Ania Ahlborn's Blog, page 10

Literature’s Ten Most Disturbing Sociopaths via LitReactor

ARTICLE BY KIMBERLY TURNER VIA LITREACTOR

How many times have you imagined smashing someone’s windshield with a tire iron after they cut you off in traffic? Or stabbing your boss with a sharp pencil when he denies you that raise yet again? Or conning your way into a carefree life of luxury? We all have dark urges—at least I hope it’s not just me or this is going to be one seriously awkward article—but very few of us act on them, which might be why we love reading about people who do. Many soci...

Salinger – Official Trailer

I first readThe Catcher in the Rye in high school–I was either a sophomore or a junior, and it was one of the most powerful books I had ever read. Our opinions on literature change as we grow older, and I no longer hold Holden Caufield in the same esteem that I did at sixteen or seventeen years of age, but regardless of how much time has passed, J.D. Salinger’s masterpiece is still with me to this day. For all I know, it’s one of the books that pushed my head underwater and made me the girl t...

6 Ways You’re Botching Your Dialogue via LitReactor

COLUMN VIA LITREACTOR | WRITTEN BY ROB D. YOUNG

[Image's facepalm shot courtesy ofStriatic.]

You want to write better dialogue. You’ve learned a few tricks of the trade. Great work so far, but are you unwittingly sabotaging your work, leaving only stilted, one-dimensional dialogue for your readers? Here are six painfully common ways writers botch their dialogue.

1. These voices are all clones.

[Image courtesy ofHJ Media Studios]

As writers develop, they learn to write dialogue that shows off each...

Five Authors Who Do Not Live Up To Their Mythology via LitReactor

ARTICLE BY CATH MURPHY VIA LITREACTOR

Discovering your idols have feet of clay is rarely a total disappointment. Prone as we are to erecting statues to those we admire, we’re also only a misplaced tweet away from tearing down those same statues and reducing them to tiny pieces. In today’s social-media-penetrated-world, the business of myth destruction is easy. Canny celebrities hire specialists to manage their twitter accounts, but the separation between our gods and ourselves has never been t...

A Virtual Release Party! Listen, Win! Woot!

Someday, I’m going to have a book release party in New York City. It’ll be big. There will be cake… possibly some famous people, and I’ll pull a Gatsby and show up at the last minute so people can whisper about where the author is, she’s so mysterious, we heard she’s weird…really weird, how else could she come up with these twisted stories?
But for now, I’m going to have a virtual release party on… my blog. (Poop noise.) Okay, it’s kind of lame… shut up. But how else am I going to give away al...

Come With Me, Into The Woods

My parents owned a cabin once. It was a massive, sprawling place tucked away in a pocket of tall, swaying pines. If you stood outside, all you’d be able to hear was the rush of wind through the branches, the occasional creak of tree trunks bending in the breeze. It was remote, it was beautiful, and after the sun set, the darkness that surrounded the cabin was a darkness so whole, so all-encompassing, that it was almost heavy with the secrets it could hold. The silence was loud enough to make...

25 Ways To Be A Happy Writer by Chuck Wendig

LIST VIA TERRIBLEMINDS | WRITTEN BY CHUCK WENDIG

1. WRITE

Writers write. If we were little simulated characters in a video game, we’d have various meters to fill up (liquor, pee, self-esteem, tweets) and one of them would be labeledwith two tags:HAPPINESS and WORD COUNT. The happy writer is a writing writer.

2. CARE LESS

We come to the page with too many expectations. Each poor little story is like a trembling donkey upon which we heap tons of weight. We don’t just want a good book, we want a bes...

Planned Out In Your Coconut? Put Your Ass In The Chair.

I’ve heard it, you’ve heard it, we’ve all heard it, I just hope you haven’t said it: “I haven’t written anything yet, but I have the whole book planned out IN MY MIND.” I’m sorry, but cue me rolling my eyes into the back of my head, sticking out my tongue, and playing possum (bad manners depending on the company you keep). I’ve heard this said on blogs, on Twitter, Facebook, hell, in person… and it makes me a little sick to my stomach every time. Or maybe what makes me sick is the way it’s sa...

Outlining: Why I Do It and 25 Things You Should Know

Recently, at a barbecue for a friend’s grad school graduation, someone asked me a writing-related question: do you outline, or do you just go with the flow? I grinned, took a breath, and asked, “do you want the long answer or the short?” Because there’s a long answer. A really, really long answer.
I used to be what’s called a “pantser”–writing by the seat of my pants, full steam ahead, screw planning things out, let’s go! I’d get an idea, do a few preliminary character sketches, and I was off...

Let’s Face It, We All Live In The Same Creative Ghetto via LitReactor

Every so often I come across an article about something pertaining to writing, something that reallybugs me, and someone takes the words right out of my mouth. This is one of those articles. It’s harsh, it’s angry, and it doesn’t pull any punches, but it gets its point across while preserving the frustration that comes with it.
What continually strikes me as odd is how much flak I catch for writing what I write. Horror? Why couldn’t I write somequality material? Hell, I’m guilty of putting mys...