Sorry

This is an apology. An apology to everyone I’ve done wrong and to everything that I’ve destroyed. I know I can’t resurrect anything from the ashes, but I can at least try to sweep them away.

I’m sorry for being a bad partner. When things got dark, and strange, and we were growing apart like two meandering paths, I should’ve held you tighter. I should’ve fought tooth and claw to get through the brush and merge our paths again. But I didn’t. I’m sorry I’ll always love you a little bit, even though you filled me with fury so cold it chipped away at my thin walls. I’m sorry I’ll always be blinded by that deadly mixture, so much so that even meeting your eyes hurts a little too much.

I’m sorry for being a bad friend. You might not even know it, but I am one. I spit bullets as casually as you do flowers. I shy away from you when you’re looking for someone to help. I let you flounder, cutting off the bridge before you can get to me. It’s selfish. Because I can’t handle your darkness and your light. And I know that means I don’t deserve you. There just comes a point where you’ve given so much of yourself that there isn’t anything left. I severed my legs and handed them to you. You tore of my arms without an apology. I cleaved my heart out of my chest and let it roll toward you, and even as I trembled and fell to the floor, you barely batted an eye. So I’m sorry I don’t have anything more to give you. I’m sorry I can’t tear myself into even smaller shreds to try to make room for you. And I’m sorry I’m saying all of this when I know it’s not your fault.

I’m sorry to my family, for all of the things that they did which I let go unnoticed. I’m sorry that when you came home beaming, I smothered your warmth and clapped out your happiness. I’m sorry I didn’t get you more gifts. I’m sorry I didn’t thank you as much as I should have. I’m sorry I took out the worst on you when you gave me the best. I’m sorry I didn’t appreciate enough the silent solitude. I’m sorry I took for granted all the rides, the food, the gifts, the smiles.

I’m sorry to the passersby. I’m sorry if you ever waved, a smile on your face, and I was too caught in my head to notice. I’m sorry if you were passing me and felt disturbed at the darkness that dwelled there. I’m sorry if you overheard something and thought it was about you. I’m sorry if I ever made you feel less than you are. This world is already stressful enough on its own.

And, most of all, I’m sorry to myself. I’m sorry for disregarding myself. I’m sorry for letting anything get this far. I’m sorry I tore myself to shreds. I’m sorry I stripped away all emotion. I’m sorry I isolated myself, and did nothing to get better. I’m sorry I gave up so early on in the battle. I’m sorry I let myself get so scarred. I’m sorry parts of me couldn’t come out the other side. I’m sorry for not working to mend my broken bones, bandage my scars, and fill the hollow caves until now. I’m sorry it took me so long to own up to all of this; I’m sorry I waited to exorcise my demons and finally apologize. But I’ve done it.

I’ve said it all.

And maybe I can go forward unapologetic.

Maybe this will be the new start I’ve been searching for.

Maybe I had to let go and erase before I could begin to grasp other things and create.

Why "Tower of Dawn" by Sarah J. Maas Is So Important

*This post contains major spoilers for Tower of Dawn by Sarah J. Maas*

So I've just finished Tower of Dawn by Sarah J. Maas, and upon finishing it, I was struck by how utterly important this book is. From a disabled main character, to newfound diversity, to messages Sarah J. Maas has never given before, everything about this book was incredible. Maas found a new energy with this book, and wrote with emotional fervor I've never before seen from her.

To begin, I have to talk about Chaol's journey. I was incredibly worried going into this book about how his paralysis would be treated, and what the message would be. In the beginning, I almost stopped reading because I thought Maas' message would be that Chaol's wheelchair is a prison. And the damage that a message like that would have caused is incredible. But the further on we moved, and the amount of care Maas gave to Chaol's healing—the fact that almost his entire arc was him dealing emotionally with the past, as well as spending hours working out or with Yrene getting healed—was so incredible. And to end with him not being fully healed, with the message of Chaol being no less of a man in the chair than out of it. I had tears in my eyes. It is so important that a fantasy novel finally had a main character who was not only disabled, but not necessarily stunted by that.

It is also incredibly important that he had to go through the motions of getting over being ashamed of his injury, and dealing with the ramifications of being paralyzed for the rest of his life, to ultimately end on a positive note. Maas really hit the ball out of the park in that whole journey, and the fact that such a mainstream fantasy novel could feature that is absolutely incredible.

Next, the diversity in this book is so imperative to have out in culture. We all know there is a push for representation, and we have all read those books who seem to try to write every character so that they can market it as a diverse and refreshing read. But in exploring Antica and developing the continent, Maas wove in the diversity readers have been demanding—Asian-resembling characters and culture somewhat similar to certain Asian culture, as well as more dark-skinned characters—seamlessly. She didn't force it, or make too many overt descriptions of the color of someone's skin; she brought in all of these influences so beautifully and it gave so many new readers heroes of their same skin color and of a similar culture to look up to. Again, that is so absolutely important for everyone, and it's about time such a big series included that without pushing it or only including one character who wasn't white.

Another thing Maas did absolutely amazing in this book was give powerful messages of survival, fighting, and perseverance. Through Yrene Towers, Maas tells readers that you can overcome even the darkest and scariest of things; she proves that no matter what has happened to you, there is light at the end of very dark, very lonely tunnels.

While this might not seem particularly important, and while it might seem like a message she's given before, having dealt with raging mental illness myself, Yrene's character was incredibly touching. Maas went beyond saying "You could rattle the stars." She went into the depths of Yrene and Chaol's dark path, and wove the long, painful path to the light. Maas wrote so beautifully exactly what it feels like to have to battle a mental illness that you have no control of. She went beyond what she's every done before, and wrote a beautiful story of love and loss and fighting and hope.

In addition to all these incredibly important things, she wove an intricate plot with a wonderful payoff, some epic scenes, and HUGE information bits that cause ripples in what we've known about the series, such as Maeve being the Valg Queen, or the healers' powers against the Valg, thus their concentration in two places.

This book gave so many incredible messages, did so many important things, and is no doubt Maas' best work. This isn't even my review; it's just me gushing over how impressed I am with the strides taken in Tower of Dawn, and how deeply touched I was.

EDIT 9/13/17: So something I forgot to add in this that was SO important is Maas also wrote explicit consent in Chaol and Yrene's sex scene. He wouldn't act any further than kissing her until she said "Yes." I've yet to read that in a YA fantasy, and the importance of a mainstream novel having that is so huge!

"Half Wild" | Book Review

****Will contain spoilers****

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I have to admit, going into Half Wild by Sally Green, I wasn't too enthusiastic about the book. I didn't dislike Half Bad, but I absolutely thought that there were things that could be improved. For example, I was infinitely more interested in Marcus than any of the other characters, so not seeing him except for the one scene made me crazy. It was like I was constantly waiting for a thinking about something that never happened.

That was, in my opinion, one of the reasons that Half Wild was so much better. Marcus' presence in this book, though not immediate, was a fantastic addition that livened up the plot, the character dynamic, and brought out the true colors in a lot of people, and I loved it. I loved the way people's alliances shifted, and the way that the Alliance began turning on Nathan in slight ways, just because he was being shaped by Marcus. And I loved the Marcus wasn't evil, but still wasn't painted as the good guy. I can't stand when authors write a character who has an evil reputation then turns out to be a softy. It's unrealistic; it's trite. That's why I was so glad that we did get some genuine, soft, loving moments between Marcus and Nathan, but we also saw that he wasn't the "good guy" by any means. He didn't show remorse for killing all the people that he did, and a lot of times he was entirely indifferent at the idea of how many lives he'd taken, and I needed that in a book.

Sometimes people aren't good people, and that's fine. It's refreshing to have a main character who has soft spots, but is overall the bad person they were made out to be.

I think the complexity of his character alone, and how his presence made absolute ripples in the plots and character developments is one of the main reasons that I found this book as good as I did. When I found myself asking questions about what it truly means to be a good person, and reflecting on conceit and on survival, I realized that was another reason I loved Marcus' presence in this book. He made me think. He wasn't one dimensional. He had a purpose larger than killing people, and that's important.

Now, all my gushing for how well Marcus was written aside, I generally liked all the characters better in this book than I did in the last one. Gabriel, who was always one of my favorites, didn't lose all the qualities that made me love him; his loyalty, his stupid jokes; his willingness to risk himself for others. These were all things that I really enjoyed, and I'm glad he kept them. I'm glad those qualities weren't entirely unwavering (as, in a war, they wouldn't be) but another thing I hate when authors do, is when they turn a character into a complete brick because of the circumstances, and that's not entirely realistic. I love that Green was able to keep him true to himself, while still developing as a person.

But, what really helped the characters in this book, were the new characters. Nesbitt and Van and Celia coming back were all hugely important for me enjoying the people we spent Half Wild with. In the last book, I found Rose boring, I found Mercury stereotypical, and Annalise got on my nerves like no one's business (more on Annalise later). So, when we had this new group of characters, who were more realistic, who were more enjoyable, I was pleased to find it really helped the experience.

Nathan and Nesbitt's banter was fantastic, and I loved how these new people helped not only the plot, but also Nathan develop.

Now, speaking of plot, I will say I was more impressed than the last book. In Half Bad, I felt like every time the plot built up to something, it happened as I expected, or it went as most books would. It wasn't a bad plot, it just wasn't incredible. In Half Wild, I still don't think it reached anything incredible, but I will say: I loved the development of the alliance, and I found Nathan killing Marcus genuinely surprising.

I feel like Marcus getting hit by that bullet seemed too easy, and Nathan has gotten hit by bullets and successfully and safely had them removed multiple times, so I do feel like him "already dying" was a bit of a cop out. BUT I truly didn't think that Nathan would kill his father, and NEVER did I think he would eat his heart.

That was the main point where I was honestly shocked at where the plot went, and also deeply saddened at Marcus' death.

The reason I only say the plot was better, is I still didn't feel like there were enough moments like this, but that one really stood out and made the book feel incredibly worthwhile.

In terms of style, I still think that Half Wild could have been a bit better. The prose was more enjoyable and less robotic at times than Half Bad, but I still wish Green would take more chances with her descriptions and her stage directions and her syntax. She's a good writer, but she hasn't shown anything great. She does a lot of telling, and she uses average descriptions to create her scenes and her stories. One of the only exceptions to this was the scene where Gabriel and Nathan went into that trance. That scene felt so raw, and so real, and I appreciated the prose she gave there.

But, unfortunately, it's wasn't as persistent as I hoped. That is the main thing that I'm hoping she can improve upon in the final book in the trilogy.

Lastly, I want to talk about Annalise. This is the one part of the book I cannot stand whatsoever. My problem with Green's prose aside, Annalise is the reason I would give this book a 4 or 3.5 out of 5 stars. Annalise is one of my least favorite characters I've ever read. She doesn't fit in with anyone in the book, all she does is create problems, she doesn't seem to have any greater purpose other than to serve as a love interest, and I don't buy her and Nathan's relationship for one second.

It doesn't make any sense. There is no reason for her and Nathan to be close or in love. They barely know anything about each other, and all Nathan dreams of is "holding her in his arms." Every time she walks on the page, I roll my eyes. Their relationship seems fabricated and forced, yet Green really wants us to believe that Nathan has nothing with Gabriel and truly loves Annalise. There's not one moment in this book—not when they have sex, not when Nathan rescues her, not when they have a conversation, and not when he fought so hard to keep Annalise from believing he's "bad"—when I truly believed that their relationship was real and that there was anything between them.

Once Annalise started protecting her brother and she shot Marcus, I was beyond glad that she was gone and Nathan finally hated her. My favorite part of the book was the ending, when he wanted to hunt her down, because honestly, if she was in these books for one more page I think I would have lost it.

Overall, Half Wild was more impressive to me than Half Bad, but still has a ways to go with prose, and I just couldn't stand Annalise.

This puts my ratings at:
Characters: 90%
Plot: 87%
Depth: 90%
Style: 70%
Intrigue: 93%
Overall Rating: 86%

The Importance of Setting

This is a writing post I've been excited to write for a while. As I'm sure you can tell from the title, this will talk about the importance of setting to a story.

Now, setting is one of those things that I think makes or breaks a story. Everything about your story is grounded in setting; the place where your story is happening will be integral to how it plays out.

If it's happening in a remote town high up in the mountains, what your protagonist will think to do, and the various resources available to them will be incredibly different from how your protagonist would act if it was taking place in a bustling city.

If you're writing a fight scene in the middle of a forest, the destruction would be mostly to the environment, and your characters would likely fight more recklessly because no one other than themselves would get hurt. But, if it were on a city street, there would be prying eyes and the possibility of others getting hurt, so the character's may be more careful, and in both cases the fight will play out drastically different.

Get the idea?

Now, to break this down in the simplest terms, I'm going to split setting and how it helps a story into three categories: Place, time, and mood.

Place
This is going to be the most straightforward out of the three. This is the conventional and obvious purpose of setting in a story—it establishes place. It makes quite clear where your story is happening, and gives a foundation for the rest of the novel to play out. The "place" part of setting is the specific and definite location of a story.

This can be on both small and large levels—anything from a city, to a small town, to a mountain, to a specific country, to a specific school, or a spot in a park.

Now, as simple as it seems, there are often components of this that you'll have to be careful of. For example, weather. In picking a place, weather is a key part of this. If it's somewhere real, you'll want to make sure the weather presented is accurate. If your place is fictional, then you'll want to establish clear weather patterns, both for yourself and the reader, as this creates a sense of realism, and gives you a chance to incorporate the setting further into a story (if it's storming, then that is one more thing the character will have to deal with).

This leads me to my next point in implementing the place aspect of setting; it has to feel real. If your setting does not feel real, or include enough details that are familiar to the modern reader, they will likely feel lost or distant from your world. This almost always turns readers off, so you must be quite careful in determining the defining details of the setting.

In addition, if you're not intimately familiar with the place that you're writing about, and it is a real place, changing the name of it in case you are inaccurate is likely a good decision, because it will stop readers who are intimately familiar with that place from comparing, judging, or stopping your novel because of those inaccuracies.

Time
Time is also fairly straightforward in and of itself, though not always directly grouped in setting. Essentially, the time that your story takes place in provides a backdrop to the story.

Just like place, time includes the era or century your story is taking place in (again, if you're writing fantasy with a different way of measuring time, that should be established very clearly), AND it includes the season, day, or week.

You shouldn't be giving time explicitly unless there is reason to (if it's epistolary, dates on journal entries or newspaper articles are perfectly valid, or if there's a date included in an event title (War of 1812)). Instead, time should be established through little details that keep the reader oriented. This is through things such as weather, the sun's position in the sky, architecture, technology, etc.

Time likely won't feel immediately important to the story, but it will help with realism, and also add a layer to the story that would have otherwise been missing.

Mood
Mood in terms of setting is likely the only one of these that maybe isn't perfectly intuitive. Setting really should be an aid in creating mood to the story, and this is a use of setting that will make your writing feel not only layered, but also feel advanced.

Establishing mood through setting is something that will enhance the emotional landscape of the piece, and is often conveyed strongest through changes in setting. If the weather goes from sunny to rainy, this is a classic example of changing the mood of the story through setting. Every detail of the setting will contribute to the mood, and if done right, should be coherent and beneficial.

While mood can be conveyed from changes in setting—and this works great on a large scale for the large events and large shifts in your story—you can't have an ever-changing setting to fit the mood you want in that scene. So in addition to changes, you can also create mood in the diction used to describe the setting. If a sunny day is described in a bland or dull way, it will show that the character is feeling fazed and out of it.

In conjunction with diction, if you juxtapose your character or set your character against your setting, that will also create mood very well through the use of setting. If it's frigid outside, and you make your character either have to fight against that frigidness, or if you compare their emotions to the frigidness, that will create mood.

For mood in particular, the best way to learn to establish it through setting is to practice. There isn't a trick, or a certain word that you can use to do it, but the more you begin to do it, the better it will get, and the more it will help your story.

Now, there are many other benefits of setting, and tons of other cool ways to use setting in your story, but now that you understand the main three ways (in my opinion) that setting should be used, I want to talk about picking a setting.

The best way that I think you can decide on a setting if it didn't come to you in your original story idea, is to map out the plot and the characters, and then think about where your characters are best fit to live, and where your plot is best fit to play out. It will most of the time be multiple places, but if you can pin down a few places that are perfect in aiding to play out your plot or develop your characters, that is how you should do it. A really good way of finding those places that work is simply scrolling through pictures of around the world, and seeing if one really speaks to your story.

Like I said, many times the setting just comes with the story idea, and if it did, then you can go right ahead and work on implementing setting into the story, but if you didn't have a setting decided on, I'd recommend waiting until after you've got the bones of your story and putting a setting that is complementary to (or, if you want your setting to function almost as an antagonist in the story, contrary to) those things.

I figured I'd end this one with 20 pictures that always inspire me for different kinds of settings, because for me, finding a setting is always best done with pictures.

So...

Child of Chaos

I am a child of blood

Of bloody hands

Of bloody skies

I walk through streets that flow with it

A golden metropolis undergirded by the red goo.

The skyscrapers are a gild;

the lights a facade

Even the sun

is fake.

Fabricated

This is a place of darkness

A place so cold

it could freeze the warmest hearts

I am child to avarice

To gluttony

To falsity

I was raised on a concoction

But nothing so glamorous is real

Nothing premeditated

stays.

There’s a moment where it

Hits

An ember sparked to an

Explosion

Collision

Understanding

Of this sanguinary history

It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth

To think of what created me

and where I’m trapped

I am a child of tyranny

I am a child of deceit;

of smoke and mirrors

I am a child of chaos.

Naming Your Character

Whether we realize it or not, names in literature are incredibly important.

In real life, our names aren't our choices, and they are often arbitrary choices, or a name that meant a lot to your parents, but very rarely do they have meaning beyond that.

For the most part, this is false in literature. Sure, tons of names of characters were taken from baby name lists, but often times names give glimpses into a character, or has a deep meaning to the character in question. There are times when you'll really want to sweat your name. I'm going to talk about how to find that name with a huge meaning, or figuring out the name that foreshadows a bit plot event, but also how to find the less important names, or names that are just names.

If you want your name to be intertwined with the story, or show things about the character, then you'll have to get creative.

There are plenty of examples of names where authors picked them because they directly reference an aspect of the character of the plot, or because the names feel like the character's personality trait. As an author, you have the wonderful ability to get to know your character before naming them if you so choose.

This is done very well in Carson McCullers's, The Heart Is a Lone Hunter. Here, there's the name Antonapoulos, which greatly reflects the character's finicky or persnickety nature. Then, you also have Singer, a name which really nicely shows simplicity, and a more tranquil nature. These names were chosen because they feel like and show the characters.

So try a couple names out. See which one feels best, because a lot of times for authors the name has to feel right for the character as they're writing it. 

If a character is very complex, or intelligent, name them accordingly; picking something like Solange or Cassiopeia will reflect this complex component, and it a hell of a lot more interesting to read than Sam or Joe.

Another technique you could use is a find a word that means something that your character does. This is best exemplified by Salinger's, The Catcher in the Rye. Now, this isn't my favorite book in the world, I can tell you that much, but one thing that Salinger does brilliantly is name our main character Holden. Holden, with the word "hold" directly in it, is so perfect because the entire story what Holden is doing is holding (get it?) onto things—the past, people, concepts, innocence. This name shows us how this character will act.

Another example of this is in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. J.K. Rowling, like everything else about this series, picked her names quite appropriately. This is the novel where Dolores Umbridge is introduced. While the word isn't spelled correctly—a choice you as an author can make—umbrage means an offense or an annoyance, which perfectly foreshadows just how her character will be.

On the topic of J.K. Rowling, she also named the antagonist of the series Voldemort. While not meaningful on first glance, any of you who speak French will know this name actually tells us just what Voldemort's goal is; in just one name, J.K. Rowling foreshadowed his goal and the majority of the plot in the later half of the series. Voldemort, broken into the words "vol de mort" translates to "flight of death." This showed his desire, as well as indicated everything we later learned about Horcruxes.

So if you want your name to mean something directly, put a significant descriptor of the character in the name, or change the spelling of a word, or turn an expression from a different language into a name—these will all increase the meaning of a name and give readers a connection to the character they wouldn't have otherwise had.

The last thing I wanted to talk about isn't as common in literature, but it's still an option if you're creating a character. You can have character's go nameless. If overused, this device becomes tiring and almost pretentious, but if used sparingly, you can create a great atmosphere of ambiguity and mystery, or it can separate the reader from the characters, which is sometimes a really interesting reading experience.

Now, if you have a couple irrelevant characters who waltz into a few scenes but aren't there to stay, or play an impactful role., you can always use babynames.com. That site, or sites like it will give you a wealth of names to choose, but I wouldn't recommend doing that for your main character.

A name can be all you use to characterize someone, so assign them carefully.

Creating A Character

This blog post is one long overdue. Now, in writing this I'm not claiming to be some sort of expert, but I've been to a few lectures and read a few craft books, so I figured I'd relay some of the information I absorbed from those.

I'm planning on making a bit of a "series" per se about character, so consider this the first of more posts to come.

So now, to the post: One of the most important parts of writing novels—particularly if you're writing a contemporary—is creating the characters.

But the question that most of us writers ask in the beginning is: Well, how do I do that?

Characters often spring into our heads from unique qualities in other people that you noticed, or as a companion to the story idea that's held you captive for months, but creating a character is much more complex than having this idea and rolling with it.

There are a lot of components to creating a character, but I would argue that main one is the character's desire. A character desire is something every character in your novel must have, and can simply be defined as what the character wants throughout your story. This is super important, and ultimately drives the plot.

In addition, if the character's desire is strong and SENSIBLE then it will help the reader identify with and sympathize with the character. When I say sensible, what I mean is that their desire HAS to match with their history, their personality, etc.

And that leads us into the next part of creating a character. You have to understand a character's backstory; everything that happened in their life before when the story takes place. This is because you need to know who the person is at the beginning so that you can see the development by the end.

To understand your character in these ways, question things such as what their major psychological traumas or scars are, what their hobbies are, any interests they may have, any sports they played, a TV show they'd watch or did watch (if it's fantasy, assuming they lived in this world), their speaking style, their favorite foods, if they have any pets, what their sexuality is, etc.

All of these things will help you understand how their life likely was before you begin writing them, and help add a realistic component to them. If you can have a scene where they revel in a hamburger their eating as they watch football, if those are details you think apply to your character, then they will feel more accessible to your audience, and for anybody who loves hamburgers or football, there will be more of a bond between reader and character.

In addition to all those things I've listed above, as a writer you should also know the characters idiosyncrasies—do they pick the label on a beer bottle when their nervous, or do they love the smell of gasoline because their dead grandfather who they admired always loved the smell of it, or do they run their hands through their hair unintentionally, or do they use the phrase "that's bananas!" all the time, or do they eat their food in some sort of color coded order?

These are the types of things that will develop a character more deeply. While before I mentioned knowing their hobbies and backstory will add a sense of realism to the character, these mannerisms unique to your character are what will really make your character spring to life.

Knowing these things and being able to show these things consistently also tie in to showing instead of telling. If you know that the character bites their lip when they're nervous, that is a way to show the emotion rather than tell it.

For example, if you were to write a scene where the character is waiting for something, it could be written like this:

She was nervous. Every bit of her longed for the news to come back, if for nothing else but peace of mind.

BUT, if you can delve further into the character and include idiosyncrasies, all of these scenes are shown, rather than told, and suddenly the character feels real:

She was getting annoyed glances from everyone else in the waiting room as she tapped her foot endlessly. Every time the door opened, she quit biting her lip and jumped up to receive the news, but each time it was for a different name. So she would sit back down, and begin the tapping again.

Not only is this more detailed and more descriptive simply because it examines how exactly the character displays apprehension, it also implies everything that was outright stated in the first example.

But how do you come up with all of these details (and trust me, I know it seems like A LOT of work, but I promise you it will pay off in the long run)?

Well, take all of the examples I listed when talking about mannerisms. Each and every one of those are things that I have observed other people doing, or little anecdotes friends have told me in passing. To me, that is the easiest way to create a character. Watch your friends, watch your family, watch strangers—pick up on even the littlest of details in everyone around you, and then you'll be armed with an arsenal of idiosyncrasies that you can use when it comes to creating your character.

Now, the last thing I'd like to talk about, is what you show your reader on the page.

I've mentioned a lot of things in this blog post that you have to understand about a character, and as I said, this is part of a series, so this isn't even where the creation of your character ends, but with all of this figured out, you're going to have to decide what bits of the character are actually going into the story, and how to show them.

Just because you know your character played soccer in fifth grade DOES NOT mean you should add a scene where the character flashbacks to their fifth grade soccer tournament; just because you wrote down that your character had a big heartbreak in high school DOES NOT mean that this should somehow become the focus of the plot (unless of course, it was what you'd planned to write about in the first place).

All these details should go into shaping how your character acts. Instead of explicitly stating it, your character can be particularly guarded in any romantic interaction. That lets the reader know just fine that they likely suffered a heartbreak. And have a scene where the character needs to use the agility they developed from soccer, but don't shove in extra details about how they used to play it.

Essentially, only put in the details that the reader cannot figure out on their own but must know to understand the character and their actions; any extraneous details about the character will take away from the story.

And that, my friends, is where I'm going to end this post for today. Over the next few weeks I'm hoping to put out a few more posts on finding names for your characters, how your characters are expressed, the different kinds of characters, and detailing human complexity and how characters change, so keep an eye out for those.

"History Is All You Left Me" | Adam Silvera

**Disclaimer: This is my first spoiler-free review. After reading this book, I think that what needs to be talked about can be without specific details from the plot.**

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For my first Adam Silvera novel, I have to say, History Is All You Left Me impressed me. For one, this book isn't written in purple prose, with flowery language the only thing composing this story.

Despite the inherent sadness woven into a plot founded upon the death of a dear ex-boyfriend, Silvera adds spunk to the novel. He makes it lively, and unique to Griffin, our main character.

In the unique structure of History, Silvera meshes the storylines of both the past—when Griffin and Theo met and their relationship developed—and the present—where Theo is dead and Griffin is left with nothing but their history.

Between his dorky quirks when he was younger and found love and safety in another, and his deep sadness now that he lost someone so close to him, Griffin is what drives the story. Silvera perfectly embodies what it is to lose someone you love, through all of the denial, the anger, the sadness, the strife, Silvera somehow includes it all.

This intense, raw, and realistic emotion instilled in all of the characters in the novel is exactly what makes it such an enjoyable read. 

The storyline is absolutely interesting in that I think I'll always have an attraction to the darker facets of humanity, but it's not particularly unique in the hands of the wrong writer. My hesitation to read contemporary novels is stemmed from this—they often follow clichéd plots, and are an amalgamation of sappy lines.

Silvera's failure to fall into this trap is another thing that makes this novel so wonderful—you can read about things that aren't typically mixed with the story of a dead boyfriend.

The thing I appreciated most in this was Griffin's case of OCD. The portrayal of mental illness in a realistic, yet not condescending way was absolutely refreshing, and I liked that it didn't necessarily come along because of Theo's death—it was just another factor he had to deal with, much like in real life.

Lastly, I appreciate whole-heartedly Silvera's work bringing therapy into the plot. Now, I know this is a weird thing to like, but in the majority of tragic contemporaries I've read, therapy is never a way the character deals with their problems. And granted, there are plenty of people suffering and not in therapy, for a variety of reasons, but it is still a realistic and acceptable step in learning to live with mental illness, and I appreciated Adam not shying away from it—particularly when it can still be stigmatized.

I know my thoughts were a bit of mess, but that's because this book left me in the mess. From the depth of emotion and realism, to the interesting characters and stylistic choices, History Is All You Left Me has been my favorite contemporary book in a while.

Characters: 95%

Plot: 95%

Depth: 100%

Style: 100%

Intrigue: 95%

Overall Rating: A+

A Court of Mist and Fury | Book Review

**Includes Spoilers**

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To start, this was my second read of A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas, and full disclosure, I LOVED it the first time.

And I'm very, very delighted to say that in my 2017 re-read, I found myself just enamored with this novel all over again.

A Court of Mist and Fury is the second novel in a planned trilogy by Sarah J. Maas, the first book being A Court of Thorns and Roses. To be honest, I found myself disappointed before the release of ACOMAF when I decided to read ACOTAR—I didn't love it the way I did the first time.

When I first read ACOTAR, I definitely enjoyed it, but this second re-read fell flat for me. I was thinking it would hype me up for ACOMAF, but instead it made me worried. Then, I read ACOMAF and fell in absolute love. I was worried I would go through the same process in my re-read, but that wasn't the case. If anything else, I like it even more now.

ACOMAF follows our hunter-turned-High-Fae in her life after the horrors Under the Mountain. We begin with Feyre in a dark place mentally, vomiting up her guts with flashbacks to all that she'd endured.

This was where my enjoyment began. Yes, dark, yes, twisted, but most importantly, this was real. The way that Feyre struggles with PTSD from the trauma and the pain, both mental and physical, that she felt is so raw and beautiful and real. Very rarely in novels (particularly YA, though I don't know that I'd classify ACOMAF as YA), do we get such a graphic yet genuine portrayal of dealing with so much tribulation.

When Maas gives readers that, it allows us to connect much deeper to the story than if she'd glossed over it, as if killing other Fae, nearly being killed herself, and watching those she loved being tortured wasn't something that was emotionally traumatic.

From here, we move into Feyre and Tamlin's awaited wedding—the union that was supposed to be a symbol of solidarity and strength. I think the first time Feyre truly shocked me in this novel was when she internally questioned whether or not she was ready for the wedding. She explains to the reader how she wasn't sure if it was something she could do with so many demons still haunting her every move.

And in retrospect, it made sense. It made sense that while struggling with such trauma, a wedding isn't something one would want to rush into. Again, Maas' realistic portrayal of Feyre's emotions and inner turmoil won me over.

From here, Feyre slowly begins to divulge the way that Tamlin has reacted to what he struggled with Under the Mountain. And this, this is where I was truly impressed at Maas' consideration for how something like that would affect everybody involved. Where normally only the main character would be affected, Maas shows that Tamlin has become incredibly protective because of the pain it caused him to watch Feyre in danger and ripped from any protection he could have provided.

It was in this tangled new relationship that was presented in the first 40 pages that I found myself more intrigued than I ever was in the first book.

From there we move to Rhys' first appearance after three months to claim the bargain Feyre made with him (I'm not going to go into details about how I felt about the wedding scene with the red roses, because it is the same love as above). Now, I'll admit to you, I had suspicions at the end of the last book that something wasn't quite right. The shock that Rhys exhibits before disappearing struck me as odd. I'd predicted it was the mating bond (more on that later), but I wasn't sure when we were going to find out for sure, and I also wasn't sure how this would translate to his actions during their bargain.

And you can imagine my shock when, out of all the scenarios that played out in my head, what he required of Feyre was to learn to read, and to learn to shield herself mentally. Idea after idea for terrible or wonderful things that Rhys could have done to Feyre had brewed since the ending of the last novel, but learning to read or use power to shield her mind had NEVER crossed my mind.

Plot wise, rather than character wise, this was the moment I felt like I could latch onto the story. Yes, none of the main action was even close to happening, but I was hooked because it was so unexpected.

Skip forward to Tamlin refusing to teach Feyre about the powers Rhys divulged existed, and Tamlin locking Feyre in the house, we now find our neonate High-Fae at Rhys' house, having been saved by Mor and Rhys themselves.

This kindness was a shock to me, but I was still waiting for more. I couldn't see where it would go from here. And then when Rhys begins to leave, and allows Feyre come with him to Velaris, I found that "more."

I found what I felt like I was waiting to find in such a story. A hidden gem—a hidden city with untold stories, inaccessible to the rest of Prythian. And the culture that thrived here, the magic that was preserved in the streets was a masterpiece in and of itself.

Maas introducing the city in the way she did, and then subsequently introducing Rhys' inner circle was the moment I would consider I "loved" this book. The intricacies of these details were what made this book; getting to watch the banter between such well developed and accurately flawed characters made any periods lulling in action still quite enjoyable as they were all interesting or funny.

Now, the rest of the plot was epic, of course—the mortal queens, and seeing their betrayal was heart-wrenching, and of course the final scenes with the King, Feyre's sisters being turned into Fae (the very thing they hate the most), and, of course, those final moments when Feyre goes undercover—these rounded out the book beautifully. This explosion of an ending kept my heart pounding and my fingers turning the pages until there were none left to turn (you read that right—I read through the acknowledgements directly afterward because I couldn't just stop!).

Before wrapping this up, though, I'd like to address the one thing that I saw to be largely criticized when the novel first came out. I was particularly conscious of this the second read to test whether or not I'd missed something that others had caught onto. This criticism was, of course, Rhys and Feyre's relationship, and Rhys' good side, as well as Tamlin's bad side. There were many complaints that Tamlin wasn't accurately portrayed, or that it was unrealistic for Rhys to be a good guy, but even in my second read, I couldn't find any evidence to back up those opinions.

First and foremost, Tamlin—he wasn't mis-portrayed at all. He did not go out of character in the interest of Feyre falling in love with Rhys. In fact, he was perfectly in character. After going through the trauma of watching someone he loved fiercely (and you can't deny that: he loved her fiercely, even if it resulted in negative actions) put through trials and tribulation, he was created to be the type of male who would be inclined to be overprotective. And how could you not? The constant fear of losing a loved one may very well overcome you. That is why while his actions weren't good, they weren't misplaced or out of character.

Next, the whole Feyre–Rhys thing: This was foreshadowed. The entire first book honestly now just feels like Sarah J. Maas weaving threads together for this relationship; for Velaris; for them being mates. If you re-read the first book, you will see the small cracks in Rhys' dark facade; you will see the moment he noticed the mating bond snap into place, and realize that this was all bound to happen. No one went out of character for this because everything that happened was leading up to that.

And . . . end rant.

My final ratings are:

Characters: 100%
Plot: 100%
Depth: 100%
Style: 90%
Intrigue: 95%
Overall Rating: A+

Show Don't Tell!

I know, I know, reading this post, many of you are rolling your eyes. This is the main rule of creative writing—the one that you will hear over and over again in doing any research on how to effectively write in a creative domain.

So why am I writing this? Two reasons. One, I didn't know this rule when I first started—new writers still need to learn this too. I'm hoping this may be the place a few people do. Second, no matter how many times you may have heard this, not everyone can flawlessly implement it. Hell, I struggle hard with implementing it.

In our first, skeletal drafts, it is much easier and cleaner to write "she was happy" or "he was scared" rather than showing what was stated.

Let me back up. Show don't tell is essentially describing using actions, words, senses, or feelings instead of just declaring this in short sentences that lack a story-telling feel. That is the concept behind showing what you're writing about instead of telling.

It allows for readers to experience your story in a more cinematic sense; to understand the plot, the world, and the characters on a deeper level.

So what are some examples?

Telling: "She was backed against the pole. She could see nothing. She was scared."

Showing: "Her breath caught in her throat as her back slammed into the concrete behind her. Her sweaty palms were clutching the extra fabric of her sweatshirt as she stared into the darkness before her. With her heart pounding, she slowly turned to the sounds behind her."

Now, this is clearly oversimplified. Very rarely would people write like the first line, and even in my example of showing instead of telling, there were remnants of telling. This is the main reason I write this post.

The concept of showing instead of telling isn't difficult to grasp—it's highly logical and after researching a few examples, it's very easy to understand.

The problem is, writing a novel isn't always so clear cut. And books are long. They aren't a few short sentences to expand on as done above. There are times when using showing instead of telling is illogical, or unnecessarily verbose. In every professionally published books, there are times when the authors use showing, and many times when they tell the reader instead.

So here's what I'd recommend for deciphering: Use showing instead of telling in the highly emotional scenes, and any slower scenes/lulls in the plot.

In terms of highly emotional scenes, or ones that build character, I think that showing is necessary to help the reader form attachments and feel the true weight of the scene. I think that's where the use of showing is most valuable.

For the slower scenes, on the other hand, the use of showing keeps the reader engaged, invested, and interested. It's definitely more fluid and cinematic to show during action scenes, but at least there, the plot and the action occurring is your main focus.

In a slower scene, being verbose, or showing is what will keep the reader engaged and invested because there is less action to distract from the prose.

Of course, ideally you would show in all parts of writing, but to balance it when first starting out, I'd recommend to focus most of your showing in scenes where there is less action and info-dumps more commonly occur, as well as highly emotional scenes.

The more you write, the easier it will be to decide when to show, and to implement it more fluidly in your writing, but these are the tips I have when first doing it.