Chris Angelis's Blog, page 31
August 11, 2019
A Poem for the Fall (excerpt from the Self versus Self Project)
I know, I know, it’s still summer. At least in some parts of the world. In the southern hemisphere August is the last month of winter. And in Finland, summer is the time of the year that it can be sizzling hot or snowing. It’s all a mater of perspective. This is what this poem […]
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August 7, 2019
How to Write Vivid Descriptions for Your Novel
When I was a young(er) and stupid(er) author, I thought I needed to write long, elaborate descriptions of my settings. I read books where writers spent three pages on describing a wall, and I thought that’s how you write vivid descriptions. Only much later, as I became more experienced, did I realize the truth: To […]
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August 2, 2019
Literature Is More than a Sum of Its Parts
I have often mentioned this in the blog: Literature is more than a sum of its parts. In other words, a literary text – like any self-respecting art form – provides you with more than simply all of its words, paragraphs, and chapters. To talk about literature being more than a sum of its parts […]
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July 27, 2019
The Difference between Nihilism and Fatalism
For some of you, the point of the title might be absurd. “The difference between nihilism and fatalism?” you might ask with incredulity. “Why, these two are the exact opposite of each other!” But I’ve learned the lesson well: Never assume anything. This is especially the case when it comes to other people’s ideas. For […]
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July 21, 2019
Review of Rachel Cusk’s Outline
This post features another book review, and yet it’s so much more than a review. Writing this review of Rachel Cusk’s Outline is a fantastic opportunity for me to talk about literary fiction. What it should be and what it doesn’t care about. Often on this blog I talk about over-explaining in fiction, or about […]
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July 16, 2019
Five Questions about Dracula Answered
Let’s do something fun this time. Or rather, let’s combine fun with knowledge and – horror of horrors – the academia. Before you run away from this page, shrieking in horror, hold your breath and wait: I’m planning to take the five most popular questions about Dracula as they appear on Google searches and answer […]
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July 11, 2019
What Is Literary Fiction: not what You Think It Is
What is literary fiction? Well, I could offer you a definition – and I will, in a while. But let’s get this out of the way. Literary fiction is probably not what you think it is. Literary fiction is not a “genre”. Indeed, it is the very opposite of “genre” fiction (we will discuss this, […]
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July 6, 2019
Death Is a Perspective: from Epicurus to Schopenhauer
To say that death is a perspective might at first sound bizarre. The fear of death must be among the most powerful fears humans experience during their life (think about the irony for a second). Whether that fear is rational or not, it’s something we’ll need to talk about. We also need to ponder on […]
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July 1, 2019
Gothic Immortality in A Christmas Carol
Note: the following article on Gothic immortality in A Christmas Carol is a modified excerpt (pp. 63-64) from my doctoral dissertation, “Time is Everything with Him”: The Concept of the Eternal Now in Nineteenth-Century Gothic, which can be downloaded (for free) from the repository of the Tampere University Press. For a list of my other academic publications, see the […]
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June 28, 2019
Colors in Writing: How To Use Them in Your Novel
Vision is one of our most important senses. We use our eyes to interact with much of the world around us. Unsurprisingly, colors reveal a vast universe of beauty and meaning. Why should they be absent from your fiction? Colors in writing are far more important than many authors give them credit for. Since colors […]
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