Adam Heine's Blog, page 43

How to Write a Terrible Sequel

Brought to you by 17 years of Disney direct-to-video animated sequels.



LOWER THE STAKES. Make the conflict less important and less exciting than the original. Like in Cinderella 2, in which Cinderella stresses about throwing the perfect party for her new father, the king. Wonderful!



CREATE CONFLICT OUT OF NOWHERE. Conflict should never arise naturally from the original's conclusion. It should appear as though you made it up on the spot, just so you could have something to write about. Like ...

5 Reasons You Should Read Dune

I noticed some of you haven't read Dune. That's okay. I mean, there's TONS of books I haven't read. But because Dune is one of my favorites, I thought I'd give you a few (more) reasons to read it.



Sandworms. In the desert, these ginormous creatures follow any vibrations that feel like life. One of them will swallow you whole before you realize those are its teeth rising out of the sand all around you.



Fremen. They're like desert ninjas. You know the sandworms? These guys ride them.



Spice. ...

The Peeta Complex

So there's this book called THE HUNGER GAMES. If you don't know it, go read it now. Seriously, it'll be worth it (the book, that is--I can't promise the same for this post).



You like it? It's one of my very favorites. That's important to know, because I'm about to bag on one of the characters, but do understand: I love this book.



So, Peeta. He's perfect, isn't he? Strong, sensitive, artistic, and willing to do absolutely anything for the girl he loves--even though she's never shown any affe...

Books I Read: The Forest of Hands and Teeth

Like dystopia?* The Alliterati are giving away 4 YA dystopian novels over at the Secret Archives. Check it out!



* See what I did there?



Title: The Forest of Hands and Teeth

Author: Carrie Ryan

Genre: YA zombie dystopian

Published: 2009

Content Rating: R for zombie violence



All her life, Mary has only known the village--the Sisterhood that rules it, the fences that surround it, and the ever-hungry Unconsecrated trying to get in. Life is...okay--restricting, depressing, and the boy she like...

5 Things to Know About Multiple POVs

It's a normal and common structure. I know folks who aren't sure if multiple POVs are okay or not. They are. Some examples: Westerfeld's LEVIATHAN, Gaiman's NEVERWHERE, most of Terry Pratchett's DISCWORLD novels, Sanderson's MISTBORN trilogy, Card's ENDER'S GAME (those snippets of conversation at the beginning of each chapter constitute a separate POV), and many, many more.
Multiple POVs can be used with any narrator except an omniscient one. Third person limited is the most common, but in...

What Stops You From Reading?

It's rare that a book bothers me so much I have to put it down (especially if my to-be-read pile is small, an event which happens all too often out here). In 2.5 years I've read over 70 books (thanks, Goodreads) and only stopped 3. But there are a few things that might stop me from reading a book.



I hate a main character. They're arrogant, stupid, or both, to the point where reading about them makes me feel angry and/or dumb. It has to be pretty bad, though. I mean, I've never stopped readin...

Sketch: Harkonnens on Hard Times

So Emmet Blue called me out on my Quick and Dirty fantasy map. He made an educated guess (Indonesia), and now I owe him a sketch. Let that be a lesson to the rest of you: before putting a Google Fantasy Map in your book, maybe rotate it, tweak the coastlines, and don't ask Emmet if he knows where it is.



It's been over two months since I drew anything for you guys, though. Maybe I deserved it.



The commission was, and I quote, "an Elvis-suited Baron Harkonnen singing karaoke while floating at...

What Can a Train Wreck Tell Us About the Future of Publishing?

You probably heard of the Jacqueline Howett fiasco a couple of weeks ago, wherein one self-published author got a bad review, yelled at the reviewer, and then began swearing at everyone who came to the reviewer's defense. In reading it, I understood the train wreck analogy: I knew people were getting hurt, but I couldn't not watch.



It got a lot of people thinking about self-publishing (and the social psychology of the internet), but to me it says that maybe the worlds of traditional publishi...

Five Things I Love

I don't remember where I got this meme, but here it is. You may see it again in the future.



Also, you may notice there's a poll in the upper-right corner (some of you will have to click through to see it). I'm thinking of doing polls this way every once in a while, but probably not if nobody's voting. It's up to you guys.



Anyway, 5 things I love:



Ninjas 

Rainy Days

Princesses

Deep Fried . . . Whatever

Wash

Hook, Hook, Where is the Hook?

The hook is what you say when your friends ask, "So what's your book about?" It's how you tweet about your book. It is the fundamental concept behind the plot of your story, written in such a way as to make the reader say, "Cool, tell me more."



But how the heck do you distill 100,000 words into one sentence of cool? It's not easy. The internet has some good tips already, but I'm going to throw my own version into the mix because with something as subjective as a novel hook, you can't ha...