It's Not over Until... It's Over

As I was working on some of my recent blog posts, I realized that I often say "It's good so far, but I won't know for sure if I like it until it's over."
Which is kind of sad, when I think about it. Because it means that a lot of the things I've read start out promising, and then just collapse miserably at the end.
The example that I always remember is from a book called Night Watch, I think. The book itself was pretty interesting. And then at the very end, they were building up to this magical setup to re-write parts of the world. The main character was heading toward the final battle, where this magical thing could be used for good or evil, and as he moved he was gathering up large amounts of energy, and leaving a wake of drained people behind him as he went. And then when they finally got to the final battle, the guy threw away all the magic he'd gathered and said, "nah, I'm not going to do anything with the magical device to rewrite worlds."
It was like a balloon deflating. Everything they'd been building up for was just chucked into the gutter.
And there's also those things like Alice in Wonderland, where they wake up and discover that the entire story was a dream, and never actually happened.
You get the idea.

The result? I won't say for certain if I like something until I've finished it. Sometimes this counts for a series, like the Seventh Tower one that I'm almost done with.

Yeah, endings are important. They're what the reader is left with. A good ending can leave me feeling all excited and thrilled. Otherwise I just put the book down in disgust...

A Tough Genre to Like

So, I love to write young adult fantasy.
That's not all I write, but that's my favorite.
Why? Because I love creating and using fantasy worlds. And I like young adult fiction, because if it's done well you can enjoy it no matter how old you are, whether 12 or 86.

Yet if you look at the list of books I recommend, a rather small percentage of them are young adult fiction.

Is this because I don't like to read young adult fiction? Not at all. Some of my favorite books are in that category.
The problem is that there are very few good books in the category.
This genre is full of a lot of garbage.
Now of course there's plenty of garbage in every genre. But if I tell someone that I want to write young adult fantasy, I get kind of embarrassed because I wonder if they'll get the wrong idea. Like some weird Twilightey romancey thing that has no substance, or anything else.
Maybe I think this because someone at a writing workshop mentioned it.
At that time, I explained that I liked to write young adult fantasy, but I wanted to write good stories since there were a lot of lame ones out there. And the lady said "I'm glad you clarified that, because I agree that there's not much good out there."
And for the rest of that workshop, I think I pressed a bit too hard that I wanted to do GOOD young adult fantasy...

I'm bringing this up again because of Seraphina (I got the second book in Portland! Yaay~ Gotta finish a couple other books first though. I like to leave a bit of space between books in a series). Because when I read Seraphina, I realized how nice it was to read a very good book in my genre. It hadn't happened in a long time before that.
I wonder what the last one was. I think Uglies might count as more of sci-fi.
Maybe it's the Seventh Tower series. But I haven't gotten to the end yet, so I'm not sure if it will be something I add to my "recommended list."

And amazingly enough, I think I might have found another good fantasy.
If it does end up good, I'll post about it. ^-^

Quarter Century

I am officially 25 today.
This is the second year in a row where I've been away from home on my birthday (in Portland). Just because my birthday is during Spring break, which is when I can go to Portland.
It's weird though. It doesn't feel like my birthday.
Although it was a nice day. I got to go on a rollercoaster, and Sera discovered that certain fair rides can actually feel like flying, instead of just being scary (She's only about 9).
I hope I didn't get sunburned.... Maybe I should check.

How Effective is School?

I saw a music video on Youtube which made me think about how much school actually helps us. Elementary to high school especially, where we don't really get to choose our classes.
I've thought a little about this, as I designed schools for my worlds. For example, in my fantasy worlds, students wouldn't need more than the basic math, and biology and such. If they needed to learn about advanced chemistry or such, they would take more classes on the subjects they thought they'd use. They also don't have technology, so a lot of stuff would be pointless for the majority of then to need (no computer classes for them @_@ )

Compared to our schools here... Where we learn calculus for a couple years in high school, and then never use it again and forget all of it before you finish college.
And spend four years analyzing literature.
Or learn a language that you'll never speak once you graduate.

Now, the basics of biology, math, psychology, ex can be very important. It's great to understand how life works, and to understand how the mind works and how to take care of it. And there's definitely plenty of literature that is worth looking at, especially if it teaches you not to believe everything you read without examining it first.
If you want to study in a foreign country, then definitely learn French!
But you shouldn't be forced to take more advanced classes on it if you know you're never going to use it. If you want to be a preschool teacher, do you really need to know how to combine acids, or analyze the symbols in Lord of the Flies?
Especially when you could be learning how to give first aid to someone.
Or learning how to deal with taxes, find housing, and take care of kids.

There are so many important topics about living in the modern world that I knew absolutely nothing about when I graduated high school. You'd need to pay to take separate classes to learn about first aid (something I'd very much like to learn).
Or you can ask around and look on the internet for information, and risk learning false info.

Why are some subjects forced onto students when there are so many important things that we need if we want to live in today's society?

Then again, there's a lot of really pointless stuff in today's society... School is just an easy one to pick on. --_--

Portland=Drawing

By the way, I'm in Portland now!
Which means I'm drawing a lot of pictures. Probably more than I ever have before, and it's only the 2nd full day.
I've been designing some new creatures for my Soreina Continent.
And I drew Katani's teacher (whose name and appearance has changed again) and his Sun dragon Kakao.
I'll have to color all of them all once I'm home. So we'll see how long it takes to finish everything...

Won't Stay dead

So, I decided not to add these onto my post about the most painful deaths in movies and books.
Because this time, the characters don't die.
But the writers try to trick you into thinking that the character has died.

This isn't going to be a list of fake deaths (or it would be rather long and pointless). I just wanted to talk about some that I think are worth mentioning. Some are effective, and some aren't. Some are kind of in between.

And then there are some that I've become desensitized to. I need to try to watch old things with fresh eyes...

Needless to say, spoilers.


Here are a few I think worked well.
Chronicles of Narnia - Aslan. Well, he actually did die I guess. But he came back. And it needed to happen for the sake of the story. Aslan had to give himself up to save Edmond. And it was done well, in the book and movie. That scene in the movie always gets me. The sequels may have been lame, but I liked the first Narnia movie a lot. Maaan, what happened to the others...

In Rurouni Kenshin, Kaoru. She did not die. But Kenshin's enemies faked her death, in order to crush Kenshin. And it worked. Kenshin needed a lot of help to pull himself together after that. It was also well done. The first time I read it, I kept thinking "What? How could they kill her? She couldn't be dead! But there she is... Clearly there's no life left in her." Well, I was right, but it was different than I expected it to be, so that's good.
These are the kind of things where it's really important to be unexpected.

Sometimes movies make fun of this. Which is good.
I just watched Kung Fu Panda for the first time (after I had already started compiling notes for this post), and they made fun of faking character deaths. As the Panda cries, "don't die!" The teacher opens his eyes and says, "shut up! I'm not dead. Let me rest!"

And in Tiger and Bunny, at the very end, with Tiger. Noooo! they can't kill Tiger! He's awesome. And then he gets up and goes "are you stupid? I didn't die. I just passed out from the pain."




Moving on to some that kinda worked.

In the manga Animal Land, there was one at the end. There was a lot of other stuff going on, so the emotional impact was pretty strong. I'm not really satisfied with how they resolved it though.

In The Sorcerer's Apprentice, at the end with Balthazar. I'm kind of neutral about that one. Though honestly... is a plasma fist to teh chest really going to bring soemone back? While you're insulting him with each hit?

The end of Season 2 of Sherlock. Okay, the emotion around this was really intense. Especially when John goes to the graveyard and says "please, don't be dead." Maaaaan, that's sad. Even if you know that Sehrlock's not dead, it's sad.
But the way they tried to explain Sherlock's faked death was reaaalllly unsatisfing...



In the 4th Pokémon Movie. I liked that one a lot, when I was younger. I still like it, but it's rather sappy.

In X-Men, Wolverine almost dies a lot. He's on the list of characters I'm very protective of (Like Kenshin, who gets beat up so much TT^TT ). Either way, I always bristle, or panic when somethign happens to a charater I'm very attached to.

In the anime movie, Origin: Spirits of the Past, at the end there's a point where you think the 2 main characters can't be saved. What I liked about this is that I wasn't sure if they actually would die. And for a bit, I was covinced that they would. I couldn't tell that there was going to be some miraculous save (Maybe not the best save, admittedly).
And I think that is the most important thing about tricking the audience into thinking that a character is gone for good. The audience should not be able to tell that you're going to trick them. Don't let them see through your bluff. They should be heartbroken when they think that that charater is dying. And then when they find out that the'yre still okay, they should shed tears of joy (not necessarily literally).


And these were just plain lame:

In a digital animation about wolves, called Alpha and Omega. They wanted to make you think someone was dead at the end. And everyone gathered around and went "oooh nooo soob she's deaaaaadd. Waaaah!" And then she gets up and is perfectly fine. There was absolutely no purpose to it. They just put it there as a failed attempt to make you sad.

Bambi 2 had one like this, I believe. Also completely pointless. Especially since you already know Bambi doesn't die, or get seriously hurt.

Shinies~

This is very random, but I thought it would be fun to write about, since I don't have anyone to celebrate with.
At least, no one nearby. XP
I was playing Pokémon today and caught a shiny!
A Gulpin.

So nothing too impressive. Not like my first shiny.

My first shiny was a Trapinch, in Emerald. I thought for a second that there was a coloring glitch, until I realized what the blue Trapinch actually was. And then I was incredibly excited.
I'd found a couple shinies in the original gold/silver games (a girafarig and a Nidoran M) but I failed to catch both of them. And of course there's the Red Gyarados, but everyone gets that. (I do have Red Gyarados on my team though. her name is Peliroja - red head).
That Trapinch is now a Flygon, and probably the coolest real shiny that I've found.

I named her Tahoe, because that's where I was when I found the Trapinch.

I guess the next shiny I found was in diamond. It was a Geodude.
Usually I name shinies after something that is going on that day. He's the only exception. I named this one Nugget. And he's now a Golem.
This is one of my cooler shinies.


Then in Pearl I found both a shiny Pelipper, and a shiny Bibarel.
Neither of those are too impressive.
The Pelipper I named Hunter. I was staying with a family at the time, and for some reason the Pelipper made me think of the guy there named Hunter.
And the Bibarel I named Gingerbread, because I'd just made a gingerbread house.



In Heart Gold, my nightmare happened. I ran into a shiny Krabby at the Safari Zone. Now, in the Safari Zone, Pokemon can run away at any time. But by some miracle, I managed to catch this one before I fled. Krabby, at least, isn't a touchy Pokémon, so will hang around longer than certain others.
I'd just been watching Natsume Yuujinchou, so I named her after the mermaid Sasafune. I've avoided evolving her, but maybe I should because she is one of my cooler shinies.


In White 2, I found a shiny Audino and a shiny Watchog. Again, neither of these are very impressive.
I named the Audino Quillian, after an OC pony that I was making a plush commission of that morning.
The Watchog I named Orb, after a horse in a Kentucky Derby race that I had just seen. Orb must have been the winner.



In White 2, There is an in-game opportunity to catch shiny Haxorus, and shiny Dratini. I have both of these. Haxorus is a big part of my white 2 team.
And then there's a ton I've got in on-line events (Suicune, Entei, Raikou, Pichu, Eevee, Dialga, Milotic, Palkia, Giratina, Gengar, and Beldum). I haven't used most of them. I think I have a weird idea that I want them to stay pristine and unused. Although I do have duplicates of some, so I might as well try them.

And then for a while in X and Y, people discovered that every Pokémon comes with a code. And if the code of a Pokémon matches up with he code of your game, then that Pokémon becomes shiny. And by trading eggs with certain codes to certain games, you can automatically hatch a shiny. This didn't last long, because the game added a patch to make it impossible to read these codes. I did try this a couple times, just for fun. I got Froakie (now Greninja), Kabuto (now Kabutops) and Noibat (now Noivern).
I didn't find any natural shinies in X/Y. Not yet, at least (Crosses fingers).

So, that would make Gulpin the most recent, in Alpha Sapphire.
I was searching for Trubbish. A Gulpin popped up in the grass, so I went to check it out (to increase the search rank). I wasn't even looking at the screen, but I heard the sparkle and immediately snapped to attention. I threw a Quick ball, and easily caught her.
I'd been reading the Tiger and Bunny manga, so I looked up names. Pao-Lin caught my attention (Dragon Kid). But it's too pretty a name for a Gulpin, so I shortened it to Pao. XD
So now I have Pao the Gulpin.
I don't know if I'll evolve her. Especially if I evolve my Krabby.

That makes about 8 wild-encountered shinies total. Not bad. that's still only about 1 every other year though. Rare enough that I still get excited about it.
Tahoe is still my favorite. But Sasafune and Nugget are pretty cool too. I should transfer them to newer games, where I'll actually use them.

It's Very Interesting

I heard recently about how unhelpful the word "interesting" is when you're trying to give advice to someone about their writing/art.
I've heard this many times before, but I took note of this last time because I realized something else. One of my creative writing teachers uses the word "interesting" to describe about half of the things that are read in class. And it was another creative writing teacher who told us to try to avoid "interesting."
What's the difference between the two teachers? Well, one focuses more on fiction. And the other does mostly poetry (She's the one who likes to say interesting). So maybe she's not as quick to think of comments on fiction because she understands poetry better? So "interesting" is her filler word.
That's just a theory.

And yeah, if you ask for feedback about something you created, "interesting" may not be of much help. But it can also depend on the context.
Maybe the reader can't think of any advice to give, but they really are "interested" in what you've done ad would like to see more.
Maybe the reader doesn't really like it, and doesn't want to say so. So they just say "Yeah, it was... interesting."

I've been trying to avoid that word recently. But I also do want to use it sometimes if I really am interested in what's going on. Expecially if I only read part of a larger piece, and there's a lot going on that I don't understand yet.
I sometimes substitute it for "intriguing" but that doesn't seem to fit as naturally.
So "interesting" can be a positive word. Or a negative word. But I think that the bottom line is that it doesn't really give much advice to the artist.

Reading Update

So... I don't think I've talked about what I've been reading since the beginning of last year.

http://dragonspen.blogspot.com/2014/02/let-me-reaaaaad.html

So to avoid a very long post, I'll just pick out some interesting readings I've done.

Little Women. This was a book I'd seen and heard of many times. And it was quite good. That's probably why it's one of the classics.

Seventh Tower: This is a series I've been reading. I've only got one book left. I liked the Keys to the Kingdom series, by the same author. And once again there is a very cool world that these books are set in. They're quick reads. I hope the last book is good.

Uglies: I may have actually posted about this book. It's the first in a series, and I'm about to read the second one. It was very good. They had cool characters and societies and ideas. I hope the upcoming books are as good. It's unfortunate how often series degrade as they go on...

Starting Point: This is a book of stuff Miyazaki wrote. It's almost like a collection of articles and letter sand such. If you're a Ghibli fan, I recommend it. Especially if, like me, you love knowing about how the creative process works. One thing I find rather hilarious was a letter Miyazaki wrote. It basically said "Thank you for taking me to that movie. I didn't actually like the movie, but at least I got to see it for free." Hahah. Ouch. I have the second book too, and hope to read it soon.

Divergent: I've read the first two books. The first one was pretty good. The second one didn't really leave an impression.

Demon Child: One of the Twelve Kingdom books. It's about what happened to Taiki when he was trapped in the human world. It's a bit slow-paced, but gets pretty intense near the end.

Norse myths: This is where I discovered where the mythology of Lord of the Rings came from.

Jupiter: a scifi book by Ben Bova. It was a really cool interpretation of Jupiter. I'll have to read more of his stuff.

Inferno, and the Lost Symbol. Both from the same series as the Da Vinci Code. Both very good. Maan, I think I wrote in the blog about the Lost Symbol. In the scene were they finally reveal the identity of the villain, I realized a second before they said it who the person actually was. That's some amazing writing right there, to keep the answer in the dark until the last possible second. And to still let the reader realize it for themselves.

Eon: A couple people recommended this to me. It's one of very few young adult/fantasy books I've found that's set in an Asia-like world. I'm about to read the second one.

The Five Ancestors: And here's more books set in a world like Asia. China specifically. They're more for younger readers, but the first book was interesting. I'd like to read all of them. (I just saw Kun Fu panda for the first time, and it was very much like the first book).

White Noise: This is a book that was recommended to me because it was environmental fiction, and I'm supposed to be reading environmental fiction. Apparently it's a well-known book. Except it was bad. The author seemed so full of himself. Every line was like "look at how good I can write!" Ugh

That Hideous Strength: This was the last book in a trio by CS Lewis (author of Narnia). The first book was really cool. The second book had an awesome world, but wasn't as interesting to me. And the third book was... kinda lame. Especially the climax. They were going on about how it wouldn't work to just kill all of the bad guys. No, that would never do. So what do they do? They kill all of the bad guys, of course...

Ship Breaker: I think I wrote about this one a bit. It's environmental fiction too. And it was young adult environmental fiction. It's the closest thing I've read so far to my grad program story. I definitely want to read more from this guy.

Wicked: I love the play to pieces. Ellen said the book was nothing like the play. But my cousin got me a copy for Christmas 2 years ago, so I felt obligated to read it. You could count the differences between the play and the book, but it would be a lot easier to count the similarities. I could do so on my fingers.
I still prefer the play. Maan, Elphie and Glinda are so freaking awesome in that play...

Seraphina: I wrote a whole post about this book.

The Bookshelf Muse

As always, I'm going through blogs and websites, looking for interesting articles, and stuff to learn. The last blog I finished perusing was called The Bookshelf Muse. It has moved to a new website, and I'll be checking that out before long, I'm sure.

But I updated my References for Writers post to include some of their posts that I liked.
It's in a mini-list under the Writing/Worldbuilding heading.