Memes Make Writing Rules More Fun!

A great grammar post from YA Highway.

Memes Make Writing Rules More Fun!: Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally.

My very educated mother just served us noodles. (Anyone else still sad about Pluto? Just me?)

They're mnemonics. They're usually silly. And they help us to remember random things. But in this lovely age of technology the internet has brought us something even better.

Memes.

They're not just for Chuck Norris anymore.

English is often coined as one of the most difficult languages to learn given all the rules and take-backsies of said rules in particular though rarely make-sensible situations. Never fear. The internet, as always, has got your back.




Everyone, every one. Alot, a lot. For help remembering when to hit that space bar . . .

Brilliance by Hyperbole and a Half

I'm not judging your story either way. Just be sure YOU know what you mean . . .

It's like the internet has eyes and sees into my documents o.O

tricky, tricky . . .

Don't lie. You've done it too.

Also not to be confused with Yar, which is, obviously, the language of the Pirate.

What are your favorite grammar memes?

Fairy Tale Photography by Irina Istratova

From, Once Upon a Blog.
Fairy Tale Photography by Irina Istratova:

Irina Istratova is an artist from the Ukraine who has a preference for the dark side but this photographer/photomanipulator/digital artist has also produced some lovely fairy tale-like pieces.

I like that despite her obvious preference for the dark and morbid side of things she shares this ultra romantic tale on her profile of how she met her husband. I have to wonder if meeting him inspired her to work on some of the fairy tale romantic images posted here. :)

Irina Istratova

You can see more of her work HERE and HERE (but of course, remember you will see some 'dark' work there too).

Snow White by Jasmin Darnell

Another fairy tale related post from, Once Upon A Blog.

Snow White by Jasmin Darnell:

Snow White by Jasmin Darnell a.k.a. yasahime

After my little rant about bad illustrations in my previous post I simply had to put up something beautiful. I found this lovely illustration quite a while ago and it immediately came to mind as a gorgeous contrast and an example of how the illustrations mentioned could have been handled, inspiring kids and grown ups everywhere to go find beautiful fairy tale books of their own to read. This illustration isn't even considered complete, according to the artist's notes!



This Kiwi artist is only just getting going in her career and I wish her the best of luck in her plans to illustrate anthologies of children's literature. I'd love to see what she comes up with. While we wait for that to happen ;), she has a small Etsy shop HERE and a gallery on deviantArt HERE.



And speaking of beautiful illustration, here are just a few of my favorite illustrated collections of fairy tales (as one might suspect, I have many!), other than my Lang and multiple Dover collections, which I adore (H.J. Ford is one of my favorite illustrators of all time). These covers are in no particular order and are really just the first few I pulled off my (currently very mixed-up) shelves:

This I like because there are so many world tales in the book & the illustrations are like complete story murals all by themselves.

What are some of your favorite illustrated fairy tale volumes?

Bluebeard Illustration Roundup

Another lovely fairy tale post from, Once Upon a Blog.

Bluebeard Illustration Roundup:

Bluebeard by littlecrow (Ashley Vercekaites)

Bluebeard has been on my mind since the last Grimm episode on NBC so I thought I'd share what I found around the web (many of them led back to deviantArt accounts).



I always enjoy seeing different artist interpretations of a fairy tale. Every now and then you'll see something that makes you think about the tale in a slightly different way - and that's fantastic. Many of these do that. Others I included just because the look is so different.



Please do click on the image above at the head of the post and see it full size. It's simply beautiful and I couldn't make it big enough here to do it justice.



Links to the artist's site, or where I found them, are below each image.

Bluebeard's Gallery by hogret

Bluebeard by biffno

Bluebeard by BleedingArt21

Bluebeard Colors by charkxl

Bluebeard by Benjamin Lacombe*

Bluebeard by Thierry Dedieu

Le Barbe Bleu by ZhdaNN

Barbe-bleue by ThornBulle

Bluebeard by Yulia Valeeva

Bluebeard conceptual cover by Franco Spagnolo

Bluebeard's Last Wife by hogret

*Benjamin Lacombe is one of my favorite artists ever and I have two special posts in the making, waiting for the day I will finish them and post them!

Fantasy World-Building: Magical Rules

Helpful post from Query Tracker.

Fantasy World-Building: Magical Rules:

Magic Circle by J.W.W. Waterhouse

World-building is different for those of us who write speculative fiction than for people who write stories based in the "real" world. Rather than examining the past for factual details, we have to make up alternate worlds. One of the most important tasks, then, is to establish the world's "rules," or perhaps more accurately, the laws.



By laws, I mean the factual kind that recur in nature. You can jump upwards as many times as you want to, but as long as you’re dealing with a g of gravity, you will always come back down. You can do your darndest to stop the ocean tides, but as long as the earth keeps spinning and the moon keeps pulling, there will be tides.



The same thing has to happen with magic. There must be laws to any magical universe, and to create them, a writer must ask herself things like



* Who can use magic and who can’t? Only people who are trained? Only people who have certain genes? Only people of a certain gender or race or culture? Why only those people? Must the power be awakened, or is it there from birth?



* What is magic? Where does it come from? Is it a force of nature, neither good nor evil, or is it a spiritual or eschatological kind of power only angels or demons can grant?



* How is magic used? Must the user cast spells, or is magic more of a generalized energy? Must he rely on herbs, or blood, or eye of newt, or are spell components obsolete in your world? Are sigils, runes, or incantations used?



* What price must be paid? If you fight gravity by jumping, eventually you’re going to wear yourself out. That’s the price. So what happens when one uses magic? And are the consequences the same for any kind of magic, or do they vary with the kind of spell?



* What are the limits on magic? If your character can do anything and everything, there’s no tension in the story, so what can’t she do with magic?



* Are there different types of magicians with specialized powers -- like necromancers and alchemists and prophets -- or are they all the same?



Your answers can’t be random, either. They have to make sense, just like the laws of our universe do. And you can’t be whimsically changing them because your character suddenly needs to be able to do this or that kind of magic. You should write your rules down and pretend they're set in stone.



One more thought: It's challenging to come up with new rules if you write in multiple fantasy universes. When you have a logical, well-defined set of rules that you carefully abide by, it can be hard to think beyond them for another story. This is part of the reason many authors set different stories in the same universe. If you have trouble coming up with multiple sets of rules and keeping them straight, don't feel bad about setting things in the same universe!

Carolyn Kaufman, PsyD's book, THE WRITER'S GUIDE TO PSYCHOLOGY: How to Write Accurately About Psychological Disorders, Clinical Treatment, and Human Behavior helps writers avoid common misconceptions and inaccuracies and "get the psych right" in their stories. You can learn more about The Writer's Guide to Psychology, check out Dr. K's blog on Psychology Today, or follow her on Facebook or Google+!

How to Network Without Networking

Helpful tips from Nathan Bransford, past literary agent, now author.

How to Network Without Networking:

"Ferdinand of Hungary meeting with Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Spain at Nördlingen" - Peter Paul Rubens

I’m not the life of the party. I’m not someone who can step into a gathering and work a room. I’m pretty introverted in real life. And I’m not what you might call a mover and a shaker.



But I think of some of the opportunities I’ve had over the years, some of the people I’ve been so fortunate to meet, some of the places I’ve been able to go and things I’ve been able to do… and yeah. Lots of those opportunities came from my “network” (those quotes are me cringing at that word).



So uh… How in the world did I develop a network when I’m not good at networking?



You hear so much about how it's all about who you know, how you have to network, etc. etc. For me personally, it's not something I made a conscious choice to do.



When I look back, I think there have been two big things that helped, and they’re things anyone can do:



1. Do not think of your network as a network.

2. Build something.



Do Not Think of Your Network as a Network



I don’t have a network, I have friends. And I’m really serious about this.



The thing about the word “networking” is that it has a mercenary edge to it, like we’re just going to get to know each other because of what we can get out of each other. And not only is that completely icky, it doesn’t work.



Because who wants to get to know someone else just because of what they can get out of them? How shallow is that relationship, and how is either party really motivated to help each other out when the time comes?



Find the people who you like and whose work you genuinely admire, and invest in those people. Become friends with those people. Don’t force it, don’t do it because they’re successful, do it because you like them and actually want to help them out.



Obviously when your network expands you can’t invest equally in everyone who is investing in you, but give of yourself what you can and treat people with respect and pretty soon you’ll be surrounded by amazing people that you’ll feel incredibly lucky to know.



And that leads to #2.



Build Something



Building things opens doors. For me it was the blog and the Jacob Wonderbar novels, but other people have built groups or organizations or journals or a Twitter following or any number of things.



When you build something it’s more than just creating a platform or a bully pulpit, what’s amazing about building something is that it will ultimately attract like-minded people to you.



You’re putting a part of yourself out there, and pretty soon you’ll find that you’re drawing in other people who like the things you like and share your outlook and worldview. It’s an amazing thing, and I’ve found some of my best, real-life friends through the blogosphere and social media.



And ultimately that leads right back to point number #1. It may seem trite or twee, but look: You’re not building a network, you’re making friends.