Skip to main content

An Author's Guide to Playtime (Where Grace gets very dark)



Here is a guide for all authors about how they can have fun when playing with their toys. 😇
Stage One
First of all, you need to make your reader fall in love with your characters. This can be achieved by:
  • The character having an awesome personality. e.g. Halt (Ranger’s Apprentice), Glory (Wings of Fire), Percy (Percy Jackson), Connor (The Land of Stories)
  • Making your character relatable. e.g. Greg Heffley (Diary of a Wimpy Kid), August (Wonder)
  • The character having gone through a lot so the reader can sympathize with them. e.g. Felix Salinger (Once, Then, Now, After), Newt (The Maze Runner), Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games)
  • A plot twist shining a new light on your character, causing the readers to fall for them. e.g. Severus Snape (Harry Potter), Evly (The Land of Stories)

Stage Two
This is the time when you wound your victim (cough, cough, I, of course, mean the character, not the reader at all...). Mwahahahaha!
Now, there are several ways to break your readers' hearts. Some are:
  • Kill your characters! Be careful to kill the ones they love, avoid the annoying characters at all costs.
  • Wound your characters’ hearts beyond repair!
  • Bomb down your ships! The ones everyone love, of course.
One thing you should always remember, though, is that you should never go destroying too much. Even though causing havoc in book worlds is not yet illegal, you do not want to turn your readers off your book from too much grief. If that happens, you will have no victims to have fun with! So, always keep your readers on the edge of overwhelming grief and loving your book.

I do have a little secret for you… shhhh… keep very quiet… we do not want readers knowing our secret to our great success… here it is… drum roll.... You can destroy everything at the end of your book/series! What’s the point of leaving your readers with a happy ending when you can haunt them FOREVER? Or, even better, it all was not real! It was just a dream. Yes, villainous authors, we can use cliché endings to destroy hearts forever! Now go out into the world, my little friends, and write your heart breaking books.

Hope you feel inspired,
Grace

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Spoiler-Free Book Review - The Squire's Tales (Gerald Morris)

Okay, so it's technically an entire series, but that's irrelevant. I am reviewing books and it is therefore a book review.  The Squire's Tales , by Gerald Morris, is a series of novels that retell in hilarious fashion the lesser known tales of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Don't worry, you won't have to hear about the sword in the stone again or anything at all about Arthur's childhood. Because this is where the best part comes in: these stories are told from the perspectives of those that other renditions tend to gloss over, mock or forget entirely. These characters are a squire, (as the title would imply) a page, three women and a knight who is objectively terrible at being a knight. He sings and plays music instead. His name's Dinadan. He's wonderful. Over the ten books in the series, you get seven different characters from whose points of view the stories are told (plus a couple extra in the last book, but that's a spec...

Sonnets

We studied Romeo and Juliet in English, discovering the foolish protagonists and their sappy sonnets. An activity in class was to write our own, so we picked strange themes and twisted the idea of a sonnet. What we produced is as follows: Oh, My Fair Sonnet Oh, my fair Sonnet, how lovely art thou, Thou tellest most flattering descriptions, Thou entrancest me with stunning words now, If told by others, I’d think were fiction. Thou enchant me with thy pretty quatrains, In which there are many wonderful rhymes. I’d  listen always without any pains, For leaving would be committing bad crimes. Alas, my fairest love must leave me, My misfortunate heart must wave goodbye. My fair love won’t listen to any plea, Even though this leaving makes my heart die. Goodbye, goodbye, with a couplet you leave, I wish for you to know how much I grieve. By Grace Death to Romeo Oh Romeo, thou art Darth Sidious We love uncovering your many faults Delight in fi...

Ostrich short story

She holds her elegant neck high above the masses which she saunters through. Like a diva at a show she flaunts her plumes, casts a wary eye about for rivals, and turns up her nose at her drab brown and cream comrades.  Behold, an animal of distinction and refinement. Here is the ostrich, queen of the winged kingdom. Around her, antelope bow their heads in shame, cringing at their inferiority. Where she steps the grass seems to wither in embarrassment. Even the sun seems reluctant to disgrace her chestnut and ivory feathers. Stop. Look around. Sour musk lines the brisk breeze. She lowers the foot which was held aloft a moment ago, her previously serene expression now one of incandescent disapproval. The antelope prick up their ears. A glimpse of golden pelt in the grass and an explosion of hooves signifies the beginning of the chase. She runs like a demon, head pointed forward and wings outstretched. Long legs kick up turf, spraying it into the streak of gold fur b...