Good always beats Evil. But is it Right?

Good and Evil, Light and Dark, Pure and Impure, we’ve heard them all before, it is the basic plot of almost every book and story. You have the good pure protagonist what every that might be against the evil and hateful antagonist, and always good comes out on top. But why? Why does good always have to win? Why can’t the bad guy get his happy ending? Well I think there is a few reasons for this.

One reason why I think authors don’t usually step outside this idea of good always wins, is because it’s what everyone knows. I say usually here because not every author does stay inside this boundary. See everyone believes that no matter how hard evil tries the good guy will always come out on top, they will always win, but I think that it doesn’t always have to be this way. Imagine a book where through the entire story the good guy always won, but at the end he was defeated and he lost. Imagine the backlash and hate that author would get. But see I think we should use the idea of good not always winning, because it makes people think.

My second reason why I believe that authors usually stay in this idea of good always wins is because it sells. Most of the popular books follow the idea of good always wins. And back to my first point the amount of hate and backlash the book that steps outside that idea would get would be insane. There would be people upon people bashing on it just because it changed the way a story is supposed to work. But that is why I think it the idea of good always wins needs to be broken more often.

See I personally think that books need to stop sticking to the overused idea of good always winning, because that isn’t was always happens. Sometimes the guy doesn’t get the girl, sometimes the bad guys should be able to win. But now should this happen every time? No. I still do feel that the good guys should save the day, triumph over whatever evil they faced, and maybe even get that girl. But I still do feel that authors should from time to time change up that old idea of good always wins. Or maybe even change it so that it is a neutral ending. But that is for another blog.  

How Children plays effect children

The Heartless Giant, like I said a few blogs ago I kind of bashed on the musical a little but I thought about it some more and then, I read a blog on Musical Theater and Other Things (the author was one of the cast in the show), and she wrote about her experience with the musical and watching how kids were connected to the show, so I thought I would put my own to sense in.

So personally I did not enjoy the story of The Heartless Giant, but I did see a lot of kids who did. Being a musician and being in the pit gives you the opportunity to actually see the kids in the audience and how they react to certain things. See kids are very weird and they will do some pretty weird things when it comes to children’s theater. They will laugh at things that you would never expect, and they won’t laugh at things you thought they would, so when you do a children’s theater you have to be careful of the jokes you make.  

Another thing in children’s theater you are allowed to break the 4^th wall, a lot. And when you really get the kids involved and it is really cool to see. It really makes them feel like they are in the story, it makes them feel like they are helping move the plot along, or helping solve a major problem, even if they are thinking they are just helping answer a simple question. But there is a down side to doing too much 4^th wall breaking because if you overload the kids with too many questions then they won’t be interested any more.

Finally I am going to kind of steal something from the blog post by Musical Theater and Other things, and that is the kid’s reaction after the show. See at my school after every play we go out and do autographs for the kids and ask them really basic questions like, favorite character, or favorite part of the play. But there are some kids that it gives them ideas. Like personally I was talking to one of my fellow actors and he told me that a little kid had come up and told him that after watching our play she wanted to become and actor herself, which being an actor is one of the best compliments you can give.

So that is how I think Children plays effect children.       

Political Ad Campinas

Oh it’s that time of year isn’t, the time when every Politician starts trying to trash talk every other Politician just to get into congress or even become the President of the United States of America. Now when voting comes around I sadly will not be able to vote which I don’t know if that is a good or bad thing still but none the less I still hate ad campaigns but for a couple of my own personal reasons.

The first reason I hate political ad campaigns is because of what they tell you. Presidential candidates and they team of ad developers will seriously pour millions upon millions of dollars into creating ads. Now this is not me saying that advertising your message and what you see for the country is wrong, on the contrary that I am mostly fine with. It’s when they are pouring all of that money into ads bashing on all of their other opponents. Now again if there is a few ads explaining why the other opponents would not make a good president, and what you would do better is fine. But a lot of those ads are just they saying “they are wrong and vote for me” and that is basically it.

The second thing I hate about political ad campaigns is how much you see them, now like I said early advertising your message is fine but I don’t want an ad bashing another candidate every other commercial. Now don’t get me wrong shaving people see your message is very important when it comes too wining a presidential campaign, but please don’t shove it down our throats. We get that you want to help the country, but we don’t have to hear it every 60 seconds over and over again.

Finally the last reason I hate ad campaigns and where the literature part comes in is how affective they are. Seriously with how much money the pour into making these ads it is shouldn’t be a major shock to people but to me it is kind of scary just how effective these things are. Even though in the last ad I said I hate ad analysis, just looking at a political ad and not even doing an in depth analysis, what they do is very effective.

So yes I hate ad campaigns. Even though they are very hateful and very constant, they are very effective at what they are supposed to do. So that is why I hate ad campaigns.      

Ad Analyses

I hate doing ad Analysis. So in my advanced placement language we just finished up doing ad analysis for a grade, and I literally hated almost every second thing, and that is not an understatement. So for those lucky enough not to have ever had to do an ad analysis I will briefly give you definition of what it is. So basically you pick out a single ad take a bunch of terms from sentence structure, imagery, tone, etc. and you try to find examples of it in the ad and then find how the ad is trying to sell you the product. And let me tell you it is one of the most soul wrenching, most boring I have ever done. Three major reasons, it’s boring, it’s long and it’s over complicated.

See ad analysis is not one of the most boring things I have ever done. I would rather watch paint dry, because I have actually done it and it was more fun. Ad analysis is you basically staring at an hour for four hours and then trying to figure out what it all means. I feel like Jason trying to figure out “what do the numbers mean”. (If you don’t get that joke don’t worry it is a video game reference from call of duty black ops so if you don’t know that game do not worry).

And like I said early a major reason why ad analysis is so boring is because it is so long. If I had to spend maybe thirty minutes on it I might enjoy or just be ok with doing it. But like I said, I am pretty sure I clocked in at over 4 hours minimum of ad analysis, and that was just from analyzing one advertisement and I didn’t even get in everything I wanted to get in because I was already at two page paper and I didn’t want to write anymore, I am also pretty sure I fried my by brain doing it.

And ad analysis wouldn’t be so bad and so long if it wasn’t so complicated. With how many terms and examples and how long the paper had to be it was just stupid complicated. I did 4-5 drafts of that paper, now I know that doesn’t sound like a lot but for me I usually only need one or two drafts before I am ready to write my.

So yes I hate ad analysis, and I feel bad for anyone who had to go through this. If you haven’t had to go through this, one you’re lucky, two I hate you. And if you are an L.A. teacher (besides my own) please tell me why you make your students go through this torture. So there is my rant about why I hate ad analysis.        

Musicians V.S. Writers

  Oh I am going to lose all respect from my music and writing friends after this piece. So yes I personally believe that you can connect the idea of music and writing in same category. Now would I consider them both literature? No. Music isn’t a form of writing, but they use very similar ideas in what they say, how they say it, and how they musicians and writes create their pieces.

First off writers and musicians in my personal opinion create art in very similar ways. They both start off thought, an idea, a spark, something that makes them think I can create something from this.  

After they get piece a paper or a computer and they write. Now I know that sounds stupid and like a really obvious connection but trust is still is one.

On what they write. Now what they write seems like you can’t connect them one is notes and one is words, but trust me you can connect them. Both music and writing tell the same story, they tell stories of love, and action, adventure, sadness, mystery, everything. They both create emotion, beautifully portrayed stories, of amazingness.

Even the one thing you think would separate musicians and writes is how they write their stories, how one uses words and the other uses notes there are still almost the same. You just have to think about it outside the box. One is with specifically crafted words, hand-picked just to make sure they story is portrayed just right. The other is told with specifically pick notes, beautifully crafted to tell the exact story the musician wants. So even though one uses words and the other notes musicians and writers still write their stories in the same way.

So do I still believe that I will probably lose all respect from my writer and musician friends? Yeah probably. But do I still think I am right? Absolutely. See even though you may think that musicians and writers are completely different people, they aren’t. They create their craft in almost the same way. So yes I do believe that writers and musicians are basically the same people.               

Play Review: The Heartless Giant

This week was show week for me at my high school, and we did a very interesting play. See my High school every year puts on a winter show for little kids, and this year we did a played called The Heartless Giant, and was written by one of our teachers Mike Moran. See the show the good, the acting was great, the music was phenomenal (and that is being a little bias because I was the percussion for the show), but it was the story itself that was very interesting. See The Heartless Giant is based off of a Norwegian folk tale, which is weird in itself but it gets weirder. But before I do go any further I do want to say that this play is still great, but I feel that there was a few things that could be changed.

               

Another reason this play is weird is just because of the tittle itself, The Heartless Giant. The reason I personally think this is because the tittle can have two meanings. The first meaning, that it could have possibly been and that I thought it was when I first saw the script was supposed to be a giant that was mean and didn’t care for anything, and that the play was supposed to be about teaching a giant how not to be heartless and care, I was totally wrong. The other meaning that was used in the play was that the giant truly had not heart in its body. Which for a kid watching makes sense, but for someone like me being in high school and reading and preforming this play I personally felt that it was a huge missed opportunity by the author to make the tittle could show a little more of the story.

                

The other thing I found weird was that there really wasn’t a lot of adult humor. Now don’t get me wrong this is not me condoning the practice of kids watching adult humor, but when you see anything kid oriented most of the time there is at least a little bit of adult humor that the kids aren’t supposed to get but everyone in high school gets. But in the heartless giant there really wasn’t any, now don’t get me wrong the play was fine without it but again I feel it was a missed opportunity.

                

So there was my take on what could have gone better in the musical I was just in, and mister Moran if you do read this please take these as constructive criticism and not me bashing on your script.

  

Book Review: The Know it All

A book review, final something that doesn’t have to do with The High School Author or Thespian Festival. Yes I know it’s a miracle, but I promise those blogs will return eventually but I finally finished a book called The Know-it-All by A.J. Jacobs, and I am going to say, this book is one of the most annoying, long and stupid book I have ever read.  The book is 385 pages of just boringness. 

Now don’t get me wrong the book does have some humor and interesting ideas but it is so boring that those brief things of humor can’t help you get through this book.

The Know-it-All is short is basically the story of a man’s journey to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, which is just as boring as it sounds. The one interesting thing that actually drew my attention to the book was how it was written. Each chapter was labeled with a letter, and there were definitions of a lot of the words that the author picked, so basically he wrote a dictionary. What I first thought was going to be a cool and interesting idea, suddenly turned into a struggle of a chore.

Yes like I said the book isn’t horrible, with a few redeeming factors, like a little humor here and there. But there is so much filler, that once you actually get to the humor you are either so worn out that you completely miss the joke, so bored that you just start skimming and miss the humor all together, or get to the humor and either don’t get it or do get it and maybe have a small chuckle. For a small chuckle it isn’t worth reading the book.

Finally there really isn’t a “Story” to the book. It is basically just a real telling of how a guy read 

through and understood the Encyclopedia. I mean if you include the little snippets of how he tries using the knowledge that he gains from reading the Encyclopedia in everyday life a “story” then yes there is, but it is an extremely boring story, personally I would have preferred watching paint dry then reading this book.

So in conclusion I personally would not recommend The Know-it-All to anyone. Personally it is just a boring book with a little bit of humor thrown here and there.  But I know there are a few people who will disagree with me so, if you have read this book and do think it is actually good then please comment below trying to defend this book, I would love to see why people think it is a good book.    

How to Write a Play/Book

How to write a play or book, yes I know it sounds so cliché and yes I know I did a very similar blog like this a few weeks ago, but after going to Thespian Festival I think this might help some people out. This blog will be what I think the basics are to writing a play/book so my ideas may or may not work for everyone.

      

      1.       Creating Plot.

Before you even start writing you need to know what you want to write about. This can be anything from sci-fi, fantasy, romance, mystery, horror, etc. but knowing what you are going to write about is probably the most important thing to do when starting to write a play.

      

      2.       Creating characters.

So since I have already done two blogs about this I don’t really feel like going into great detail on this topic but it is important. Using the techniques I talked about in my other blogs about creating characters, it is the second most important thing because without characters you don’t really have a story.

      

      3.       Creating a problem

I know this is basically creating a plot but this is going to go here for one major reason, the idea of a bad guy. Because yes it does have to deal with creating a plot, but it also has to deal with the character as well, because without the bad guy you are missing half of what makes a book/play a book/play, and yes the bad guy doesn’t have to be a person but it still can be.

      

       4.       Making Dialogue/ Lines.

Again already did a blog on this so this one is also so I am not going to go into extreme detail with this one, but dialogue is still important. Without dialogue you again still don’t have a story. You don’t have communication so nothing even really happens. Especially in play without lines there really isn’t anything there.

      

       5.       Creating a title

See this can go either here or at the beginning because you can either start with the title or end with it. It just really depends on what kind of person you are.

So that is all I have for you this time. Probably the next few blogs will be about Creating plot and Creating a title so do look for those. And finally I do hope that this can a help a few people out when it comes to writing. 

Playing God?

Yes another blog that is inspired by The High School Author, what else do you expect nowadays from me. Looking through some ideas for blogs this week I came across a blog on The High School author called Playing God. It talked about how writes are basically a god of their own world, and I total agree with the idea. When you are creating a new story, you create everything, the background, the characters and even what happens in the whole world. But one thing I feel The High School Author looked over was the dark side to this idea.

When making a story even though you are basically God there are certain things you can’t do. See, having complete control over the world you build is great and all because it lets you do what you want, but you have to stick to the world you create. What I mean by this is that when you create a world you have to stick by the rules you make. You can’t set a boundary to your world and then a little bit later completely destroy that boundary because it makes the plot cooler. Now if you give a certain reason why your boundary change like, you change worlds or change the people then it is fine. But when you set a definite rule for your world please keep to that rule.

Another bad side to playing God is sadly setting boundaries. See after you create your world and its boundaries you can’t go back on those rules and this can end up leading to a lot of problems. If you create your boundaries to thin then you have the chance of running into a problem and not being able to expand the plot any further, but you still have to think about the opposite. Make your boundaries to large then their most likely won’t be any problem that will stand in the way of your main character.

So when you are creating a story and “playing God” be careful of your boundaries and where you set them because once their set it is really hard to change them. Finally I do want to give a huge thanks to The High School Author, whoever they are has been a really big help so if you so somehow end up reading this I thank you for all the topics I have basically stole from you.      

How to Make a Great Character

     So this weekend I went to a thing called Thespian Festival. Thespian Festival is basically a giant convention for acting and you can learn many things at it. From the technical side of shows, to how you can correctly portray your emotions, there was a lot of things you could learn. One major thing I learn was how to make your characters better in writing. As someone who really enjoys writing I feel that after going through that seminar I can now make my characters a lot more realistic and personal. Now I know I did a blog post on this topic a few weeks ago but now that I have learned a lot more I feel like this post can help expand on that idea.

                

     Well there was really only one major thing the speaker really talked about and it was something he called the “Questionnaire”.  The “Questionnaire” is a series of 77 questions to ask about your character, but you have to act like you’re asking your character these questions and not yourself. These questions can range from simple questions like Age, Gender, Education, and things of that mater, to questions that might seem a little strange like Vocal quality, What do they look for in a partner, stuff like that to questions you probably have to think really hard about and don’t even make a lot of sense like, do they think wrestling is real, do they believe in UFO’s, or even what position do they sleep in. Finally you get to the hard question, questions that even you yourself might not want to answer like, who do they hate, what is their greatest fear, to finally what is there biggest secret.  

     Now I know some of these questions don’t make that much sense to ask, but if you think about there important. Even though the questions may not portray to the story, if you don’t know the answers to them, then you don’t know your character well enough. And if you don’t know your character then what is the point of writing. I personally believe that this idea of the “Questionnaire” is amazing because it helps you find things about your character that you may have never thought to ask. So I would like to make the list available for people, but I don’t know if I am allowed to put it on the internet, so instead let me give you an idea, make a list of questions to ask your character. These questions from anything, serious, funny, stupid anything just make sure you know enough about your character before you write.

Why Guys Should be in Theater

Also on my weekly reading I came across a post from Musical Theater and Other Things, and found probably one of the most interesting ideas for a blog post. The post was talking about guys in theater and me personally being a guy in theater I was drawn to it. The author mainly just talked about what roles males have played in famous play and I thought there was a huge idea that the author good have gone for, why guys should be in theater.  

As being a guy in my high schools theater department I have noticed a lack of guys trying out for plays. I mean yes you have the guys that always tryout because they will always get a role, but besides them not a lot of guys try of for plays. I think this is because of a few reasons, one major one is that guys might think it isn’t “manly” to be in plays and musicals but that is where their wrong. See there is a lot of “manly” things that guys do in plays. From drugs and violence in plays like Fame and Rent, to even guys watching prostitution in the musical Jekyll and Hyde. There are many things that are “manly” in theater.

Another reason why I think guys should be in theater is because that is the original idea. Way, way back in the time of Shakespeare women weren’t allowed to act in plays so all plays casted only guys, yes this means that guys did have to dress in drag for plays. But the reason why they did this is because no judge them and it is the same idea now.

Finally the last reason I believe that guys should be in theater just because it’s fun. Preforming for an audience just for their entertainment to me personally is one of the best things in the world. Another reason it’s fun is because you can meet so many new people, people from all walks of life. It’s just a good time.

So in conclusion I do believe that guys should be in theater. It’s fun and you can be “manly” as well. Now does that mean every guy should be in theater no, not everyone is fit for the stage. But I would say that you should at least try acting on a stage. You never know you might be good at it. 

That Old Reading Slump

Another blog Inspired by Pop Culture for Days, here we come.  So while I was doing my weekly read through of blogs I found a blog posted by my good friend Rowan, How to Get through That Reading Slump. I read through the post and thought about it a little, then came to the thought of hey I haven’t done anything with books in a while! So why not now!? But before I do start this post may sound a little similar to my getting over writers block post a few weeks back, because they are similar topics just so you know.

That “reading slump”, everyone has been there. You have just finished one of the best series you have ever read and then you think what’s next only to realize that it is the end. You get sad then have to trudge to your local library or bookstore to find the next new book to read. But when you get there you find that you have basically read everything that you know of. So what do you do? Well personally I have been in this situation way to many times to count and there is a few ways that I know that might be able to help.

                   

                   1.       Ask around.

I bet you go to a library or bookstore and can’t find anything good to read ask other people. People will come up with books that you didn’t even know existed, or will tell you about a book that you thought would be meh but is actually pretty good.

                   

                   2.       Look online for choices.

Now if option one doesn’t work for you because you are extremely anti-social or just don’t really care to talk to people, there is the internet. On here you can find book reviews on top of book reviews, even people make stories on the internet to tell people. But 2 things of caution. One be careful of what you search for, and two watch out for spoilers.

                   

                   3.       Look for something outside your comfort zone.

      If for some odd reason either option 1 or 2 doesn’t work the only other idea I have for you is try something new. Step outside in to new genres and see what there is to explore.

                

            Well that’s all I have for you this time, I do hope this helps most people who read it. And if for some odd reason none of these ideas work for you post your own ideas in the comments. Finally I want to say thank you to Rowan over on Pop Culture for Days for helping me out.  

Book review: The Dragons Series by Chris D' Lancey

                While looking for more topics this week I turned to my book shelf of way to many books for inspiration. While I was looking I found one of the first series I ever read, the dragon series written by Chris D’ Lacey. This was the first book series that truly blew my mind as a kid so what I am going to do is kind of take a trip down memory lane and tell you guys why these books truly left an impression on me.  

                The first real reason these books were amazing to me was because they were the first books that I read that were longer than 50 pages, the first book alone is over 300. Yes looking back now the books are obviously written for a younger kid and most of the books I could read in an afternoon, but to my eight year old self, these books were a type of entertainment that could last me up to three weeks.

                Another reason these books have such a huge place in my memory is for its story. Back in elementary school when I read these, most books were the same, they had similar plots of a hero had to save world, or someone was in danger, etc. But with the dragon series Chris D’ Lacey took this idea, threw it the trash and created something that just blew my mind. He used a completely normal person in one of the strangest situations you could think of, and showed you how he thought they would react, and as a kid it blew my mind. I know have been using that phrase a lot but it is the only way I know how to describe it.

                The final reason these books blew my mind was the ending. See when you’re in elementary school, most books have the same ending. The hero defeats the villain and everything goes back to normal, the end. But the dragon series, it didn’t do that. (Spoiler for the end of the series, but since this is a 14 year old series I hope you don’t mind because if you haven’t read it by now you probably won’t). From what I remember as a kid each book left you at a cliffhanger until the last book. And what doe Chris D’ Laney do, he kills main character. When I read that part as a kid I stopped and I’m pretty sure I was so mad because it changed the way books worked for me. But looking back it, it was a stroke of genius and it worked so well.

                Now that is where I end my story and most of you are probably wondering why I wrote about this. The reason I decided to write a blog about this is for one main reason. I feel that kids’ books now a days are to cookie cutter, there all the same and I feel that kids need a diverseness when it comes to books because if not what is going to entertain them?  

Why Dialogue is Important

     Like I said in my last blog you would start seeing a lot more topic from The High School Author and here is another one. Another one of my favorite posts from their site is “simple dialogue”, and I feel that it portrays the author’s beliefs on how dialogue should be written. Now I want to talk about how dialogue is so important.

     Dialogue is one of the most if not the most important thing when it comes to writing, because if you don’t have dialogue you really don’t have a story. Without dialogue you can’t move your plot along, and you couldn’t have details.

     First off without dialogue you don’t really have a plot. See when you use dialogue you have characters talking out problems, making tensions, etc. but if you didn’t have it you could only tell a story by saying what was happening and that is pretty much it.

     Ok let’s say you do make a book without any dialogue, first off very impressive and secondly it is probably going to be one the most boring books anyone will read. Without dialogue you can’t get detail in there and it is just so boring. You can’t have any action, or adventure, because all of your characters are now mute.

     So there are my reasons why I believe that dialogue is important and yes I do that this was a very short blog but since my last blog was a monster I thought I would take small break. And if I missed anything really obvious please leave a comment so I can make it better.  

How to Make a Good Character

So last week I was on a spree looking for topics and on one of my now favorite blogs The High school author was talking about good characters so I thought I would put my own twist on it.

So characters without them you don’t have a story. Characters can be good, bad, or neutral. They can be a male, female or even a different species entirely. But there is one problem, how do you make a good character? Since they are so many different ways people can create characters I am going to stick to the basics so I am not here for an hour.

1.  Know the characters traits.

     One thing that I hate the most in any form of literature is when you have a character whose motives change just randomly. What I mean is that if your character starts out good and heroic, don’t have him go around and start killing people for no reason. Either make a point to why there trait changes or keep it the same.

2. Back Stories

     Now I understand if your character is supposed to be mysterious and doesn’t want to give us their back story, but when your main character doesn’t even really have a good reason to be doing what they are doing you have a major problem. Another problem with back stories is that there are so many cliché back stories. A few examples.

·       My family, village and or species is now dead and I must get vengeance.

·       I am the choose one and I am the only one who can do this

That is only two examples of back stories, and I can think of over 30 books I have read that have used those back stories for their main characters. And before I move on to my next point I want to put some attention to a specific back story cliché that I truly hate amnesia. Now if the amnesia back story idea is used correctly then yes it does make it very interesting, but to many authors now a days use as just a lazy way for us to slowly learn the characters back story.

3. Character Details

     This one will be my last point but it is still important. I hate when authors give us this cookie cutter hero that is so basic that you already know what is going to happen before the end of the first five chapters. So when you are making your character please gives us more details, make it so that we can relate with the hero.

     Well that is my opinion on how you should make a good character, and yes I know there is many more things that I could have listed but I feel that this is enough to get a few writers through. And finally I want to say thanks to The High School Author because I have a feeling that I may be borrowing a few more ideas from them.   

Why Sharing Your Ideas is Imporant

     Again I was browsing through some blogs on the internet when I stumbled across a blog call, and yes this is its actual name, “Brad’s Entertainment Blog”. Yes you can tell how much creativity went into creating that title. But making fun of his blogs title aside I found a blog on there that I found rather interesting, it was called, why sharing your ideas helps. After reading through it I connected it back to one of my earlier blogs, how to get through writers block, and I felt like one of the points I made in that blog I could look at from a different point and that was the idea of asking others for help or the another way sharing your ideas.

                

     See there are two reasons why I believe that people should share their ideas. One of them, is that you get another angle at what you’re writing, now let me explain. See when you are writing anything a book, a script, heck even a blog post most of the time you are writing from your beliefs or mindset, so sometimes it’s hard to step back and see the real picture. So if you ask another person about that idea you can get another view from another person’s mindset, and the more people you ask the more viewpoints you get. The more viewpoints you get the more diverse your writing will be.

                

     The other reason I feel that people should share their ideas is because of editing. Now I understand more people think, ‘oh I know how to edit I was taught this in high school so I don’t need to have someone else check it”. Trust me I’m in high school and some people do sound like that. But the reason I say this even though it seems really cliché it will make your writing better. Now when you’re writing anything you feel proud of it and can look over some simple mistakes, I will admit I have done this a lot so getting someone else to look at your work will make it better.

                

     So I do feel that people should share their ideas more, now there are many more reasons why I think people should share ideas, but we would be here all day if I wrote that. So instead I am going to leave you with a small warning about sharing ideas. Even though there are many positives to sharing ideas you do have to be careful with whom you share it with because that might end up biting you in the butt.  

How to use Passion in Picking Subjects

Another blog that I read this week was “Musical Theater and Other Things”, the title pretty much speaks for itself. One of the blogs the author wrote had to deal with her passion in music and theater and how she used that passion to improve her acting and music skills. After thinking it over a little bit I came to the conclusion that this idea could be used in many more topics including writing.

See when you’re writing you have to know what you’re writing about. I know that sound very redundant but let me explain. When writing you just can’t choose a topic to write about by spinning a wheel and choosing at random. No you have to think and think about it until you finally come to an idea that you know enough about to write something.

Now I know what you are thinking, “how does this have to do with passion in writing?” well as you see passion is crucial thing when coming up for a topic to write about. For an example let’s use writing an essay, and let’s say that when you’re writing this essay you have two choices to pick from as your topic. One of these subjects you are extremely proficient in it, you know the ins and the outs like that back of your hand. But the only the problem is that you don’t really like the subject it doesn’t really interest you. The other topic however you love, you have done it your whole life, since you were a kid you have had a true passion for the subject, the only problem, even though you have that passion you don’t know a lot about it. So there is you problem, now here is the question, which topic do you choose?

Personally I feel like you should pick the topic that you have more passion for. Now I know that may seem stupid because, “you should pick the other subject because you know more about it.” But sometimes knowing more isn’t always a good thing. See personally I would go for the one I have more passion for because even though I don’t know a lot about it I feel that I would write a way better paper then if I had chosen the one I wasn’t that passionate about. The reason why is because if I pick the other subject yes it may have been a more informative one but, for me it would just be a bland and boring paper. Now if I had chosen the subject I was more passionate about, yes it would be less informative, but it would be easier to write because it would be freer flowing and creative.

Now would I say never pick the subject you know more about? No, but I would say try the one you have more passion for first because it just might be easier to write.

Why Love Triangles Should be Used

So this week I was reading around some blogs and I found a post on the blog “What to Watch” titled, What’s so Great About Love Triangles. Basically the post was bashing on the idea of love triangles and why they should exist but I entirely disagree.

Now the problem with love triangles isn’t that they exist, it’s that most love triangles are done so poorly it just makes them looks really bad, and make no sense. Now don’t get me wrong, personally I have never been a really big fan of love triangles, but some books do need them to keep their story going.

See the author said that love triangles give an unnecessary drama, which in some cases is true but not always. See I feel that when love triangles are done correctly it can just the right amount of drama to make keep a story going.

See a lot of the time when love triangles are used, the author just kind of throws it in there just because they can. But when a love triangle is written correctly and keeps going through the story and to the climax it usually works really well.

And the funny thing is that love triangles can still be used in non-romance books. A lot of science fiction and fantasy authors use love triangles to add another problem that their main character has to deal with, including the main force of evil.

So in my opinion love triangles should still exist in writing because some books do need them. But it’s that love triangles are an overused cliché, and are usually written poorly because they are an afterthought.     

Just Why Twilight?

                After hearing about every teen girl at my school yell at each other over Team Jacob or Team Edward I have just about had it with Twilight. I absolutely refused to read those books, even today I still do but this I why did this have to happen. If you don’t know what I am talking about, it is about the new “re-imaging” of Twilight.

Now maybe if the author of Twilight was doing a re-release and was making a new cast of characters to tell maybe the same story from a different view, they could have change the point of view that the story was told from, or even the author could have created a new story in the same universe, any of these I would have been fine with, but this is just stupid. All the author is doing is just taking the original cast and gender swapping every single character. That isn’t “re-imaging” the book, it is basically just taking the same book, throwing a new coat of paint on it and saying it’s a new book.

I personally feel like the author just looked through some ones bad fan fiction of Twilight and said “hey I could make money off of this”, and just went to writing. This is just such a stupid idea. I really don’t want people going around my school screaming which is better, Team Jeanette or Team Emily, and who should truly fall in love with Brad. I just don’t want every single girl in my school obsessed with Twilight all over again.

Oh but there might be something good that comes out of this. What might be entertaining is if this “re-imaging” does well enough and would get a movie deal, (which let’s face it, it most likely will) is seeing a female vampire and werewolf fighting over a human, that would be something even as a hater of Twilight I would pay to see.

So the “re-imaging” of Twilight if you can even call it that, is just such a stupid idea. Like I said the author isn’t changing anything there just putting a new coat of paint on an old book and calling it new. The only thing good that may come out of this, and that is a very, very big may, is a movie because personally I think it would be extremely funny to watch and laugh at it.

Paper v.s. Plastic

So my friend Rowan over at http://popculturefordays.blogspot.com/ and I are having a little friendly competition. We each took a side to see which was better, reading from a paperback book or a tablet. So after you read my side of the argument go over to her blog and see what she has to say. So with books I personally prefer to read on a tablet for many reasons. Tablet are better because they are so much more transportable and are so much easier to use.

Reading books on a tablet is so much nicer than using hard copies, with tablets you take books anywhere you go and as many as you want. With hard cover books they take up so much space and are decently heavy so if you want to read when you are on a trip you can only really bring one or two hard cover books. Now with tablets however, you can bring as many as you want because all of the books are stored on one device, so you don’t have to lug around a hundred books with you wherever you go. Also when you want to find an older book you don’t have to go searching through a huge pile of books you just have to search the name of the book.

Another reason why tablets are so much better than books is because they are easier to use. Now I know what you are thinking, “how is a tablet easier to use than a normal book?” well here is how. First off if you want to take notes you don’t have to end up destroying the book you are reading since most tablets come with a feature to take notes with.  Another thing that tablets make easier is reading at night. If you are using a hard copy and want to read at night you either need to have a lamp on the book at all times or figure out how to gain night vision. With most tablet now a days they come with a back light so you don’t have to worry about not being able to read at night.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love to read a hard cover book from time to time but it is just son inefficient. Books decay and tare over time, but with tablets you don’t have to worry about that. That is why I believe it is better to read on a tablet than from a hard cover book.       

My Top 5 Favorite Authors

Before I do start this I do want to say this is my opinion and there are so many Authors out in the world so if your favorite authors doesn’t get on here that most likely means I haven’t read any of their books or personally I just didn’t enjoy them. So with that all out of the way let’s move onto the list.

                

     5. Rick Riordan

If Rick Riordan on this list is a huge shocker then you clearly haven’t read any of my previous post. I have been a fan of Rick Riordan sense like 5^th grade. Now I am putting him very low on the list because even though he has written some of my favorite series I don’t believe it’s fair if I just instantly put him as #1.

               

     4.  James Fey and Nils Johnson-Shelton

Now this also should not be that big of a shock. My first blog ever was about the book they wrote. No I know it is kind of cheating putting two authors in one spot but I couldn’t pick one over the other because the only book that I know of that they have both written in Endgame. But they are really great authors.

                

     3. Orson Scott Card

I am so happy I finally get to talk about Orson Scott Card on this blog. One of my favorite sci-fi books of all time was Ender’s Game. The way that Orson Scott Card writes is amazing. He writes his books just simple enough for most people to get, but is just confusing enough for people like to really dig in and love the story.

                

     2. Kristin Cashore

This author I recently learned about, and she is amazing. She does a great job at creating a world of fantasy and magic that any of her books will keep you entertained. I love her books so much I used to set a certain day were I would try to find books written by her because sadly she has written a lot of books yet to my knowledge.

     1. Jenny Nimmo

Now I know what a lot of people are thinking, who is this author. Jenny Nimmo is the author of the Children of the Red King series. Now this was another book series of my childhood. Maybe not as prominent as Rick Riordan’s books they are still amazing. These were the books that got me into reading. So if you are ever looking for a book series that is just a little too easy I would recommend any book by Jenny Nimmo.     

Old School v.s. New School: Books

I was over at the blog Today's Entertainment in Movies and Literature I was reading a post titled Old School v. New school. The post was comparing the old Jurassic Park movies with the newer ones and how the hold up. So I thought about it and came to the idea that you could compare books in the same way. So compared to older books how do books that came out around now hold up.

When thinking about this I came to a weird realization that book that were published back in the day are pretty close to books today. Now the ideas and messages are complete different because they were published in different eras so different things were happening, but the books were very similar and their plots.

Fantasy books written is 1970’s still have to deal with evil mages, fire-breathing dragons, an unexpected hero and damsels in distress. Si-fi books still have to do with evil aliens and the endless reaches of space. Even Romance books are the same, a guy and girl fall in love, something happens, they break up, they both realize they were wrong, they make up and happy ever after. There I probably just summed up over 80% of ever romance, fantasy, and Si-fi book ever created. But now why do there basics plots stay the same over so many year?

Well here is what I think, I feel the plots stay the same is because they tell a good story. All of these books keep the same basic plot because it is what works. Yes there are a few books that do break this idea but most stay to basic mold, and it works. In fantasy we love to see the hero progress through his journey to beat the evil whatever. In Si-fi we want to see places that we have never been and probably never be. And even in romance we want to see the two perfect strangers get together in the end.

So are books to day basically the same as they were many, many years ago, basically. No matter what kind of genre it is, the basic plot has probably stayed the same over many, many years. But books today have still changed with the times. With addition of new genres it is becoming harder to make connections to books from the past. But if you do look hard enough books today are basically books from the past with a new coat of paint.  

                       

Why a Book Turned Movie Will Never Be as Good as the Book

                Books turned into movies… let’s admit it, they all suck. There hasn’t really been any good movies based of books. There are just so many things wrong with these movies but who can really blame them. Trying to turn a book into a movie is a lot harder than it seems.

First off, they have to try to fit an entire novel or series which can take up to multiple days to read, into a few movies each about two hours long. So they can’t do everything that the book has. Another problem with the time constraint is that they can have the exact amount of detail that the book has because if they do it wouldn’t make a very exciting movie. And that leads into my next point keeping the movie entertaining.

The job of a movie is to keep you entertained so when you have an entire book to pick your scenes from you are probably going to pick the more exciting scenes then the scenes that just are pure dialogue. But the problem with this is that the scenes that are mainly dialogue are what helps movie the story along so when you have just a movie with only the most exciting scenes from a book you get nowhere near the level or story telling that book gives.

The next things is having to add scenes to a movie that weren’t in the book to begin with. Now if this is done correctly and works with the story then you are fine most people won’t be upset except the obsessed fans, but most of times these scenes aren’t done correctly. When this happens it can lead to a major plot hole or completely change the story entirely. The reason I think directors do this is to make the story more exciting but most of the time it just makes the movie worse.

Now let me say there are exceptions to this idea. But the only two exceptions to this rule that I know of is the Harry Potter series, and any book written by John Greene, and the reason why they are so good is because they stay to the original plot and don’t change much. I know with the movies based on books written by John Greene they had him come in and watch filming to make sure they were staying true to they story.

So in my opinion will movies based on books be ever as good as the books? Probably not. Now maybe it could happen but I don’t see it happening because just with how long and detailed books are I don’t think they will ever be truly portrayed correctly in movies.   

How to Pick a New Book

Picking a new book to read is actually pretty hard. From personal experience I know that feeling after finishing a great you want to find another one and just keep going. But there are so many to choose from how do you know which one to pick. With a wide array of titles and coves it can sometimes be over whelming to find a new book. But I do have a few ideas that might be able to help you out.        

             
     1. Pick a book by the same author your last book was written by.

If you really enjoyed the most recent book that you read than you’re most likely to find that you like more books by the author who wrote it. But be careful this can also be bad because maybe the author only published one or two books, or maybe you didn’t like the last book you read. That’s ok there are still many other options.

               
     2. Ask for other people’s opinions.

Now personally when I don’t know what to read next I go to local library and ask one of the staff workers what she suggests because we have similar interests. But if that’s not the case with you, go ask friends, family, teachers, co-workers, and one really .They can probably come up with a few suggestion for you. Now if somehow all of the books they suggest you don’t like or have already read there is a still an option for you.

               
     3. Do some research.

I know personally when I couldn’t find any books that I hadn’t already read there was one thing I could always do, go to the internet. Seriously just search what kind of books genres you’re into and you can find lists upon lists about books with those kids of genres. But do be careful make sure that if you do use the internet, before you just look at a book with a cool cover and say “oh that likes like a good book” please read what the book is about. I have personally done that once and I truly regretted it.

Like I said picking a new book to read is pretty hard. And yes it still may be overwhelming with the number of choice given to you that you can read. But I do hope that these tips help make it a little easier to find a new book that you might like.

My Top 5 Favorite Book Series

 Before I do start this I do want to say this is my opinion and there are so many books out in the world so if your favorite book series doesn’t get on here that most likely means I haven’t read it. Another thing, spoiler warning for any books on this list. So with that all out of the way let’s move onto the list.

5. The Missing Series: Margret Peterson Haddix

           This was one of the book series of my childhood, Margret Peterson Haddix did and amazing job writing this series so far. The books that have come out are so detailed and are able to show so much emotion for being targeted for a much younger audience. Even today if I’m looking for a quick book to read I will pick up the first book and just read it really quick.

4.  Hunger Games Series: Suzanne Collins

            I know this book is on a lot of peoples lists of top ten series but allow me to explain myself. I know the series gets a lot of crud for creating a type of stereotypical teen book but that still doesn’t mean it’s a bad series. Suzanne Collins did an amazing job of writing a very engaging book series that was very entertain to read, and it always kept me interested.

3. Divergent Series: Veronica Roth

            Yes I know another stereotypical series on my top ten list, but again I do have my reasons for it. This again truly was another book that really kept me entertained for a long time and it was the first time I had ever seen a book take the idea that the main character couldn’t die and just destroyed it so that is why it is on this list.  

2.  The Maze Runner Series: James Dashner
             This is the last one of this kind of series I promise but it was to good not to put on here. James Dashner did an amazing job a creating a world that you could feel like you were in. He made it feel like you actually their watching all of this happen. It is a great series.

1. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Rick Riordan
             Yes I do know I bashed on the movie last week but that still doesn't mean that this isn't an amazing series. the books have kept me intertwined since elementary school and I still read them to this day. The book had action, mystery, and even a little romance but it was still great. I still remember the days that me and my friends would pretend to be the gang of that book so that is why it is my #1 choice. 

How to Get Through Writers block

Writers block… it sucks. You know that felling, when you’re writing a paper, you’re on a role, words are just following from your mind onto the paper and then suddenly you stop. You hit a wall a blank, white empty wall, and you can’t think of anything, you try to rack your brain but can’t find any words, it sucks. But there are a few ways that I have found to beat writers block.

My first idea is go do something else creative. I know it sounds very cliché but it does work. Go take an hour to two hour break and just completely ignore the paper. On your break go do something make food, read a book, or do what I do go play video games. I personally believe that if you take a little break you can find some inspiration and go back to paper with a fresh mind. But if this doesn’t work there are still a few more options.

The second idea that you can do is talk to others. I know that when I write and get stuck, if I can’t think of anything I always go and ask someone else for ideas. Other people can have great ideas, they can give you other opinions or look at your paper from a different angle and give you more ideas. Still if this doesn’t work there is one more idea that I have that might work.

If you can find anything more to write about maybe just change your subject. Now the reason why I put this idea last is because you can’t always change the subject you’re writing but if you can change the subject maybe you just might need to. Maybe you just can’t find the right words to get your point across or maybe you can’t find anything more to write if both of these are reasons why your stick then maybe it is time for a subject change. But this last one is a little shaky because like I said you can’t always change your topic so use this one as a last resort.

So yes writes block does suck, but there are still ways that you can battle it. I know that sometimes it may feel that you can’t do anything about writes block, so I do hope that this blog does help some people out.      

Why Write?

For this blog I am going to do a follow up to my last blog “Why Read?”, but instead of doing the subject of reading I’m going to go into the importance of writing. Writing is one of the most important thing for everyone. Writing is used in our everyday societies, from storytelling to communication, everyone needs to know how to write.

The main reason personally why I like to write is for the story telling aspect of it. People can tell amazing stories just like I said in my “why read” blog, it can take people to faraway places, it can open the door to people’s imaginations. But writing also has another purpose getting your feelings and opinions out. I will use an example from my own life, I personally wrote a play script about a very deep subject to me, and writing that script helped me get my opinion out to the public, it’s a great tool, and I know I am not the only person that uses writing like this. People who uses diaries or journals to get their emotions out of them without having to talk to people about, because maybe they aren’t comfortable with talking to people about their emotions. Now we will go onto the other side of writing communication.

Using writing as communication has been used since the beginning of humans, from cave paintings to now with us using social media for talking to each other using writing for communication has been a part a huge part of human civilization. Writing is used for communicating so many things like what we can and can’t do, how or how not to do something, it’s even used to communicate where and where not to go. Without writing explaining and getting things done would be almost impossible.

So in my opinion everyone should write. Writing is so important in everyday life, from telling stories of the past, present, future, and fiction. To being able to just simply talk with one another why you should write should be pretty obvious.              

Why Read?

            My good friend Rowan who writes the blog Pop Culture for Days wrote a post on the same topic “Why Read?” and I thought why not it is an interesting subject so I am going to give my own opinion why I think people should read. There are so many reason people should read, books take you to so many places, and can help you out in the real world.

            Books are amazing they take you to places that don’t even exist. From space to bottom of the sea, to the peaks of mountains and the bottom of caves, to the life of a normal teenager just struggling to a group of kids who have powers and use them for good, books are awesome. Books also put you in situations that you would never even think about like fighting dragons and saving princess, to looking for lost treasure buy just following some clues, to saving the world from an evil scientist to a few kids having a few laughs and growing up together books can do so much just by using the right words. Books allow your imagination to run wild, they allow you to think of new ideas or look at problems from a different angle. They connect people who have the same interests even if you think that you don’t share any. Books do so many things they can even help you in the real world.

            Books can allow to learn real world skills from lighting fires and how to build shelters in survival guides. To how to do stock exchange and other mathematical stuff in textbooks. Yeah maybe you don’t need to learn this stuff but it’s still cool to know how to do. Even books that aren’t specifically used to teach you things they still teach you things. They teach you how to be a good person, or how family is truly important or even how that true friends will always stay by your side.

            Books are great because they teach you important life lessons and also allow your imagination to run wild and just keep running. Before I end this I do again want to give a big thank you to Rowan and I will be leaving a link to her blog at the end of this post. So what I finally want to say, just go and pick up a book once in a while because you never know what will happen

Rowan’s blog: popculurefordays.blogspot.com/

How Video Games are as Good as or Even Better Forms of Literature than Books or Movies

Video games, in my opinion are one of the most amazing forms of literature even better than books and movies. Video games can tell you an amazing story by fully immersing you in the characters, the plot and how the world you play in works.  They can take you into worlds of fantasy, science fiction, war, drama, (ECT.) just like any movie or book could. But the difference is that videogame make you feel like you’re actually there watching it for yourself or in the main characters shoes. There is an infinite number of video games that I could choose from to prove my point but to keep this post short I’m am going to tell you about a few games that I know for a fact have amazing emersion and have great story telling.

The first game I am going to talk about is a game by the name of Bioshock Infinite. Bioshock Infinite was praised for its compelling gameplay, visuals and music to create in my opinion one of the best stories from a video game in 2013. The game is able to use all of its aspects to create so much emersion and allows the player to go at a challenge at anyway they can think of that follows the games rule. And that is another way I believe video games are a better form of literature than books or movies, because the player can choose how the story goes, and that leads into my next game the Mass Effect series.

Mass Effect is great because it shows that player’s actions can change the world around them. In Mass Effect every choice that you make effects everything else in the world. And those actions effect how good or bad of ending you get. See this is just a tool that helps you get so immersed in the game it is amazing. The player really feels like there are in the game and that their choices can have major consequences later down the road. This idea also leads to the possibility of going back and changing you actions so you can have an amazing amount of possibilities.

So I do truly believe that video games can tell amazing stories just as good as or even better than books and movies. Because in video games you have that extra emersion because you know that you can change the story if you mess up. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying every video game has an amazing story but that is the say with books and movies. There is going to flops in all three categories no matter what.                   

Book to Movie Review: Percy Jackson and the Lighting Theif

WARNING, Before I start this review I do need say that this review is going to spoil a lot from both the book and the movie Percy Jackson the Lighting Thief, so if you have NOT read or watched the movie I would recommend going and doing that now, or proceeding at your own risk, if you have or don’t care please continue, now the review.

There was so much going for this movie it should have been amazing, but there were so many things wrong with it, I don’t even know where to start. Compared to the book the movie is like a bad fan fiction it’s sad. Well I’m going to start with the minor details and move on to the bigger ones as we go. Before I continue I will say that I could not remember all of the thing wrong with the movie so I did go to the website Book Journey to get some more so I will leave a link for the page down below.

The first minor thing wrong with the movie compared to the book was Annabeth’s character. Now the character was portrayed correctly but in the book she is blond and in the movie she is brunet. Now this is a major problem, but it just annoys me how easily that could have been fixed. Another minor problem was that they forgot one of the beginning scenes it had to do with the main character being attacked by monsters, now this I can ignore this because maybe they didn’t have enough time to put it in, but I personally thought it was a cool scene so it annoys me. Now that’s all the minor details I can come up with so one to the big ones.

The first major thing the failed with was Medusa death. In the movie after they kill Medusa the keep her head and use it later on. But in the book after they kill Medusa they wrap up her and send to the gods as a joke, so it’s a very big difference. The final major plot point the movie forgot was Ares. See Ares is actually the main villain in the book but in the movie he is never mentioned. Instead Luke becomes the villain which changes so many things that it doesn’t make sense, it’s just stupid.

Now I’m going to end my “review”, more of a rant here because if I keep going this will go on all day and I really don’t think you want to read that. But if you do I am going to leave a few at the bottom, one will be for book to movie problems and the other will lead to just problems with the movie itself. I know this isn’t a very exciting review but I feel that it tells people one thing. If you have read Percy Jackson, please just please go watch the movies their horrible.

Book to movie problems: http://bookjourney.net/spoiler-alerts/lightning-thief-book-vs-lightning-thief-movie-by-rick-riordan/

Problems with the movie in general: http://www.moviemistakes.com/film8396

Writing and Rejection

Writing, it’s one of the hardest and yet most rewarding things to do. It’s hard because you have to put yourself through some of your darkest moments, reliving your past, to putting yourself in situations you hope and pray you never have to go through. But writing is also one of the most rewarding things. It gives you an amazing sense of pride and joy when someone comes up to you and says, “Man I truly love what you write”, or, “hey your writing has changed my life for the better”. But there is one thing about writing that is the hardest thing to deal with. It like the dark shadow of writing, the thing that no one want’s to talk about or admit that it exists. And that is having your writing be rejected by someone.

Having a piece of writing rejected is one of the worst feelings in the world. It feels like someone just ripped your heart and soul right out of you. It feels like someone took your life story read through and then said, “Nah this isn’t good enough for me”, and then throws your story right back at you. It’s horrible, but sometimes it is necessary. Sometimes you need that smack from reality telling you that something needs to be fixed. So don’t get me wrong rejection sucks but sometimes rejection can make your writing stronger and make you a better author.

Let me give you a few examples of how rejection have led to success in people’s life. Some of the most popular authors in the world had their books rejected. Even J.K Rowling the author of the very famous  book series Harry Potter had it rejected many, many times before finally someone read it and said, “Wow this is a good book”. Now take what I say with a grain of salt I’m not saying that if your writing keeps getting rejected again and again doesn’t mean that you will become some world renowned author, but getting rejected does build another thing determination.

Let me give you a weird example, acting. At the high school I go to I’m personally trying to be an actor, but for the three years that I have tried out for plays I have only made chorus twice and one very minor role, but I keep trying and you want to know why, because it builds determination. Even my schools director has noticed it so he has been giving me more responsibly in the theater world. So don’t take every rejection as, “oh I suck”, take it as “what can I do better”.

So yes rejection sucks but it’s not the end of the world. Maybe you got rejected because you didn’t have what there were looking for, or maybe they just didn’t see enough the first time through. So don’t give up after just one rejection but keep trying and maybe after the fifth, sixth time getting rejected go back and see what you can fix.

Book Review: End Game The Calling

Endgame, The Calling is written by James Fey and Nils Johnson-Shelton. Endgame is a great book with many twist and turns but I'm not going to bore you with a bland summary of the book. Instead I am going to give you a brief summary and then talk about what I thought made the book extremely interesting. Endgame is basically Hunger Games but around the world, there are twelve tribes and it’s a race for three keys whoever gets them all first wins, the losers and there tribes all perish. So that’s about the briefest summary I can physically give now on to the really cool stuff. One of the main things that I find interesting about Endgame is its perspective because it never stays the same, the point of view keeps jumping from one character to another. I personally love this idea because you aren’t stuck to the view and ideas of just one person, you can see the world and how others react from different eyes. Another thing In Endgame that is very interesting is the idea of puzzles. To find each key every opponent is given a clue but all the clues are different, so it makes it harder because they can’t just cheat off of one another. Once they do solve the clue they move on to the next clue and then the next one until they find the first key, then they move on to the next clue to find the next key. Now I know some books do this just so that they can stretch the series out but James Fey and Nils Johnson-Shelton don’t do that. The reason that they do it in my opinion is because it makes it so that the game is a challenge. They don’t just say “oh here is the key have slaughter fest and see who gets there first”. No they make so that each character has to deal with their own dilemma. Now the other interesting thing is that they put puzzles also for the reader in the book. Now the puzzles can range from pictures to symbols instead of page number’s so it’s a really interesting idea. And the best part about that is that James Fey and Nils Johnson-Shelton say if someone does solve all the puzzles that there is a prize waiting for them once the series has finished. And I personally think that is a cool idea. So with my review of Endgame, The Calling  I want to finish by saying that it is an amazing book with great writing and even a little challenge for their readers.