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Misunderstanding Books: The Era of the Unsophisticated Reader

August 8, 2018

art, book, fiction, ignorance, literature, mediocrity, misunderstanding, society

Some time ago, I read a bizarre “review” (more about it in a moment) of a book I had read myself. The reviewer had written something in the direction of “I kept reading thinking that it’d get better, but it never did. The story was left unresolved.” That was basically it, that was the review. I’ve talked before about reviewing books fairly, but today we’ll tackle another issue: that of misunderstanding books.

It goes without saying that this was not a review. You can’t spend two lines (or even two hundred) saying simply “I didn’t like it” and claim this is a review. Perhaps we could call it a “rating rationale” though semantics isn’t the crucial factor here. Rather, I’d like to focus on something far more serious. Something that has far-reaching consequences for the current state as well as the future of our societies.

“What do you mean ‘misunderstanding books?'”

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Being a Published Author Is not what You Think

July 25, 2018

Writing

art, author, book, creativity, literature, publishing, writing

Traditionally, most aspiring authors have thought of getting published as the end goal. Being a published author has been a proof of merit. To be a writer who’s published means “you’ve made it”, right? Heck, if you visit my author page on Goodreads, you’ll see me referring myself to having been published.

Well, we could talk for hours debating whether having “made it” has ever been the case (the word “traditionally”, which opened this article is the operative word here), but let’s instead focus on the present moment. The grand question is this:

Does being a published author mean your writing woes are over?

Not only is the answer “not by a mile”, but in many cases I’d argue against “being a published author”. In other words, I’d argue that getting a publishing contract with a publishing house won’t necessarily be what you’d like.

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Linear Narrative Progression? No, Thanks

January 23, 2018

Fiction Writing Tips, Writing

art, creativity, fiction, literature, time, writing

Narrative Progression: From Point A to Point B

One of the biggest markers of inexperienced genre fiction writers is the way their narratives progress. In genre fiction such as romance fiction, detective fiction, etc. events often occur in a very linear way. A leads to B which leads to C; one second, then one second, then one second. A narrative progression where events are described in the order they have occurred is called a linear narrative progression and, as you realize, it is the simplest way to narrate an event. Let’s see a quick example, which we can later adapt and reuse.

Last weekend I went to New York and met a guy named John. Today I saw John walking down the street here, in Boston. We agreed to go fishing next Sunday

It’s a clear, natural-looking example. You wouldn’t think that there’s anything wrong with producing an entire narrative like that, right? Only, there is, which is the motivation behind today’s article. I will first show you why it’s a bad idea to structure your book following a linear narrative progression, then I will show you how to restructure it in a nonlinear narrative progression.

linear narrative progression — In a narrative, unlike reality, time doesn’t have to progress in a linear fashion

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