Many an expert has prescribed voracious reading as a way to improve your writing.
But don’t just read anything, they warn—read quality in addition to quantity. Read the stories in styles you adore, the plots you wish you’d come up with yourself. It’s by reading what you love and admire, say the experts, that you will improve your own writing the most.
Well, I love comic books.
In January 2009, a British TV producer and mother-of-two began writing under the pseudonym “Snowqueen’s Icedragon” after being inspired by the Twilight saga (which, if you’re a regular, you know we have mixed feelings about).
She published her first novel, Master of the Universe, online, which was loosely based on the Twilight characters. In 2011 she decided to self-publish the series, which soon built up enough buzz to be talked about by Fox News and other networks.
In 2012, Random House picked up the series. Since then, the series, now titled Fifty Shades of Grey, has sold over 100 million copies, making it one of the bestselling of all time.
This weekend, I finally got around to seeing Into the Woods. Years ago, I saw the play the film is based on with my high school drama club on Broadway. Of course, because Into the Woods is a Disney film, there were a few things from the original musical that didn’t make it to the big screen (the fate of Rapunzel, the Baker’s Wife’s encounter with Cinderella’s Prince, etc.). Despite those changes, the overall theme of the musical remained intact.
You must always save the cat in a screenplay. Never, never, never kill the cat when you are writing a screenplay. Actually, please have your main character save the cat when you write a story of any kind.
You see I am a cat. And I would never watch your movie or read your book if you were mean to a cat.
I love Pixar. There hasn’t been one movie they made that I didn’t like. My family goes to see the new Pixar movie every summer right after it comes out. So when I saw this picture on Pinterest sharing Pixar’s twenty-two rules of storytelling, I saved the picture right away. I go back to it constantly for inspiration, and I thought I’d share a few of my favorite rules with you. Here are my five favorites.
If you’re like me, one of the main reasons you read is to receive an emotional transference from the author. You love books that don’t just make you think, that don’t just entertain, but that make you feel something.
It’s the magic of reading: that an author can arrange a series of letters in a certain order and that these letters can affect our emotions.
As a writer, how do you develop mood in a short story or in the chapter of your novel without telling? Is it possible to build up emotional language without saying what the emotion is? In other words, can you make people feel something without writing like Stefenie Meyer or E.L. James?
