That One Guy's Composition Blog

[theexbiochemist]

In the video above J. K. Rowling answered questions about the 7th Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, prior to its release. It was the mark of the beginning of the end of a journey, much as this post is the same. While we haven’t been through as much with this writing experience as Mrs. Rowling had with hers, it has still been nearly half a year of writing and reading these things. It’s hard for some things to end, but it does become an unfortunate consequence of everything. Everything has to end at some point, and that includes amazing book series or even awesome classes.

  J.K. Rowling accomplished so much, and at the end of the video she gets to hear fans from across the U.K., including their Prime Minister, praising her work and everything that she has done. She was able to accomplish so much thanks to writing, and she has earned the praise that is given to her. I would like to do the same for this composition class as my farewell through these blog posts.

  Those of us in the 10 a.m. CO150 class have been going through the semester learning about how to improve our writing, all with the help of our awesome teacher Whitney Orth. She fostered the idea for us to use these blogs as a tool to improve our writing skills, give us a medium that we could actually use to present ourselves, our opinions, our skills, our thoughts, and so much more in a meaningful way. Instead of just some writing assignment that would be stuck on a piece of paper that would be immediately thrown away at the end of the semester, we had the opportunity to present this writing to everyone in the class, and to some degrees beyond the class.

  While not all of us will grow up to become the next J. K. Rowling, we can still come out of this experience knowing that we are in some ways better writers. This class has allowed us to foster our skills of writing on the college level and leads to a brighter future for all of us.    

[theexbiochemist]

The video above is a dramatic reading of one of the most famous bad fanfictions in the Lord of the Rings fandom. The story popped up on popular fanfiction website fanfiction.net years ago to critical appall. The world of bad fanfiction is a precarious one, as each fandom gets that one fic that becomes upheld as the worst of the worst. The problem this poses is people trying to create fanfics that are purposefully terrible in order to gain fame. Not to burst the bubble of the masterpiece presented above, it was unfortunately revealed to have been made terrible on purpose. So how common is this idea to make terrible fanfiction or even books just for the purpose of satire or fame.

  We saw the beginning of the creation of the novel Awoken as a parody of the Twilight-esque Young Adult genre. It was made purposefully bad by the authors in order to properly satire the genre they were representing, trying to make it seem authentic. Therein lies the problem of whether or not this is a thing that society should condone. While the Awoken project did seem to be genuine in its intent, some may have less noble (kind of?) intentions. Like the author of “legolas by laura” some works of horrible fiction are made simply to troll, to earn fame, or earn money. Their work simply takes form what has become popular, whether good or, in this case, bad, and attempts to gain something from the success of those that have already broken ground in this unfortunate field.  

  This behavior can become destructive when the idea of making terrible books just for money. Some authors, banking on the success of Twilight, have decided to create knockoffs in order to turn a profit on the successful genre. This lead to an over flooding of the market on fantasy romance for the Young Adult genre, which may have lead many a young teen to give up on reading as it was all more of the same. This has vast negative consequences as we lose young readers that may have become avid fans of some of the better books within the Young Adult section of reading. And so we must keep in mind that making bad writing popular may have unintended consequences that can have heavy impacts on the lives of many others. 

[theexbiochemist]

The rise of dystopian novels as teen fiction

Out is the fantasy romance, in is the post-apocalypse romance.

We saw the trend of fantasy romance within the young adult genre really pick up pace with the popularity of Twilight. When that became a best seller, you couldn’t go to the YA section of the library or book store without seeing things like: Twilight with Fairies, Twilight with Aliens, Twilight with Werewolves, Twilight with Zombies, Twilight with Cthulhu.  This is the genre that a lot of authors either had in the back of their minds and seized the opportunity, or they thought it was the one that would make them money.

But with the fall of Twilight after its movie series ended, and Hunger Games became its box office replacement, we are now seeing an astounding number of dystopia romance novels taking up the YA section. From Hunger Games to Divergent to Cinder, we see that dystopia is now the go to genre for the Young Adult shelves. So why is this?

We could mostly trace this to three different things:

The fantasy romance genre was drying up, so dystopia was the next step. While the fantasy element had its run, there is only so much time you can spend on that subject before it becomes stale. The solution was to move on to a new genre, and dystopia was the solution. It’s futuristic enough that it separates itself from what is seen as an “older” genre.

It became the new popular one. The fantasy romance genre took off for YA with the success of Twilight and its movies. When those began to end (haha), the crowds that both loved and, to a certain degree, hated Twilight moved on to the Hunger Games series. This shifted the popular genre from fantasy to dystopian, to follow the trend of the successful plot line. This allowed authors to form their stories around something that was rising in popularity, and leaving behind the one that was winding down.

It’s easy to write a story around the dystopian premise. While it was popular, the fantasy romance genre was able to pull the basis of its stories from already established material. All that had to go into it was modernizing those stories and introducing a heavy romance element. The same happens with dystopia. They all are able to follow the same premise of “New post-apocalypse government is evil, protagonist has to defeat government, protagonist somehow finds time to find love or fall into the (oh my god I hate this premise so much) love triangle, finally protagonist most likely ends up with the love interest that the majority of fans hated.”

So what we can infer from this is that dystopian novels probably have until the Hunger Games movies are done before we see the rise of the next popular YA genre. 

[theexbiochemist]

In the above video, you see the beginning of a crowd-sourced project to create a parody of recent fantasy and/or romance novels such as Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey. These two internet critics decided to team together with a bunch of their talented fans to create a parody work akin to the 1969 novel Naked Came the Stranger.

The concept came to them when one of them, going by critic name Nostalgia Chick, decided that she would start her own romance novel. The project quickly turned into delving into the world of Young Adult fiction in the modern era. Quite a few rows in the YA sections of bookstores and libraries seem to be littered with these paranormal romance stories, a fact that the group creating this temporarily marked “50 Shades of Green” took a long, critical look at.

Throughout their series, the Shades of Green group delved into the different aspects that went into books writing as they themselves reached those points, discussing how these elements are being used for modern novels. One of the biggest points they brought up was the recent insurgence of paranormal elements into the romance genre. While it may have been more common in adult romance literature, it is a more recent development for the YA audience, ever since the popularity of Twilight. The next big point they bring up is the use of the “blank slate” female lead of these novels. Starting with Bella Swan in Twilight, the protagonists of these teen romance novels seem to be bland, “average American” in terms of appearance, and usually do not do much of their own accord. This topic was breached as being a way for female teen readers to slip into the character, using them as a sort of avatar to put themselves into the story.

Before the spoilers, here is a link to the playlist of their entire series, covering the writing process and other aspects of the book making process. The playlist starts at the most recent video, so go to the last one up to see them in order:

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/team-nchick/50-shades-of-green

  *SPOILERS FOR THE VIDEOS, IF THIS TOPIC INTERESTS YOU, I HIGHLY SUGGEST YOU WATCH THEIR SERIES AND STOP READING THIS BLOG POST RIGHT NOW.*

  All of these aspects led to the creation of the teen paranormal romance parody book, Awoken by Serra Elinsen. The novel is described as Twilight with the Cthulu mythos, spawning from the series’ original idea of doing 50 Shades of Grey with aliens (hence the title 50 Shades of Green). If you want to buy the book (according to fans of the video series, it’s actually better than Twilight, which isn’t really saying much but oh well) you can get it here: https://www.createspace.com/4388546

Happy Reading!

[theexbiochemist]

Is writing an art form?

While I could easily research about a million “experts” on the topic of whether or not writing can or should be considered art, I’ve decided for today to just inject my own opinion on this hotly debated topic.

In my opinion, writing should be considered an art form. Visual art like paintings, movies, and TV shows are used to tell us a story while providing the visuals directly, letting us infer most of the inner dialogue and struggles of the characters without directly telling us. Writing is, in essence, the exact opposite. The inner dialogue and struggles are stated almost directly to the audience, and it’s up to them to visualize this world.

Writers are forced in a way to create whole new worlds with which their characters can occupy. And they usually are constrained to do this only through writing, allowing themselves no visualizations except what they picture in their head. They have to convey this entire new world and all of its inhabitants to the reader, try to get them to have the same or a similar mental picture of this setting when they view the work. This skill is the same employed by artists, the only difference being that one is text based while the other is paint/pencil/marker/etc.

The skills used for effective writing are, much in the same way as visual art, honed through years of practice, patience, and pure drive in the field of their work. Fine crafts of work are produced by both, comparing the Mona Lisa to The Lord of the Rings, or The Scream to the Ernest Hemingway six-word novel, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” They all have their deep impacts on society, it’s just a matter of seeing them as equals in the field of art.

This shows that writers, in their own ways, are just as creative as the artist that present their works at galleries. The medium may be different, but it is all art, all creative works set before the world to behold. 

[theexbiochemist]

Is writing a book series a bad idea?

As is so common with novels, there is usually a string of spinoffs and sequels to go with them. From Harry Potter to Twilight, Percy Jackson to Ender’s Game, all of these franchises have several books and spinoffs in their bookshelf lineup. So what is it about sequels that can make them amazing or make them go horribly, horribly wrong?

  First let’s look at a series that I believe to have kept up its quality over its very long lifespan. The Percy Jackson series has survived its initial 5 book Percy Jackson and the Olympians story arc, and is approaching completion of its 5 book half spinoff/half sequel Heroes of Olympus story arc. The series is also joined by two graphic novels, two info books, and a spinoff Egyptian series called the Kane Chronicles. Over all of these books the writing has remained at the same, if not improved, level throughout. What is it that keeps this series going? Rick Riordan has shown that he retains a lot of passion for this series. He is not just doing this because the franchise is popular and he feels obligated to continue. He has a story that he legitimately wants to continue telling, and that shows through his work.

  On the other hand is a series that has gone downhill in writing quality over time, through the wild cat adventure series, Warriors. For those that don’t know, Warriors is a series about clans of cats that live in the wild and have to face the challenges of gathering food, defending against other animals, and protecting themselves from each other. This series has been ongoing since 2003, with 5 series spanning 6 books each, 6 independent novels, a field guide, 5 manga adaptations, 6 online-only books, and two spinoff series (Seekers with bears and Survivors with dogs). The series is obviously popular to the extent that it has expanded to such a degree. Unfortunately the quality of writing has declined for all three of the intellectual properties. The problem seems to stem from the way the series is written. The author is Erin Hunter, a pseudonym used originally by three writers and an editor. Over time the writing has been extended to include a group of 6-7 people, all trying to contribute to the work. Unfortunately, this large a group of people makes the writing of all of the series disjointed to a degree. This shows in the decline of the writing near the beginning of the 3rd Warriors series, when 2 of the new writers were hired.

  Both of these show how the experience of the writer (or writers, as the case may be) can have a huge effect on the quality of writing over a series. 

[theexbiochemist]

How Spoken Word can be like Written Word:

  “A friendly desert community, where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep. Welcome to Night Vale.”

What you hear in the video above is the Welcome to Night Vale radio show, a podcast from iTunes created by Joseph Fink and Jeffery Cranor that has become increasingly popular since its initial release in 2012. The show is a fictional NPR style news broadcast from the town of Night Vale, a location where Lovcraftian oddities are the norm.

And that’s where we get to what inspires this show. The unusual locations, the horrors being treated as normal events, and things that are normal for us are treated as hellish things beyond our imagination. But that’s just what this podcast does. Just as with books, many things are left to our imagination when it comes to what is going on in Night Vale. We are told the general idea of what is happening, but, just as with books, the specific appearance, the situations, the people, are all left to our imagination. It is obvious that the podcast blends the spoken word of movies and TV shows with the imagined visual nature of books.

What do the totally-non-existent Angels that care for Old Woman Josie look like? What does the radio station look like? What does the entire town look like? Just like a book, we are given snippets of information, but the details are left up to us to imagine and interpret.

It is also obvious that the podcast draws roots from literature, the unusual town seeming very similar to novels written before. Many times Night Vale has been compared to the works of H. P. Lovecraft, eldritch horrors seeming to be a norm for the town. With monsters and cults, it is easy to see where the comparisons get drawn. Other comparisons have also been made between Night Vale and Steven King, who has been known to write about unusual happenings in what would otherwise be normal towns, which Night Vale could certainly fall under.

So Welcome to Night Vale shows us that written words don’t have to be just that, they can be presented in a different way and still convey the same purpose and power as they would normally.    

[theexbiochemist]

What is a Mary Sue and do they exist outside of fanfiction?

'Mary Sue' is a common term in the online fanfiction community, generally used to describe an Author Avatar, the author inserting themselves into a story. Mary Sues are further defined as having some highly important role within the story (usually through destiny/fate), be related to or in relationships with the original work's characters, and as a general rule either lives super happily ever after, or dies a tragic death because (and I quote from the lovely tvtropes) the characters was “too good for this sinful Earth [or alternative location].”

What you may notice is that the term Mary Sue can actually describe many popular characters outside of fanfiction as well. Harry Potter? Most important character due to destiny, had some direct relation to almost every character of the series, and *SPOILERS* both lived happily ever after AND died a tragic death…within the same book. Wow. *END SPOILERS*

“But ex-biochemist,” you may ask, “that’s a normal book character. They don’t fall under fanfiction rules.” But fanfiction stems from the world of published literature. Tropes you see within fanfiction also exists within book, and vice versa. So the Mary Sue trope still applies to books. So why is it that we seem, as an internet culture, so much more keen on pointing out this character flaw in fanfiction than in books? This likely comes from the fact that fanfiction is viewed as being “lower” in stature to books.

While books are allowed to get away with using stereotypes over and over again (except for the John Malkovich characterization like in Twilight, people are catching on to that), fanfiction is constantly criticized for following the same format because it’s easier to point out these flaws. With so many fanfictions on so many forums with so many opportunities to write comments, internet users are more able to voice their opinion on the tropes we see within those works.

Another factor may be the use of the other characters within the story. While an original work has all new characters that you can shape to fit around the central character(s), fanfiction does not have this luxury. Using an Author Avatar within fanfiction means you have to create an effective story of why these existing characters care about your new character. This isn’t even just an Author Avatar problem, it’s for any original characters the author may feel they want to have included in the story. If there are any faults in the setup, it’s easy for others to point out the flaws and bring in the accusations of the use of a Mary Sue.  

[theexbiochemist]

Do fanfiction and webcomics count as modern literature?

While some fanfiction and webcomics fall into the trap called “being terrible”, some of this work is able to transcend this pit of despair to become masterful works of literary art. You can ask any fandom what fanfiction are famous in their own walls and they will most likely spit out a list of either the best written or the most infamous. I could even recommend some that are up there with some of my favorite novels in terms of readability. Webcomics on the other hand are a visual medium similar to comic books, which already have a hefty debate on their literary merits.

  So do either have the stuff to be talked about like Shakespeare or F. Scott Fitzgerald? I say yes!

Fanfictions are mostly seen as the crappy “Twilight”-esc pieces of writing that anyone on the internet is able to publish on a whim. And that’s a little like how the regular book world is anyways. You will have your Harry Potters and your Fault in Our Stars, but you will also have your Twilights or your 50 Shades of Grey. Not all fanfiction is going to be up to snuff, but some of it will still be quality work.

And you may be saying, well fanfiction shouldn’t count because it just copies others’ work! Well nuts to that I say! Complain to all of the Renaissance painters/sculptors that made fanart of the Bible and had them become talked about as masterpieces.

  Now the next question is, how can webcomics be modern literature?

Homestuck, one of the most popular webcomics on the internet, has been calculated, not counting its Flash animation or game-mode pages, to contain more text than the novel War and Peace. If webcomics are able to get to this scale of writing, why should they not be included in the textbooks as a legitimate form of literature?

  There’s a lot to think about when it comes to modern literature and stuff, but I’ll leave you with these simple thoughts and maybe continue the discussion later.   

[theexbiochemist]

Why can they not correctly transfer books to movies??

  So we all know that the Harry Potter series was able to be successful as both a book and movie franchise, but they are a rarity in the industry. From Eragon to Percy Jackson our viewing experience has been marred by bad adaptations of some of our favorite books. So why is it that it is so hard to get books to become good movies?

The problem arises in two different forms, so we’ll go over both now:

Problem #1 (I seem to have become a fan of listing problems all of a sudden): Text vs. Visual Medium

Books are all about explaining everything. You have to, because unless you have illustrations, you have to explain every detail of what’s going on, what the characters look like, etc. It’s like describing events unfolding before you to a blind person. Where your eyes fail you, the words can describe even the most minute details. Meanwhile, movies are a very visual based medium. There is the phrase “Show, don’t tell.” Where words would only make the movie take forever and seem like a lecture, visuals can tell you all you need to know about the story. They are meant to be a feast for your eyes.

This presents the problem of going from this purely telling medium to a purely showing medium. And it doesn’t always work out.

  Problem #2: Gutting the Story

It seems like directors don’t read the books that they adapt. The Eragon movie had locations in the wrong order, completely missed important events from the books, and even had the dragon Saphira age incorrectly (really?). The Percy Jackson movie mixed up locations and had the villain appear earlier than they were supposed to based on the books. So why is it that this happens? As it turns out, authors don’t actually have much say in how the movie turns out. The script writers of movies are not obligated to read, or even know most of the contents of books before adapting them for the silver screen. They can simply take the overall plot and characters and make their own script out of it. Kenneth Oppel, author of Airborn, stated that he cancelled its movie adaptation because of all the changes they made to the plot, including ignoring the character’s actual personalities and adding a plot about mystical urns that was never present in the book. 

[jwrightscsu]

When you saw this image on your dash, you probably stopped, read it and thought one of two things. One being “I am having a bad day, thank you for reminding me you need the bad days to have good” and it brought a smile to your face. The other was probably “Okay, that make sense. But whats your point?” Well, the point of the poster is not important. You read the poster and think what you want about it. Maybe you love it, maybe you hate it. But like I said, that does not matter.

The poster serves a purpose, for you to look at it and think about it and if you did that the poster did its intended duty. The person behind the image may very well be a graphic designer who wants to prove a point using text and images.

This post will be a continuation of last weeks post about our majors. My second major will be Art with a concentration in Graphic Design. While my dream is to still move to London even with this career, I will defiantly need to make some dough not only for that but to also pay off my hefty out of state student loan.

So how much do graphic designers make anyway? According to The Under Cover Recruiter ( http://theundercoverrecruiter.com/infographic-how-much-do-graphic-designers-make/ ) graphic designers for commercial or industrial use (which I would use my degree for) can make up to $95K a year here in the U.S. That’s not to shabby, eh? But, what is my likelihood of actually getting a job? An estimated total of graphic designers working in the U.S. for 2018 is at about 330,000 people. When you think about it, with the millions of people currently living in America, I should have a pretty good chance of getting a job right?

Now that I know how much I’ll be making, where will I live? The best place for graphic designers to live (meaning the place your more likely to get the best paying job) is in California for general graphic designers and Michigan for the industrial/ commercial graphic designer.

But, the dream of living in the U.K. is still in the back of my head. So how much do the designers in London make? prospects.ac.uk ( http://www.prospects.ac.uk/graphic_designer_salary.htm ) says starting pay is around 25K U.K. pounds. That translates to about 41K American dollars. That’s actually not too bad for a starting salary. But let’s say I stay in the job for a good five- ten years. Whats my expectation then? They say about 65K U.K. pounds. Ready for the translation? About 107K American Dollars! Again….I think I’ll head off to London!

[theexbiochemist]

I was very tempted to make a "The existence of broccoli does not effect the taste of chocolate" reference in regards to that advertisement, but seeing as that is not the subject of your post, I will leave it at that.

It was very interesting to learn that graphic designers actually make a fairly large amount of money for their work. They are very deserving of that much (and in some cases, even more) pay, but considering how low on the corporate totem pole a lot of people unfortunately think graphic designers are, it does seem like a large amount of money.  

It's also interesting to note how many jobs there are for graphic designers there are in the U.S. and U.K. Good luck with your dream to go to London to work as a graphic designer! 

[theexbiochemist]

Have you ever been in the situation where you have roughly 4 papers due in just as many days? Cause that is not a fun boat to be on, I can guarantee it. But enough about my very unfortunate week. Let’s talk about a subject relating to the upcoming holiday that none of my friends are looking forward to, Valentine’s Day!

“How does this relate to writing?” you may be screaming into the heavens. “Give me a minute!” I yell right back. God, so impatient, you lot. I wish to discuss the topic of romance in novels, mostly the faults because that’s the easiest thing to talk about with it.

Problem #1: The John Malkovich Model

In case you didn’t know, there is a movie called Being John Malkovich where a bunch of people take control of this one actor’s body. That’s basically what happens in this genre of romance books. The main character is some female that has little to no personality of her own, and yet the plot still revolves around who she will be in a relationship with. Think Twilight, basically. The purpose of this bland character is that any plain, white, usually American female can slip into this character and use them as an avatar, basically pretending that they are the novel’s character. Because no characterization has been given to the protagonist, they are a blank slate that the target audience can use to fill their own personality into the gaps. This leads to a string of shoddily written books, where character arcs and actual story take a background to a will-they-won’t-they love story.

Problem #2: The Abuse-Is-Love Model

While most people just ignore 50 Shades of Grey, I am one of those who hates the novel with a passion. It, and books like it, glorify abusive relationships and disguise it as some romantic story where the main male character “just can’t live without (insert female character that probably follows Malkovich Model)”. The relationships in the novels are clearly abusive, the male dominating almost every aspect of the female’s life, refusing to leave them alone for a moment, stalking, destroying their relationships with others, etc. If you want to know more about how horrible 50 Shades is, I highly recommend you read the comedy/honest thoughts read of it on Jenny Trout WordPress blog (type “Jenny Trout 50 shades” into Google.)

Problem #3: So Few Queer Romance Novels

Have you ever seen a mainstream romance novel about queer characters? They’re out there, but they are few and far between. Of the mainstream books with queer characters that I’ve read, two were in the romance genre, one in the fantasy genre, and all three featured gay males. Little to no representation of transfolk, lesbians, bisexuals, gender queer/fluid people, asexuals, pansexuals, or any other sexual/romance/gender queerness. These are people who are underrepresented in media, and books actually being one of the largest media markets should mean they have more representation, whether it be in romance novels or other genre books.  

[samanthachrisman]

Go to college they said. Get a degree they said. Find yourself a well paying job they said. Find a good spouse they said. Settle down they said. My question is who is they? And why do they keep manipulating the minds of those of us who are still young and free, trying to persuade us that the only...

[theexbiochemist]

You have put so eloquently what many from our generation are thinking. Why are we being fit into this very narrow path of life by society? We are told that this is the best path for us to take, and yet it is not taken into account how everyone may have different situations that prevent them from following that path. We can only hope that our generation is more understanding of those who stray from the beaten path. 

[theexbiochemist]

On the subject of advertising coming up in class due to the so beautifully named Project 1 (I’m waiting for some kind of Area 51 reference in class), I have decided that I would help advertise some of my favorite lesser known books (in that I rarely here anyone talk about them) and explain why they are so awesome. Seeing as how paltry the advertising campaign for books seems to be, this is probably the single greatest contribution to the written word that I will ever have.

  (the advertisement budget of this movie was probably bigger than the ad budget for books in the entire last decade)   

Book #1: Apollo’s Outcasts

  Following in the same vein as works such as Ender’s Game and The Hunger Games, Apollo’s Outcasts features a group of children being sent to a Lunar Base when the United States Government begins to collapse. The novel works so well in that it frames the premise in such a light that we can believe that the events taking place are so close to our present. The situations are realistic, drawing on research of what actual lunar bases may be like, what their function might be, how those who work there are able to survive day to day. All-in-all it is wonderful sci-fi read if you ever need something not related to that one homophobic jerk.

  (he doesn't even deserve to have his face on my blog)

  Book Series #1: the Airborn trilogy

  Oh. My. God. I cannot recommend this series enough. The basic premise is that the young protagonists go on adventures at altitudes that increase with each book, from a low-flying airship in Airborn, to a high-altitude flyer in Skybreaker, to outer space in Starclimber. And it’s all set in a 1920s steampunk era. What is not to already love? The books are fun to read, the science and adventure are a joy to read, and the characters are absolutely marvelous. I may be overselling these books, but honestly, there are worth the read.

  Book Series #2: the Avatars trilogy

  Not related to either the blue cat people, or the bender of all four elements, this book series instead takes on another interpretation of an avatar, though I’ll let you read the books to find out what that exactly is (though they may be hard to find as the third one is out of print). The book takes place in the now past of 2012 (it was the very near future when the book was written), and focuses on several separate teenagers dealing with almost everyone else on the planet mysteriously disappearing, for reasons that I don’t want to go into because ~spoilers~. The characters are written great, they begin by fitting into stereotypes, but the author is very good at making them 3-dimensional by fleshing out their individual character arcs. A fantastic read if you don’t mind your fantasy mixing with your sci-fi, just to give you a little hint of what to expect. 

[theexbiochemist]

That Ex-Biochemist's First Post

So in my hours upon hours of thinking about what to write for this blog I have come to the (not so) shocking conclusion that I am generally not the person to come to for writing advice. Except in fits of inspiration, I am usually terrible at coming up with enough words to slap onto a page for enough content to satisfy any English teacher. What is supposed to be a 10 page paper explaining why genetically modified crops may be a bad thing for society, the argument will be summarized into a concise 3 pages. That is my way.

MORE UNDER THE READ MORE

You’d think being an avid reader would lead to being an avid writer, but the opposite effect has been enacted upon me. Seeing the wonderful, amazing writing others are able to accomplish has lead me to see the many flaws within my own writing. When I try to express a conversation through text, it always ends up being the most mundane, dry interaction between two people you will ever behold on a piece of paper. All of these words I’m using in this blog post? They disappear from my mind when Nanorimo time hits.

With my horrible experience with writing, and the horrible amount of non-tips I have so far not given you, I will instead point out people that may inspire you to be better writers. These are two great people that are amazingly brilliant and give so much hope to young (and not so young) writers everywhere:

 J.K. Rowling- One of, if not the most, influential young adult novelists in the world. This wonderful person has shared the Wizarding World with us since 1997 with her first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (changed to sorcerer’s stone in the U.S. because publishers apparently think we’re stupid). She sparked a movement that has united people around the world to celebrate a boy and his friends, and their adventures against the dark forces of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Battling depression and many other issues, Rowling is a great inspiration to writers and people everywhere.

  John Green- In my honest opinion, the best teen romance novelist of the 21st century. This guy is able to write modern teenage characters so well, it’s shocking to figure out that he’s actually in his 30’s. The author of the ever popular The Fault In Our Stars and Looking for Alaska, John writes some of the best dialogue between characters I have ever read. If you want to learn how to make characters speak naturally and believably, his books are the best ones to look to.  I could probably write paragraphs more about this guy, but I think I’ll just leave it at that. 

You gotta believe me, this guy is an award winning author.

[theexbiochemist]

About Me

So as the first part of this blog I present to you my About Me section:

I am a first year college student, currently majoring in Biochemistry (that will hopefully change soon). I am involved in the school's RHA program, where I'm a representative of Ingersoll Hall.

I enjoy reading quite a lot, whether it be books or webcomics. Don't try to ask what my favorite book is, I will never be able to answer that question.

I also love watching movies and TV shows. I'm currently trying to catch up on Doctor Who, and the list of older movies I need to watch keeps growing every day (my friends always complain about me not watching Lord of the Rings yet). Most anticipated movie of this year? Godzilla

Not much else to add, don't want this thing to get too long to read. Look forward to seeing what happens in the rest of the class!