't tell" is a piece of writing advice you'll heart everywhere. Naturally, I've thought about it many times, trying to discover the core of almost every writing advisor's favourite tip. The reason for its existence. The heart of its... Nah, just kidding. I spent most of my time trying to argue against it. Tell, don't show. It's not because I think it's bad advice. I wanted to see why it's so popular. You know, what's the big deal with showing? Flash forward a few years, I've finally decided to write a blog post about it. Let's get to! What exactly is "show don't tell"?  Source: Giphy Show don't tell can be explained exactly how it is. Show what is happening, show what the characters are feeling, show what their senses are picking up. Don't tell.  For example, it's a hot day and your character is really feeling it. Here's the same series of events, one told with telling and the other with showin...

It takes a skilled and practiced person to stop being them  and become someone else. Even on paper. Especially on paper. If eyes are the window to a person's soul, stories are the books to their heart.  That's why we, as authors, must be mindful of what goes on in our, well, minds. Our interests tend to be what we write about, you know? It'd be pretty strange if you wrote a book featuring a protagonist spider when you hate spiders.  That's why I went on a hunt for quotes that stood out as ones we should remember. Let's get straight to it! 1. "As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand." -Ernest Hemingway Source: Tenor If this was not a quote, I would delete the "as a writer" part. Life would be so much better if everyone  understood before judging. Or maybe not judge at all. I know that's idealistic and I probably don't do that as much as I'd like to, but why don't we all try? Rant aside, understanding why people wo...

Kingdom Hearts is an award winning video game. It also has a plethora of characters, convoluted plot and sometimes, is plain cringy. But I still love it. And so do thousands more. What makes the mess of a story so intriguing and inspiring to so many people? How can gamers and non-gamers (like me) still be hyped for the next instalment 12 games, excluding remakes, several mangas, a cancelled Disney TV show and 18 years later?  After thinking about for a while, I've figured two things out. These "secrets" can throw almost every other storytelling advice out the window. Not that you should throw out everything you've learnt about writing, but you get my point?  Be prepared for two of my favourite advice ever. 1. Enjoyability over quality.  Source: Gifer Even though I know  the story is a mess, there are inconsistencies and moments I wish I could forget ( "Did someone say a door to darkness?" ), I keep watching the cutscenes. Why? Because I like it anyway.  ...

Every author can agree that first drafts are their absolute worst draft. You might want to keep it for sentimental value. Or to mark your progress. But what happens when someone stranger finds it and even worst, reads it? Enjoy this meme made by yours truly's! (who may or may not have been procrastinating until it's too late to write a full blog post)   Transcript Isuldur, aka the reader, holds the Ring. We can't see his face. Elrond, aka the author, shouts: Cast it into the fire! Destroy it! Isuldur smirks and says: No.

Authors need to always have a place to find new ways of incorporating ideas. Where do these ideas come from? There are two sources: real life and stories.  The two of them are the same, but different. Mind blowing, I know. Today's focus is going to be on the latter, stories.  Humans need stories to survive, so how much more do authors need stories? I'll give you the answer: a lot. We're one of the biggest sources of entertainment. To be able to live up to this expectation, our creative well must be stimulated. Here are five sources authors can take from. (I swear this is not just an excuse for me to gush about some of my favourite stories.) 1. Books Source: Gif Library Let's start with the obvious. Books. If you weren't expecting this one, please say you're completely sleep deprived and we'll forgive you. Maybe. Like I talked about last week,  studying how books are written is hugely beneficial to authors. But you don't always need to be criticising t...

Ever since I first started reading writing blogs, I read hyper critically. That was the day everything changed. *cue dramatic music*  The more problems to find, the better it was the criticise. It made me able to stand even the worst books. Any book I touched, I read and finished.  It's because of critical reading that has made me editing my own works so much better. I can go on and on about the benefits, but that's not the aim of today's post. When I read in this mindset, no matter what book it was, I read it. A lot of this happened: Me: *reads badly written book* Friend: So, how's that book? Me: Oh, this? It's trash.  Friend: So why are you reading it? Me: *Jafar grin* I'm an author. Crazy is my middle name. I read everything. And I mean everything. (Except the books which contained content I'm not chill with.) Some people thought I was a little weird for doing that. Okay, a lot weird. But I found this quote that totally got me. "Read, read, read. Re...

Hey authors! It's another Fifth Week Update . Enough with the introduction, let's get straight into what's up the past three months. Milestones Finally, finally, finally. I think I've hit my stride with the posts. It's easier to just start writing and to keep writing. I've become one with the flow, my dudes.  Source: Giphy Blogging hasn't been a major challenge, but it was hard to start. Now, 27 posts later, my writing quantity has increased, I've become better at explaining and I write faster. (I hope.) Once again, I've changed my pin design. I'm still trying to find one that fits but I'm getting there. I've changed my formatting for the LFTM posts starting from  11 Lessons From John Flanagan's Writing . It's more book reviewy than before. Way easier to write too. :p New Posts Missed any posts from the last FWU ? Here's a list. Writing Is A Real Job! An Author's Purpose Lost Your Writing Voice? How To Get It Back Disney...

Last month, I shared  11 Lessons From John Flanagan's Writing . It's a massive series so there's a lot I still haven't covered. Here's three more lessons relating to character and the series in general.    1. Important character need to have purpose.  This one is mostly for  Brotherband . You have the Flanagan's standard cast: the main character (Hal), his best friend (Stig), the mentor (Thorn) and the girl (Lydia). But apart from them, you also get the other six members of the Heron crew. That doesn't include the relevant family members, the bad guys, the other crews from Book 1 , the side characters and a whole bunch of random dudes (with a few dudettes).  Out of all these characters, the only ones who are truly important are Hal, Stig, Thorn and the bad guy, whoever it happens to be in that book. Sometimes Lydia, but that's because she's the only female. The other characters aren't really important besides their one defining trait. Ingvar is...