SERIES: GOLDEN LOTUS

This was a series I wrote and I finally got myself to post it.

You can find it on Wattpad and Inkitt (the full story is still to be posted here).

Short Story: Wings of Icarus

One of my challenges or resolutions this year is to write a short story each month to either send it to Furious Fiction or just keep it to myself. This is a story I sent in this month. It didn’t get a prize or anything but that’s not really the point of why I send them in the first place. Last year, most of my time was spent with writing my novel and I found myself not really improving in my actual writing since I was so focused on finishing the project. Writing these short stories has allowed me to expand my horizon and see how my writing can develop as I explore different settings and stories while completing my novel. It’s been an great experience and deep down, I’m still a little proud of this piece so I wanted to keep it here.

You can also read it on Wattpad if you prefer the reading platform!

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Feminism in Storytelling

Feminism in storytelling is going through a transitionary period. So it’s not the most impressive even in stories that are aimed for this particular theme. The irritating part is no one truly mentions this because it’s welcoming a wave of hellfire into your mentions since people like certain things to stay a certain way. In this case, people like feminism to either be heavily drowned or excessively pushed rather than a natural flow of thematic structure in storytelling.

Pros & Cons: Original vs Fanfiction

Original and Fan-fiction have always had a clash for many reasons. However as time went on, both mediums are now starting to live together in the entertainment industry. Perhaps not in full harmony but whether each party likes it or not, both mediums now have an interest and use in todays’ market.

This week I wanted to talk about some of the pros and cons of each of these mediums (including the community around them) and how they contribute to entertainment audiences:

How to Destroy a Genre: Vampire Edition

Let’s all be honest. How interested are we in another vampire story being released? This is branching from the plot change my book went through from fully vampire themed to a dark high fantasy. One of the biggest reasons that my sister also pointed out is the mere word ‘vampire’ causes one to cringe so much the book closes on its own. However, in truth Vampires are historically interesting creatures that have just as much depth in their folklore as Faeries or Elves. One would think Vampires would be a highly respected genre like Wizards or even Demons. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t really see it at that level anymore.

Today I will talk about all the ways a genre can be viciously murdered in the storytelling community in any medium. Vampires in particular will be discussed because the theme has become a prime victim to genre death.

Plot Changes while Writing a Book

There’s a million reasons why a book takes a long time to finish. Mostly it’s because the writer wants to provide the best possible story to their audience ensuring everything is interesting, engaging and able to evoke emotions/messages. Sometimes this involves changing the plot altogether for the sake of the story.

I’ve had to go through this recently despite finishing the first draft of the other plot. While it felt kind of disheartening at first, there are a few lessons I learnt throughout this process. This week I will mainly be talking about the main three things!

First Draft Struggles + Personal Lessons

Last Sunday I printed out the rough draft for my book which felt both accomplishing and terrifying at the same time. Something about holding the story in your hand for one thing is really solidifying; a small way to remind yourself that you did a lot of work even though it was hidden in the electronic folders.

Then also the terrifying journey to read what your brain dump looks like. For most people, the first draft is the version no writer wants a reader to see because it’s almost written in their own personal language that no one else will understand. That’s what the second draft is for. To make people understand that weird, personal language swirling around in an authors’ brain.

While I had a few other things to talk about this week, I think this blog is a good place for me to write down some lessons I’ve learnt while writing. Especially since the writing community is all about sharing experiences and learning from one another to develop each other’s style. So here are a couple of things I’ve realized while writing my less than pleasant first draft:

“It takes you that long to write a book?”

A question clearly giving away that someone has never written or finished a book in their entire life. Writer whether aspiring or otherwise go through a series of people who love pretending they know what it means to be a writer. Less than pleasant but well-intentioned is usually the nicest way to describe them but this post is not to completely bash this collection of people. Instead I wanted to touch on the three points usually involved in the writing process.

These are obviously based on my experiences and every writer will vary on their process but what you see in print or in online book stories has a gruelling journey that no one sees. Hopefully with a few words on this post, people (especially non-writers) can understand why it takes someone that long to write a book.

What you need to know about fan-fictions (before you judge them)

Fan-fictions may be an unconventional way to begin this new blogging scheme but I find that people jump onto the negative bandwagon far too quickly when it comes to this topic. While my experiences in both original and fan-made fiction are not as vast as some others, I do see this lack of diverse knowledge behind what fan-fictions are to people and why it is still a fairly popular medium in entertainment.

WHAT ARE FAN-FICTIONS?

If you do not already know, fan-fictions are transformative creative pieces either inspired by or contain characters from a TV show, movie or book. Fan-fictions also involve fictional characterisations inspired by celebrities mostly by their name and physical features depending on the genre or universe.

WHY DO PEOPLE WRITE FAN-FICTIONS?