#authorblogpost

[radishfiction]

Guest Author Blogpost: Clichés in Millionaire/Billionaire/CEO Books by Rainbowlovie

This is purely for your entertainment.

It is up to you if you want to take this seriously. *wink wink*

Most of us are suckers for romance, whether we show it or not. 

Why do we read them? 

It transports us to an imaginary world where we have always wished we were in. Who in the world would not want to date a handsome billionaire or a CEO? It is not going to happen to most of us in our real lives, so we quench this thirst of ours by reading these kinds of books. By getting into the character's head, we become the character ourselves. But while reading such books, there are these factors that are overused and will just make you roll your eyes.

1) He is always tall, dark, and handsome.

Have you ever stumbled on a billionaire or a CEO in real life who is in his twenties?

I have never seen a CEO in real life who is tall, dark, and handsome. Most of them in the real world would be like Bill Gates. They would either be old or married. Even if he was a bachelor, he would definitely be old.

Why is the billionaire never portrayed to be short, one who doesn’t have the features and the perfect washboard abs as a Greek God? Why haven’t we seen the female protagonist fall in love with him?

Every other man that the female protagonist runs into in the story has to be a Greek God with heaps of money. How does she manage to do that? 

If that happened in real life, I would stare at those eye candies and pass out right in front of them rather than act all sassy, which takes me to the next cliché.

2) She is extremely shy but is also sassy, feisty, and carefree. (Scoffs)

To start with, she doesn't possess an hour glass figure (that's a good thing; she is a potato). She is a good potato. I love potatoes! All potatoes become beautiful French fries. My Eye Candy chooses the potato over the models because he is also aware that she would become a beautiful French fry in the future. 

She is intimidated by his sky blue eyes, her knees tremble and her lips quiver. "Get the paperwork done in an hour, Potato," he says. She turns into Superman, completely bold and brave. "I have better work to do."

You were shaking in your shoes one minute, and you throw an attitude like you were his boss the next.

Please teach us the tricks, Ms. Potato! We want to know!

3) She is always from a poor background.

Doesn't being a secretary for a CEO/ billionaire who is sought-after requires a certain degree of education from a college?

She somehow would have lost her parents and would have a younger brother/sister whom she has to feed. I completely envisage that she didn't have money and couldn't go to a college.

It only makes sense for her to work at some coffee outlet or at a restaurant, but how did she land herself a secretarial job for the CEO in one of the renowned companies in the city?

If this was going to happen for real, half of the population wouldn't bother going to colleges because we know the rich and hot millionaires would offer the secretarial jobs to the ones who didn't go to college over the ones who graduated from Harvard.

4) He is always arrogant and possessive.

Mr. Eye Candy, why are you always arrogant? Relax, my potato is waiting to eat you!

Let me give you a clue, Mr. Eye Candy. However arrogant and possessive you are, I don't know how and why, but that is what turns Ms. Potato on.

"You cannot go with him," he snarls.

My insides melted. He was feeling jealous. His arrogance and possessiveness turned me on. Oh, he feels for me!

Oh my God, girl. It’s your right to hang out with whomever you want. He doesn't feel for you. He wants to control you. He is a control freak. You cannot let him control your life, girl.

5) Sex in the workplace:

"Have sex with me Potato." He pins her against the office desk.

Don't give me the crap that your walls are sound proof, Mr. CEO. I am pretty sure people in your office are going to know that you guys had sex. There are going to be so many windows in the cabin that your groans and her moans aren't going to be suppressed.

I always fail to understand how this works in real life.

6) Business trips:

You can never see these stories advance further without a business trip for which the hot billionaire forces Ms. Potato to go with him. This is where things get heated up between the protagonists. You guys are not on a honey moon, for God’s sake. It's a business trip.

Mr. Hot Eye Candy, if that potato refuses to go on a business trip with you, call me. I will give you better French fries!

7) After shower scene:

He finished his shower and stepped out with just a towel tied low on his narrow waist. The water molecules slid down his delicious washboard abs. Her mouth went dry at the sight of the sexy Greek God standing in front of her.

Now you know what the scary boss is going to say. Yes, the same old, "Like what you see?"

I have read this in almost every book, and I always wanted to hit my head hard against the wall.

I admit, it would be a dream come true to walk into a room and see a man without any clothes on, who is an exact replica of a Greek God. But at least, it can be replaced with different dialogues and could be made unique.

8) The scary, arrogant boss always had a bad past.

Don’t even get me started on this. This man always has a bad past with another woman. The love that the potato possesses would change him out of nowhere. He would just move on before you could say knife.

Our potato who is a wallflower herself, turns into a knight-in-shining-armour for her Eye Candy and makes him move on from his past so that they can make more delicious candies and French fries together.

9) Re-appearance of the ex-girlfriend.

These books can be basically described like 'moderate drama in the middle' and 'high voltage drama in the end.’

C'mon, guys. Their story cannot end in a normal way. If it is going to be an ordinary ending, what is the whole point of writing a book, right?

So one fine morning, when things just got better between them, she enters his cabin and…

She sees his ex-girlfriend all over him.

Drama, drama, and more drama.

We love that drama sometimes, though I hate to admit it.

10) She is a damsel in distress.

Finally, Ms. Potato proves the reason for her creation. She becomes a damsel in distress and Mr. CEO has to save her. She forgives him and the story ends just like the prequel.

With everything said and done, we like some clichés and we don't like some. At the end of the day, it is all in the way the author makes the clichés appear.

Written by: Rainbowlovie

Rainbowlovie is a writer from India, where she is pursuing Chartered Accountancy. She loves reading books, especially romance. Writing has been her passion for years.

You can find her works, I Was Never Yours, Mr. CEO and I’m All Yours, on her Radish profile here.

[radishfiction]

Guest Author Blogpost: Love The Process by Caterina Efe

Not too long ago, a guy I liked told me I was too impatient. He meant this in a different context but it was something that helped me deeply reflect on myself as a writer.

I've been writing primarily on Wattpad for the last six years and having gotten used to uploading chapters serially, I was becoming too absorbed in the things that was slowly killing my passion. It was like I was only writing for the thrill of getting likes, comments, seeing the number of people reading my stories increase. It all started becoming about statistics.

And that was stressing me out. Because I was focusing on the wrong thing. So towards the end of last year, I wrote a broadcast message to my followers on the site explaining my chapter uploads would be delayed because I needed get back to what was important – and that was loving the process of making art as an artist should and not for any other reason other than that.

Writing is a painful experience. But I have to do it.

Kind of like needing to have a shit – not exactly glamorous but I need to do it – everyday.

Writing for me is a spiritual exercise and if I don't do it for a day, I feel out of shape.

With that said, it doesn't mean every single moment I am sat down with a pen in my hand and a blank sheet of lined paper in front of me that I want to do it. It's actually the opposite. 

To create any piece of art whether it be a novel, painting, or anything of an expressive format -  it is not a sprint but a journey.  It is knowing the road to the Promised Land is going to be tough but once you get there it's all going to be worth it.

For me, what made me hit a rocky bump in my writing is constantly wondering if my words had any impact on readers.

When all I heard was crickets after I pressed the “Publish” button, it was like the time I spent researching, outlining chapters/essays, writing drafts, editing after eight-hour shifts were all in vain.

And then I would doubt and question myself on why I was putting so much effort in something that was not receiving any attention.

And that would discourage me and these would be my thoughts:

I'm a shitty writer.

Readers do not connect with my words.

There are better writers than me.

I should stop writing.

All that was hard to process. And not just that, but continuing writing with the deep conviction that this story/essay/thought/idea/poem needed to be written despite the possibility of it falling on flat ears.

But that's the thing about us creatives - whether you're a writer, illustrator or music producer putting your stuff on Soundcloud - we want our work to resonate.

We want to have significance. We want to know that our art holds weight and meaning.

But what helps me now to not get carried away with being solely gratified by statistics on my written pieces is reverting my mind to when I was fifteen years old and writing the chapters to the first novel I published online. The only thing that I cared about was using my imagination to be the architect of my own world where I chose what happened.

I was so in love (and still in love) with the story I kept writing chapter after chapter. What I had to say in my heart far outweighed the near zero reads I was getting.

But – and this is my message for this post - I am IN LOVE with the process.

It wasn't until I was twenty chapters deep in the story that it started receiving serious traction. 

The world today is all about result, product, result, product but can we just breathe and enjoy the process of creating art and experimenting and that being gratification enough?

An artist such as Henri Matisse who is now celebrated but was ridiculed near all his life about his artwork is a perfect example of someone who was completely in love with the process of his craft despite the many setbacks and lack of support he experienced.

But when you think about it, what makes a masterpiece of any art form more valuable is the process it went through to reach the final stage. Just like a diamond. 

And to finish this post off, I am now reminded of a lovely quote from Bob Marley concerning his music, which I believe all creatives should believe concerning their art when they are not receiving positive attention: 

“My music will go on forever. Maybe it's a fool say that, but when me know facts me can say facts. My music will go on forever.”

Written by: Caterina Efe

Caterina Efé is a YA fiction writer and essayist. In 2015, she self-published her novel, The Untitled Girl, that already had over a million reads on Wattpad. The sequel to the novel is currently being published on Radish as well as her novel, Beignet.

She is also a social media and events executive, working in the non-profits sector of a commercial company. She takes much interest learning about art, business and science.

You can check out more of her work at: www.theefectivetimes.blogspot.com

You can also follow her on Twitter @Caterina_Efe

You can find her works on Radish here.

[radishfiction]

RobThier’s Giveaway!

My dear Lords and Ladies,

To celebrate the Radish Launch on Android, I am holding a coin lottery here on the Radish blog. 

Leave a comment on this post with your Radish Username in it to participate! 

And here are the prizes:

30 lucky winners will get 10 coins each

12 even more lucky winners will get 25 coins each

And...

2 hyper-über-lucky winners will get 50 COINS EACH!

So, leave your Radish username as a comment here on this blog. 

I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for you! And thanks to every single one of you who decided to get the Radish and and support my dream of becoming a professional writer. 

You are the best fans anyone could wish to have :)

Yours Truly,

Sir Rob

[radishfiction]

Blog Takeover... Jen @SkeneKidz: Advice I’d give to my younger writing self

Words by @skenekidz​

I started writing when I was 9 years old, with absolutely no idea what I was doing. The only advice I ever received was from my mother, and was something along the lines of “You shouldn’t use such bad words in your stories!”. There is so much I’d love to tell my younger stuff, but unfortunately, I had to learn through years and years of trial and error (as well as such much deserved criticism).

Probably the most important piece of advice I’d give myself is this: Don’t force the story.

It should feel like the story is writing itself. The characters should feel like real people, speaking in ways that seem natural for them. The plot should, at times, even catch you by surprise. If you have to force it, readers will pick up on that quickly. The humor should come out the way it does in real life; spontaneous and easily slipped into conversation. How do you know when you’re forcing the story? This is a little harder to figure out. It’s something you can just feel. Some part of your brain is saying “No, no, that character would never say that! The story shouldn’t be going in this direction!” You can just tell that the flow is being thrown off. It really ruins what could have been a good story!

Another bit of advice I would like to literally shove down my younger self’s throat is to use structure. For the love of all that is good in this world, use structure. Separate paragraphs when a new person starts speaking. Don’t cram everything into one giant paragraph. Grammar is super important too. It’s okay if you don’t always get it right, but pay attention to it and use proper grammar as much as possible. When I was about 10 or 11, I wrote a story that was roughly 35 pages that didn’t capitalize names and never once split off into a new paragraph. I didn’t get a good structure until I was about 15 or so. Readers might walk away from your story just based on the structure of it.

There are a lot of little things I’d like to go back in time and tell myself:

Pace out your information throughout the story (as in, don’t let the first paragraph be the description of every character and what their life is like and how they feel and what their plans are).

Google is your friend; look up information you don’t know, look up synonyms so you don’t keep reusing words, look up words to help you describe whatever you need to.

Keep a journal with details in it. Character names and surnames, names of places they go to, important plot points. Then you’re not frantically searching through your story to remember where your character works or where they went on a date. (I learned this the very hard way by constantly changing the names of characters’ parents because I just couldn’t remember naming them earlier in the story).

The most important piece of advice I would give myself is this: It’s okay to be proud of your work.

It’s not narcissistic to be proud of something you wrote. You’re not overflowing with ego just because you reread one of your scenes and think “damn, that was amazing”. It’s the best feeling in the world to be so proud of your work. So embrace it! It’s also okay to read your work and die of embarrassment at how bad it is. You’ll get better if you keep at it and learn from those mistakes, so roll with the punches and let yourself be proud!

Read Jen’s work on Wattpad