Tagged: masq2

“Fairy Lovers” and Still More Weird Search Terms

Yep, it’s that time once again folks: time to round up all of the weird search terms!  If you’ve missed the previous installments of my weird search term series, here they are:

1.  “Why do People Hate Naked Men?” and Other Weird Search Terms

2.  “The Spread of Kidness” and More Weird Search Terms

3.  The Return of the Weird Search Terms

4.  “Game of Thrones man hatred” and More Weird Search Terms

5.  “Yes I Can Do” and Other Weird Search Terms


 

So what weird search terms are we up against today?

fairy lovers

mad brown girls porn photo

is it bad to read 100 pages in one day

5 hours to.read.100 pages

read to me the word lynburns

mad reviews

adult vacation partils

reading pages through 1 and 100

And the weirdest of all:

old building-ajacket-being escorted around by strangers

Any of these ones stand out to you guys?  What are some of the weird search terms that you’ve received recently or not-so-recently?

 

The Hunger Games and The Third Servile War

The Third Servile War is probably one of the most famous wars you’ve never heard of.  What I mean by that is that everyone knows about Spartacus’ rebellion from the movie Spartacus, but few people know that there really was a Spartacus and he really did start a rebellion that morphed into what the Romans knew as the Third Servile War.  In Roman history, it was a monumental event that forced the Romans to reconsider their treatment of slaves and paved the way for later legislation to give slaves some protection (you could be charged for murder if you killed a slave during Claudius’ reign!).

What really struck me when I read The Hunger Games is that the Third Servile War is startlingly similar and is probably at least what partially inspired Suzanne Collins’ depiction of the rebellion of the Districts.  First I think we need a little background on the inspiration behind this and then we’ll go more in depth into why there are so many similarities.

The Third Servile War didn’t start out as a war.  It started out as a breakout from a gladiator school in Capua that included some two hundred slaves and gladiators.  Unsurprisingly, with that many people involved, the plot was discovered and the rebel slaves had to fight their way out of the school.  Spartacus was among them and he was naturally looked to as a leader, but what most people forget is another man who was a key player: Crixus.  Crixus was a Celt who had also been captured to fight in the gladiator schools of the Roman Republic and he didn’t like his situation any more than Spartacus did.  He and Spartacus, even though it may not have started out that way, became the ringleaders of their little revolt. Continue reading

Why I, a Woman, Enjoy ‘Game of Thrones’

Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t watched the first four seasons of Game of Thrones, don’t read this and get mad at me.

Game of Thrones SexismIn some places online (as well as in the real world), there’s this idea that of course women can’t enjoy Game of Thrones because it’s sexist.  They say it objectifies women, there’s gratuitous nudity, it’s an all boys club meant for medieval fantasy fulfillment and that I, as a card-carrying member of Team Woman cannot possibly enjoy such a sexist show.  This annoys me for many reasons but I’m going to explain my logic below for why I enjoy the show, how it could be improved and why these critics aren’t digging deeply enough.

I, as a human being, enjoy the TV show Game of Thrones.  It has nothing to do with my gender, but rather my general love of fantasy with good plot lines.  Fantasy is one of my favourite genres and while I wouldn’t describe myself as a hardcore fan I do read more fantasy than anything else.  I originally picked up George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series because of friend of mine wouldn’t shut up about the TV show and I wanted to read and watch the first season and the first book simultaneously.  I was actually impressed with both: the TV show for how well it captured the vivid world Martin had created and the books for actually containing that vivid, well thought out world. Continue reading

My Interview with David Litwack

David LitwackDavid Litwack is the author of (amongst other books) Along the Watchtower, a story of a wounded soldier’s long journey to recovery.  He alternates between a fantasy prince Frederick struggling to save his kingdom and Freddie the soldier relearning how to walk.  It’s a touching tale so I was very glad to do an interview with him in conjunction with the blog tour by Masquerade Tours.  Read for our discussion about research, future projects and writing about PTSD.

What was the inspiration behind Along the Watchtower?

I’ve always been fascinated by how our view of reality is subjective, how each of us brings our own experiences and biases into play. But when we’re ripped from our normal lives and placed in extreme circumstances, our reality becomes fragmented. Such is the case with hospitals and war.

A couple of years ago, I became engrossed in the online game, World of Warcraft, thanks to my son. I’m on the east coast and he’s on the west, so we’d meet every Wednesday evening in the virtual world of Azeroth, where our avatars would go on quests together. I was struck by how immersed I became in the mood of the game as we wandered through castles and crypts, solving riddles and vanquishing demons. For a short period of time, I could totally buy into the alternate reality.

The gaming experience has a dream-like quality to it. And I began to wonder: how would this experience affect the dreams of someone whose reality has been fragmented by the trauma of war? These concepts—war, hospitals, and the fantasy world of online gaming—came together in Along the Watchtower.

Continue reading

Writing Pitfalls: Pacing

Unlike with some things like dialogue or grammar, pacing in a novel is not that easy to fix.  Every author writes differently (obviously) so of course everyone is going to make different mistakes.  The only tried-and-true method for working out pacing issues is getting a good developmental editor, but I’ve decided to write some tips to help you avoid the most common pitfalls when it comes to pacing.

Pitfall #1: Not enough/too much background information.

One of the problems that I most commonly encounter, particularly in fantasy and science fiction is that the writer is trying so hard to have a fast-paced story that they leave out information that could help the reader actually understand the story.  In fantasy it’s important that you reveal information about your world and the rules therein to your reader or they’re really not going to care what’s happening.  The same goes for science fiction, which also has the added difficulty of explaining science to both newbies to the genre and hardcore fans.

As a writer it’s hard to separate what information you’re imparting to the reader from what information you have up in your head that seems obvious to you, the creator.  One of the best ways to figure out whether you have enough background is to get some beta readers.  If they’re left with more questions than answers by the end of the novel you’ve got some more writing to do.

Conversely, if a reader doesn’t need to learn about every family’s bloodlines, motivations, hair colour, eye colour, etc. then you’ve got some rewriting to do to take out that irrelevant information.  It’s important for the reader to be able to distinguish secondary characters from one another but if you as a writer really need to focus on making your main characters pop out.  This not only helps the reader follow your story but helps with the plot so you don’t get too bogged down in secondary character subplots. Continue reading