kang seulgi as a self-aware clone trying to track down her peers using the resources of the national intelligence service
bang sung hoon/open wanted as an nis detective/boyfriend of kwon yuri
onew (lee jin ki)/open wanted as as a work friend for kwon yuri
open face wanted as the nis internal affairs officer about to uncover a conspiracy
Kindred – Octavia Butler, adapted by Damian Duffy and John Jennings
Content warning: Attempted Sexual Assault
A woman is dragged back and forth in time through the near death experiences of an ancestor.
Hardcover is $12.04 on Amazon (256 pages). Also available as a paperback and ebook. This is based on a full book!
Heavy, but fascinating all the same! I felt a little voyeuristic, at times, as a white person looking in on the slave narrative, but at the same time this is a story that deserves to be told. This is also a story where you sort of root for the villain– you want him to make the right choices and change for the better, but time and time again he makes the exact wrong choice. That could be frustrating, but it tied in very well, I think. Though I don’t like the art style very much (it felt a little muddy), the usage of color was phenomenal.
Creativity: ★
Characters: ⯨
Plot: ★
Genre Consistency: ★
Would I Read It Again?: ⯨
Final evaluation: ★★★☆☆
[[MORE]]A woman is called back through time to come to the rescue of her ancestor, a white slaveowner before the Civil War. When he fears death, she is pulled backwards in time, and when she fears death, she moves forward once again. She and her husband are called into the past at varying times, and watch the young man develop into a better man than his father, but a worse man than he could be, discussing the beatings, separation, and rape that Black families would undergo.
Character or Plot
When planning a book, deciding on the genre is important but thought should be given as to whether the book will be plot or character driven. I estimate 60% of readers prefer character development while 40% focus on plot. Obviously you’ll have a bit of both but one will dominate quite possibly by a wide margin. If you aspire to win awards you MUST make it character driven.
Ellen Brock again with another amazing video! If there’s one channel you should binge-watch every video, it’s Ellen’s! Her experience in the industry is invaluable. This is a great video for writing a page-turning story :)
I have a new favorite book, The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty.
The main protagonist is a middle-aged woman, retired pirate, and cautious single mother. She’s a devout and penitent Muslim, who wants nothing to do with magic and is every bit the unwilling hero (for a while, anyway).
I recommend it. It has beautiful prose, pre-Islamic folklore, queer representation and trans-representation (without the presumption of the author to explain what isn’t hers to explain), and more pirates. The side characters are their own people and the story is told extremely well. I listened to the audiobook and the actors did a great job.
Trigger warnings: body horror, graphic depictions of violence and gore, mention of the threat of rape (it’s only contemplated for two sentences, but it’s striking), blackmail/extortion, discussions of slavery, and monsters (very cool monsters, but still, head’s up).
One content warning on Storygraph is “tr@nsphobia” (word censored so as to not incorrectly trigger the tag), except there is none. I wonder if some people think that mentioning the existence of a trans-character is tr@nsphobic. So it goes, I guess.
Fic Rec: take the sky - Lirelyn
Additional Tags:
Alternate Universe - Space, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Firefly Setting, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, kidnapped by hill folk but the hill folk are cultivation sects, freedom and safety and home
Word count: 10k
Summary:
They’d dug their livelihood out of the ashes and it had almost started to feel like home, a little place just for him and the Wen refugees he’d found. Never quite safe, though. Wars leave all manner of ugliness behind them, and this little world don’t have room in it for a demonic cultivator, a not-quite-dead man, or anyone surnamed Wen. Once they’d gotten to where they didn’t have to fear starving, Wei Ying had thought about longer-term survival, and turned his eyes to the stars.
Why it’s SO IMPORTANT to keep a writing deleted scenes document
There you are, minding your own business, writing your story, when suddenly…
Bam. An amazing idea for your plot hits you out of nowhere. You can see it now. Your novel will be the new bestseller, with publishers lining up, begging to print your book. But what about that scene/chapter/half your book that you worked so hard on and was so great?
Copy. Cut. Paste. Keep your deleted scenes, deleted characters, dialogue that you thought up in the middle of the night that won’t fit anymore.
Why?
• Your book can’t tolerate a scene that doesn’t actively work for the plot. Get rid of it.
• BUT maybe you’ll change your mind
• Or you can reuse it for another story, move it to a different spot, etc.
• You love your writing. We get it. You can keep it, while still doing what’s best for your book.
The duality of plot driven shows
I don’t like them, the characters end up being empty, void of personality, hard to get involved in a show where you don’t really care what happens to these almost non-characters who just solve puzzles all day.
And,
I do love plot driven shows! I’ll fill this shell of a character with full on self insertion, this one will have all the qualities of a perfect spouse and this one will be the best friend I never had. Let’s write some fluffy oneshots, the show never covered what they do in their free time, what if they hang around in coffee shops or make candles? Yes, this grumpy detective has an etsy shop now! Could be canon, the show never told otherwise.
Fic Rec: still intact and corrupt - newredshoes
Additional Tags:
Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Resurrection, Bodyswap
Word count: 4k
Summary:
The sky went black, and the wind whipped up every flag and tattered thing in Yi City. Wei Wuxian slammed back into a body as though thrown from a horse.
Or: “you’ve changed” bro I literally woke up in the body of the most notorious demonic cultivator who wasn’t ME
Fic Rec: I'm Going Out (Gonna Make A Name For Me And You) - cosmicmilktea
Additional Tags:
Post-Canon, Chief Cultivator Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, Power couple Wangxian for social change is my kink, People being nice to wwx is my kink, Lan Wangji and I have that in common, Mentor Wei Wuxian, intersect relations, cultivation sects, Slow Burn, Like seriously it’s very slow, Sickness
Word count: 16.5k
Summary:
The Chief Cultivator’s Herald. Wei Wuxian is not quite sure when they started calling him that, but as he traipses through beleaguered towns and villages, as he finally starts to build the world that he and Lan Zhan have always vowed to build, he finds that he doesn’t mind it so much.
He doesn’t mind being anything at all, as long as he is Lan Zhan’s.
Wei Wuxian goes where the chaos is in Lan Wangji’s stead, and finds a home in the process.
I think I just got the difference between character driven and plot driven stories. Correct me if I’m wrong/misguided
A character driven story does not have a time limit. A girl is trying to romance someone in her high school. A boy is processing his father’s death through a series of events. The characters choose to embark on their journey.
A plot driven story has a time limit. A war is going to begin in seven days and the only thing that can stop it is a gem in a mine, and a miner has to go and get it. Someone is trying to get their grades up before the end of the semester, otherwise they lose their scholarship. The circumstances are forced onto the characters.
Am I misunderstanding or am I pretty close?
I noticed recently that the genres I enjoy writing in are mainly plot driven, whereas I take more of a character driven approach….But I don’t think it is quite so binary. I mean, why can’t you have both well developed and growing characters facing major intrapersonal things AND a major plot that keeps throwing obstacles at them?
Character or plot driven? To that, I say both.
Character Driven vs. Plot Driven
Character Driven vs. Plot Driven
I have been listening to a lot of podcasts lately and when listening to Christopher Paolini on the Barnes and Noble YA Podcast, this post idea came to mind.
What does it mean for a book to be character driven or plot driven?Basically, books can be divided into one of these two categories. Of course, a good book has both of these qualities, but will maybe have more of one.
So, lets delve further…
Who is Driving the Bus? Character Driven Vs. Plot Driven
Plot isn’t something that a lot of authors think about outside of the very basic structure of opening, catalyst, rising action, peak conflict, falling action and ending. And knowing the very basic structure of plot is good, because you have to know the rules to flaunt them. What a lot of writers don’t think about or don’t know the difference between is who or what is propelling their plot…
Season 14/Open RP/Castiel muse only/Jack Kline too
Hannah cringed as she moved through the room. It was so hauntingly still. Blood still spattered everywhere, the mutilated bodies of dozens of angels spread out before her, their wings imprinted on the ground beneath their battered bodies.
She gripped the angel blade in her hand, her knuckles turning white around it. Who could do this? What could do this? She hadn’t seen what had happened, but she vowed she would find out what did. She would make whatever was responsible pay for this.
Character vs Plot Driven Stories
Character or Plot Driven? Which is your story? #writerslife #amwriting #blogging
November has ended and with it a lot of lessons have been learned. The experiment of attempting 50k in 30 days has been an interesting adventure. Next Wednesday I will expand further on the many challenges we faced and how we adapted to handle them. Today though I wanted to dive into the particulars of how to handle the backbone or drive of your story. I mentioned before that we were going to…