Characters and world-building

I recently finished reading Brave New World. It's certainly a good book, and I think the ideas it presents are well worth discussing, and the world-building is rich and interesting.

(But.)

I'll admit to being really disappointed by the characters. They're static, and though initially likable in most cases, became incredibly irritating by the end of the novel. They don't seem to change at all, which is frustrating, because once in a while they would seem to make progress, but then go right back to how they used to be.

(I think the ONE exception of this is John, except not really. I mean, look what happens to him in the end.)

World-building is important. But people don't relate to settings. They relate to people.

Thoughts?

3/24/14 Prompts

Quote

"But it feels good to love a thing and not expect anything back. It feels good to not get an argument or any pushiness or any rumors or any bullshit. It's love without strings. It's ideal." - Ask the Passengers, AS King

Photo

Video

Link roundup 3/22

Sorry about the delay. The internet has been out for the past couple days. Here you go!

Some of the Writer's Digest staff had an AMA on Reddit. Worth reading.

You need Open Library in your life.

"Quit This, Not That (For Writers)" was posted back in June, but it's always relevant.

And last, this girl helped inspire one of my characters, and needs more attention. Give her some, please. :)

The rut

I think anyone who's a creative person has been here, or will eventually be here. Not reading this blog post, of course, because that would be bananas, but I mean a rut. It's so easy to fall into and a million times harder to pull yourself out – if you can get yourself out.

I'm going to be honest here. I'm still in the process of pulling myself out, in more ways than one. I panicked and fell into the mentality that the first draft had to be as close to perfect as possible. That I went through four years of schooling, so it HAD to be near-perfect, or I deserved to have my degree set on fire.

I heard this really great quote the other day that says something like, “Eventually you will care more about not doing anything than actually succeeding.” And that's kind of what happened with me. I got so angry at myself because I love writing and stories and books and spent literal years of my life trying to  create something worthwhile. And I wasn't doing anything.

Then I started writing for fun again, stuff I wasn't going to show to anyone. Stuff that I'm still not going to show to anyone. And I started looking over old story notes and rethinking them and instead of writing out every single plot point before I started writing, I jotted down a few notes of what I wanted to happen and tried to do things like I did when I was a teenager. It's kind of scary, writing that's part pantsing and part plotting, but I think it's helping.

Open discussion: when you're in a rut, what helps you?

3/17/14 Prompts

Quote

“Chicago takes up about two hundred twenty-seven square miles,” says Zoe. “The land area of the planet is a little less than two hundred million square miles. The percentage is . .  . so small as to be negligible.”

She delivers the facts calmly, as if they mean nothing to her. But they hit me square in the stomach, and I feel squeezed, like something is crushing me into myself. So much space. I wonder what it’s like in the places beyond ours; I wonder how people live there.

I look out the window again, taking slow, deep breaths into a body too tense to move. And as I stare out at the land, I think that this, if nothing else, is compelling evidence for my parents’ God, that our world is so massive that it is completely out of our control, that we cannot possibly be as large as we feel.

So small as to be negligible.

It’s strange, but there’s something in that thought that makes me feel almost . .  . free.

Roth, Veronica (2013-10-22). Allegiant (Divergent Trilogy) (pp. 186-187). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. 

Photo

Video

Hey.

Here's where I've been.

• Tutoring. Learning about Eastern culture, especially Korean culture and history. A little bit of their language too. It's a really interesting country and I made a lot of friends from it.
• Writing. Deleting. Abandoning. Hating pretty much everything I wrote. Trapped in a vicious cycle, basically.
• France.

A couple years ago, I increasingly felt like I didn't have much to say anymore that was relevant to this blog, so I dropped it. I'm sorry I never said anything.

Here's what I'll be posting from now on.

Mondays: Prompts in three varieties: quote, photo, and video.

Wednesdays: Open discussion on a book or writing topic.

Fridays: Link round-ups and a drabble. (I'm using the traditional definition of a story that's exactly 100 words.)

Maybe in the future I'll expand beyond that, but for now, I think that's what I'm going to stick with.