Pottermore and Khaki Dress Pants

So, Pottermore.com. Just about the coolest thing since the Harry Potter novels.

Basically what I get from it is that you join, take a quiz written by J.K. Rowling herself, get sorted into a house by the sorting hat, then earn house points and do other random things.
Such as buying audiobooks for the first time in Potter history. Pottermore is also going to have information direct from Jo Rowling herself that never made it into the books.

The only problem is that it's not opening until October.
A "chosen few" will be allowed to enter the site early if they solve one of seven riddles.

I'm going to solve that riddle tonight if it's the last thing I do.

They'll be all like


And I'll be like

And my life will be complete.

So starting right now, I am officially on Potterwatch.

Well, I have absolutely NO writing tips for you today. So I'm just going to make up something that sounds good. OK?
OK.

Remember all the encounters you have with strange people, you can use them in a book some day.
For example:

I used to work in a popular fashion retail store. This woman came in one night and asked me where we kept our khaki dress pants.

I was like, "Ma'am, we don't have khaki dress pants here. We have some casual khaki jeans though, and they're over in the corner."

She's like, "But I don't want casual khaki pants! I want Khaki dress pants! Where are your khaki dress pants?"

And I go "Uh, we don't have any. We have black dress pants and khaki casuals."

And then she goes on this screaming rampage like she's godzilla or something. "BUT WHERE ARE YOUR KHAKI DRESS PANTS? I WANT KHAKI DRESS PANTS!"


So finally I just say "All our dress pants are on that far wall over there."

And she turns into smiles and rainbows and goes "Thanks."

And I'm left there going

She comes and finds me about ten minutes later and she informs me that we do not, in fact, have any khaki dress pants in stock, but thank you anways. And then she leaves.

Really? You sure could have fooled me. I thought we had loads of khaki dress pants.

But there you go. Crazy personality for a random character. 

They always make life a little more fun. 

That's all for now, darlings. 

Writing Lessons from Harry Potter

So, after the last post I feel like I should fill you in. 

I DID, in fact, finally go see the movie. 

finally. 

It was the most epic, heart racing, beautiful film out of all of them. By far surpasses the other 7. And I'm so very glad they made 8 instead of just 7. 

They could have just make a movie for each chapter and I would have been cool with it. 

But anyways. I'm about to go all SPOILER ALERT on you. So skip to the end if you don't want it ruined.  

This deaf old couple sat right next to us. Don't get me wrong, I love old people just as much as the next guy, but no one should be allowed to talk during a movie. 

old man: WHAT'S GOING ON? I CAN'T HEAR.

old lady: IT'S THE SNAKE! THE SNAKE IS A HORCRUX!

everyone else in the theater:

old man: WHO IS THAT? IS THAT SNAPE?

old lady: NO, SNAPE IS ABOUT TO DIE!

everyone in the theater:

old man: IS THAT HARRY? WHY IS HE DEAD? I THOUGHT HE KILLS VOLDEMORT?

old lady: HE'S NOT DEAD! HE'S JUST PRETENDING!

everyone else in the theater: 

and it went on like that forever, because I was too busy going like this

to be like "Please, sir... 

 and then my friend was like "It's just a movie. It's not real. HARRY POTTER IS NOT REAL."
And I'm like

And the fight scene?

It was like a Black Eyed Peas competition in there.

Everyone whipped out their wands & it was like 

A bunch of stuff exploded and people died, the end. 

Which upsets me. Because I was really expecting more than that. 

but anyways,

I think I've found my calling in life. I need to personally hunt down Rowling and force her to write new books. 

Speaking of which, (I was totally kidding by the way)(sorta) we come to her writing methods. 

Jo says her writing styles come from (surprise, surprise) studying. 

Whoa now. Study, you say? You mean studying is something you do forever??

SERIOUSLY?!?

She studied books by authors like Charles Dickens, C.S. Lewis, Shakespeare, Leo Tolstoy and Jane Austen. 

 The tip I'm going to give you comes from a man who has studied (yep, again with the studying) writing, especially Harry Potter, for years. He's a pro. 

His name is John Granger, (no relation to Hermoine) and here's one of the methods he's noticed in Rowling's writing. 

It's called a "ring composition." Basically what that is is a "ring" where all the points build up, circle around, and allow the beginning and end to meet back up. The middle is to bring to attention once more the questions asked in the beginning and answered at the end. Most of you, if you are experienced, will go "yeah, yeah. I do that. Nothing new."

But here's the key: 

Basically you take all the chapters and lay them out on the table. Now fold it in the middle. 

Each chapter that touches the other is a reflection of each other, just like a mirror. 

this mirror effect creates parallelisms in the story. Now don't go thinking that by "mirror" I mean that everything has to be the same. No. Parallelism is the key word here, it's not that it's literally a mirror and needs to be repeated. 

Talk about deja vu. Your readers would be like: 

haven't I read this somewhere before?

no, no, no.

"Parallelism in writing is the use of identical or equivalent syntactic constructions in corresponding clauses or phrases." (The American Heritage Dictionary)

Now you're probably the one looking like our friend Burt up there. 

Basically what the smartie pants' that wrote up the American Heritage Dictionary are saying is that it's about your sentence structure. It's taking more than one idea and merging them into one. Basically taking your "mirror" chapters and using similarities small enough that your readers wont give you the Burt look, but strong enough to make it stick like glue in the reader's mind. Repetition is the key to remembrance. If you want someone to remember your book, use the "ring composition" and parallelism. 

If you're talking about parallelism in a sentence, it would take two thoughts, 

Josh hates potatoes.

Josh likes hitting people. 

and merge them together, making it:

Josh likes potatoes and hitting people.

So let's look at it on a bigger scale now. 

Remember that "ring" we're trying to build?

Your story shouldn't go like this:

Beginning. Middle. End.

It should go:

Beginning, middle and end. 

and if you use the "ring" properly, it'll go:

Beginning, middle, end and beginning.

For extra clarity, your book should go something like this, 

See Jane play poker. See Jane lose poker and her money. See Jane have to work for more money. See Jane play poker again.

It's a never-ending cycle but at the same time you leave no loose ends. (Unless you're writing more books.)
Now you have a circle and small connectors between your "mirror" chapters. Congratulations, you've created a web. With a really good story line, you'll catch and trap a bunch of loyal fans.

I really hope this makes sense, cause trying to explain it makes my head go 

Until next time,

Harry Potter 7 part 2 Premiere

SO!

Harry Potter, the worldwide phenomena, is coming to its final close.

If you know me, you know how much I seriously love this series, both the books and the movies.

I can't watch the movie tonight at midnight.

But I'm going tomorrow.

OH YEAH, just try and stop me.

I'm gonna walk in there like

and if people try and cut in line, I'm gonna be like

And if anyone talks during the movie

and then the movie is gonna start and I'm going to be like

and it's going to show this part

and I'll be like

And it's going to end and I'll be like

And then next morning I'll realize there are never going to be any more Harry Potter books or films and I'll be

and I'll realize I have the books & the movies and be like, why the heck am I not re-reading these right now??

and it'll be all good cause books are forever.

and that goes for books too. Because

Til next time,

Book Review: Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen

Summary in the words of Deena: Alright, so basically Ruby, (the MC) is raised in a harsh sheltered environment. One day her mom up and leaves, leaving her in the care of the sister that got away and her sister's husband. Jamie and Cora (brother-in-law and sister) take her in with open arms. Ruby, with her I-can-do-me-all-by-myself attitude, tries to run away. She packs a bag and hops the fence -or tries to anyways. She's stopped by a dog and a boy on the other side of the fence. Talk about awkward.

Nate, (the neighbor boy who's fence she tried to jump) turns out to be her polar opposite. He's open, kind, friendly, Father Theresa, and (obviously) hot and popular. 

Basically Nate has a secret too - one he doesn't want Ruby to know. The tables turn about halfway through the book. Instead of Ruby holding people at a distance and Nate trying to talk her closer, now Ruby is trying to get Nate to open up. That's when she sees the side of Nate no one in the world of Lock and Key would guess. 

WHO:  The main character (MC) is Ruby Cooper. She's the kind of girl you find yourself feeling connected to. She's raw and she's also got an apparent guard up that most teenagers could relate to. 

Nate Cross: super-mega-ultra-popular-hot guy. The boy is stereotypical in every sense of the word. The only thing that doesn't make him cliche is the secret he's hiding (and very well) from the world. 

Cora & Jamie: Ruby's sister and brother-in-law. They are seriously awesome and I kinda want to go be friends with them. 

The other supporting characters were all well placed and all had purpose in Ruby's life, leading her to the unofficial (but more accurate than Webster's) definition of family. 

WHAT:  Basically the book is about Ruby's struggle to find meaning in life and what it really means to lean on someone other than yourself. 

WHEN: I'm going to assume it was set in 2008-2010 ish. Whatever time period she was writing it in.

WHERE: I wanna say something like New York, but I really have no clue. If the book mentioned a city I must have missed it. There were schools mentioned though, Jackson High School and Perkins Day, both where Ruby attended during her senior year.

WHY: The moral of the story, I would assume, is that crap happens to everyone. No matter how perfect someone's life seems, they probably have just as many problems as the next guy.

Negative points: I wasn't too impressed with the first hundred pages. It seemed like too much backstory to me. Another thing that bothered me were the flashbacks. They happened in the middle of someone talking and usually took up a page, leaving you confused for a second when you get back to the present and someone is finishing a sentence.
My personal pet peeve: typos. Sarah's editor must have been really slacking in this book because I stopped counting mistakes after 4. And while 4 or 5 may not seem like much for a 422 page book, let me be the first to tell you - IT IS.
I also felt like Nate was way too stereotypical for his own good, but that's just a personal opinion there. Another thing was the foreshadowing. People tell me I figure out things they never  in a million years would have, so maybe I'm just really good at picking up on it, but I figured out Nate's secret in the scene where Roscoe (the dog) got into the Cross' trash can. I also knew Ruby's assigned word for her English definition project was going to be 'family' or something very similar.
The descriptions went overboard in some places (like the classroom) and lacked in others (character descriptions) I pictured people pretty well in my mind, but when it came to hair and eye colors I left them black and white. I could never remember who looked like what.

Positive points: It's definitely a story that sticks in your mind every time you set the book down. You find yourself wondering what's going to happen. You feel what the characters feel too. I actually cried a little bit in the scene where Jamie was yelling at Ruby. Because by that time, I knew enough about her to feel what she was feeling -to feel hurt and betrayed. 

I liked the contrast between her old and new life.
It was cool that Harriet both reflected and complimented Ruby's personality a lot. I also liked that there were no characters that I felt were unnecessary or anything.
At first it was hard to get into, but by the end I was loving every minute.
It was clever and I found myself laughing a lot. 

I give it a 3/5. It was good. I definitely think that it's one worth reading.

Next up:
Along for the Ride
by Sarah Dessen

Haircuts & Safety Scissors

Hello bloggies.
How are you this fine evening?

This post isn't really going to have anything to do with writing so I hope you enjoy this brief glimpse into my personal life.

I gave myself bangs today! And I did it with safety scissors.
Call me crazy, (I pretty much am) but it actually turned out rather nice.
you totally can't tell I did it myself.

Here's what it looks like:


And then I went to town and I was afraid that they looked horrible.
But I saw this guy there as I was walking into a store...
he stopped and waited for me to cross the parking lot so he could hold the door open for me.

Which totally makes him a gentleman.
Bonus points for you, mysterious gentleman man.



What a swell guy.

Meaning my hair couldn't have looked too bad.
Otherwise he probably would have done this:


and then this:


So I don't suppose it looks horrible.

I don't know, what do you think?

**Warning: do not try this at home, kids.
Seriously though, it's probably not a good idea.
It's highly inadvisable.