At the end of July, I told you about a website called the Online Book Club (OBC), where you can read and review books or have your books reviewed. I opted to become a reviewer, partly for the exposure brought by reviewing other writers’ work and partly because I get some new books for free. The possibility of paid reviews doesn’t hurt, either. On that site, I am known as dragonet07, similar to my Twitter handle.
I’ve only reviewed two books as dragonet07 so far. However, I am currently working on two others for the OBC.
For exclusivity and copyright reasons, I can’t put the original reviews from the OBC on my blog but I will put links to my first two OBC reviews and provide more links as more of my reviews get published. After all, exposure is key for books and book club sites.
Please head over and check out my reviews. You may even find new books to read while exploring the website. Here are the links:
On behalf of readers and writers, I would like to thank the OBC for the opportunity their site provides. We could spend hours combing through online or physical bookstores in order to find books that are off the beaten trail, but it’s better to get recommendations from one place, from fellow readers. The community they have built is also very supportive and helpful. I have yet to witness any issues with trolling or bullying on the site, even when users have differing opinions. I hope that this trend continues. Books are meant to bring people together, not rip them apart.
Please join me on the Online Book Club. At the very least you can find free or discounted books. You could also sign up to have your own book reviewed or become one of their reviewers, both volunteer and paid.
Keep an eye out for future posts in which I provide you with links to other dragonet07 reviews. Until then, happy reading and writing.
Know of any unique opportunities for writers to be read or for readers to review? Leave your thoughts in the comments or e-mail me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com so I may feature it in a future post.
Let’s face it, we’re conditioned from a young age to associate the summer months with taking a break from everything and relaxing. At least, that’s what Americans learn. I can’t speak for anyone else. Regardless, the school system I grew up with enforced the idea that summer is a time for relaxing and having fun, not doing any work. Suffice to say, this idea breeds bad habits which must be broken abruptly as adults. Considering I’m still attending school in the form of a Master’s program, I’m having a hard time remolding my way of thinking. It’s led to an annoying writer’s block, which I will call my “summer writing slump.”
Image retrieved from this travel blogMy writer’s block usually follows the same pattern. First, I have a hard time conjuring an idea for a story or I can’t focus on one idea at a time. My brain bounces from one thought to the next, never settling on one long enough for me to fully pursue it. Then I slip into the worry that nothing I write will ever be of significance and/or live up to what people liked in my writing before. It feels like I’m trying to capture lightning in a bottle, a fruitless effort. The end result? I get nothing done and I have to up my “as-needed” anti-anxiety pills.
How is the summer writing slump different? I have a built-in excuse: I have all summer to knock the rust off before classes start again. I don’t need to force the muse yet. I have plenty of time to get myself back into shape and have a really productive year.
Well, it’s August now and I’ve only written one short, really cruddy story, if it can be called that. I know that everyone gets into a writing slump occasionally, but I can’t let myself get too rusty or else I’ll lose my edge entirely. It’s taken a long time for me to create my arsenal of writing tools; it’ll only be a lateral move to let myself slip out of practice while my program’s on break.
Why am I telling you this? To remind my readers to never take too long a break from writing. Yes, a break can help you shake off writer’s block when you’re really stuck. However, it can also lead to writer’s block. Just like we can’t have the entire summer off from our 9-5 jobs, we can’t have the entire summer off from our writing. It’s a job and a skill. We have to be disciplined enough to maintain momentum in our careers and take the time to practice our craft.
We must also remind ourselves that it’s OK to write crappy first drafts. Heck, it’s OK to have all drafts of a story be crappy (if we don’t plan to publish it). At least then we can learn what does not work in our writing. If we’re too afraid to let ourselves write badly, we won’t write at all. Then we’ll be stuck in a perpetual summer writing slump.
Thoughts? Comments? Advice for escaping the summer writing slump? Leave your thoughts in the comments and remember to sign up for our newsletter for a chance at the monthly giveaway.
Happy Friday, folks. Today I’m announcing the August monthly giveaway, available only to readers who also subscribe to The Writer’s Scrap Bin’s newsletter, The Scrapbook.
For this month’s giveaway, I want to provide a prize which can also help struggling writers to progress on their paths to becoming published. I will, for the month of August only, be extending to The Scrapbook subscribers the opportunity to have their work critiqued by me for free. If you sign up for the newsletter and follow the instructions provided in the August e-mail, I will read and critique your short story, a section of your novel, or an essay/memoir up to 10,000 words in length. (Unfortunately, I cannot critique poetry because I do not feel I have the grasp on that genre well enough to provide useful remarks.)
I typically charge $10 or more for this service on Fiverr, depending on the length of the manuscript. I have extensive experience editing and proofreading, particularly in providing feedback. I have taken several creative writing courses throughout my academic career and those classes always included a workshop element, so I know how to provide critique while remaining kind and building the writer up instead of tearing him/her down.
Right now I can only promise one round of revisions as the prize for this giveaway, but I may be persuaded to participate in multiple revisions. Of course, you will also be able to ask me as many questions as you have regarding my feedback for free.
If you are interested in this prize, please sign up for The Scrapbook using the link provided in the website menu.
Have any ideas for future monthly giveaways? Any questions about this giveaway or the newsletter? Feel free to drop a line in the comments or e-mail me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com.
Trigger Warning: The book reviewed here depicts sex, rape, heavy amounts of gore, and regular use of profanity. Slavery, abuse, and torture also serve pivotal roles in the plot. If you have any sensitivities toward such subjects or otherwise take offense to them, proceed with caution.
Warning: This review contains spoilers for the first book, Sister of Echo: The Making of a Villain (Part One). Do not continue reading unless you have read Part One.
Today I’m reviewing Sister of Echo: The Making of a Villain (Part Two), the second installment in the Sister of Echo: The Making of a Villain series by Ameel Koro.
When we last left the world of Sister of Echo, Alina’s secret identity as a vampire had been revealed to Corina and Cotiso, and Alina’s jealousy had driven a wedge between her and Sinna. At the beginning of this new adventure, the company is trying to leave Artucia when soldiers stop them to take Corina and Alina back to the arena for another round of slave fights. The questions on everyone’s mind: Why are they being dragged into another competition? And by whom?
Little do Alina and her friends know, the competition has been arranged to force Alina’s return. Cordillia, the richest woman in the city and leader of Artucia, believes that she knows what Alina is. She longs to meet the young woman, show her off to the other nobles, and reunite Alina with their kind. But is Alina what Cordillia thinks she is? Are Cordillia and her children really what the readers are lead to believe? When mysteries start unraveling, what will become of Alina and the rest of the company?
Over the following 210 pages, Koro throws readers through a series of twists, losses, torture, and just as many new questions as answers. We travel deeper into the social construct of slavery, Dacian religion, and a world of mythical beings which you can’t begin to imagine. With vivid imagery, a compelling plot, and heart-pounding action, it’s almost impossible to put this installment down until the very end.
I’m happy that, despite some minor reservations, I continued with the second book of the series. Sister of Echo: The Making of a Villain (Part Two) far exceeded my expectations based on Part One. Koro utilizes the social hierarchy and religious beliefs of the time more to the story’s advantage in regards to world development, character development, and plot. The characters of Alina and Corina also gain more depth with Alina becoming a more realistic person and Corina growing more emotionally complex.
Unfortunately, new elements introduced in this book overshadow much of the premise set by the first book, which left me with a lack of resolution. Alina’s jealousy drove her away from Sinna by the end of Part One, but Sinna still plays too little of a role in this book given how “in love” the two supposedly were. In fact, I am given serious reason to suspect that Alina may not have actually had real feelings for Sinna at all, but this suspicion may have been by design. Even Corina questions Alina’s love for Sinna, and Sinna’s ultimate fate remains a mystery. Could Sinna still be Alina’s happy ending? Or is that just an illusion? Oddly, this question of Alina’s true feelings made me more interested in the relationship than when they acted lovey-dovey in the first story.
Other characters also get too little time on the page in this book. Tati and Cotiso, while in the first few chapters of the book, seem to fall away with their fates revealed only in dialogue. Other characters, including Tsuri, receive such treatment, although I did not have such an objection with them because they did not serve much a role in the first place. I feel that Tati and Cotiso deserved more of an ending, and Cotiso’s ending deserved more of an emotional impact. Tati, at least, had an effect on Corina. Still, too many of these events take place off-screen, so to speak. Even much of the torture, with the exception of the introduction to Cornel and his “experiments” on Alina, appears to the reader in exposition.
The amount of exposition aside, the imagery improved significantly with this book and even as the novel progressed. Things get dark and gory quickly, but that’s one of the things I liked about this book over the first. With “The Making of a Villain” in the title, one expects things to grow dark and bloody. A lot more action appears in Part Two as well, allowing for more displays of Alina’s powers and the powers of her foes.
Most importantly to me, however, is the character growth which Alina and Corina experience. We see much more of Alina’s heartless side in this installment, and much more of Corina’s twisted and, strangely, vulnerable sides. While I started to hate Alina as a person, she actually seemed like a real person. The naïve, innocent pretty-girl act in the first book made her a rather flat character. In this book, we see just what Alina will do to stay alive and, in a much different way than in the first story, how ignorant she is to human interactions. I understand her and I pity her but I also hate her, which is the sign of a good character; I have conflicting feelings for her, as I would with someone like her in real life. On the other hand, I began to like Corina even more. She is still crude and self-centered, but she also displays sparks of true human emotion underneath that crusty exterior.
Sister of Echo: The Making of a Villain (Part Two) is not a perfect book. I identified several proofreading errors throughout the e-book. I also wish that Koro would ease up on the exposition, especially since readers would be able to infer much of it from the action and visual cues. Some of the more modern elements of the language, such as the “yeah” which persisted throughout the first book, have been corrected. Still, the writing maintains a modern element which I can’t quite identify and, honestly, don’t know how to fix. It may be the (what I consider to be) overuse of profanity throughout the story, or it may be a personal writing taste. The number of exclamation marks in the narration also annoyed me. I’m OK with exclamation marks used prudently in dialogue; in the narration, it can border on a slapstick feel.
Overall, I really recommend this book for lovers of epic fantasy. Koro introduced me to a species of mythical creatures that I never would have imagined myself, and I’m eager to continue to the next book.
Be sure to check back for my next review, Sister of Echo: The Making of a Villain (Part Three).
Do you know of any books I should read or review? Want me to review a book you’ve published? Contact me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com or look me up on Fiverr.
Everyone is flawed. We claim to know that and yet, in some cases, we either can’t accept it or won’t allow it. This fact is especially true with people raised to the status of “hero”. Flawed heroes, well, we can’t let them be flawed and heroes. Perfect or villainous, no in-between. While some real-life and fictional “heroes” are truly flawed to the point of incompetence or villainy, many just make mistakes. That’s how it should be and that’s how we should portray the world in our writing.
Here’s a real-life “flawed hero” moment: J.K. Rowling recently came under attack for a mistake, i.e. a Twitter attack against President Trump regarding his treatment of a disabled boy. Her criticism, it turned out, was based on a video taken out of context. According to the boy’s uncle’s Tweet, Rowling’s words seemed to cause emotional distress to the boy involved and his family. Rowling admitted that the source did not present the information in the complete context and apologized profusely and politely to the boy and his family. That should’ve been the end of it but, of course, it wasn’t. While some appreciate her honesty and willingness to apologize, others insist on villainizing her for an honest mistake and for not apologizing to President Trump. She’s either a hero or a villain, not just a generally admirable but flawed human.
It’s interesting how we can’t allow our heroes to have slip-ups. Either they must always act perfect or we must be so delusional as to think they are always perfect no matter what they do. We can never admit to the existence of flawed heroes. It makes me wonder, do we hold the same delusions in fiction? Should we?
In an earlier post, I discussed the appeal of flawed characters, particularly flawed protagonists. Flawed characters are human, and readers relate to human characters. That’s why a flawed–maybe even hated–protagonist is better than a Mary Sue or Gary Stu.
If this appeal applies to flawed characters, including flawed protagonists, shouldn’t it still apply to flawed heroes? As writers, we strongly believe so. As readers, it’s a more bitter pill to swallow when thinking our heroes could be flawed.
In the “Return of the Bling” episode of American Dad, Stan has to learn the hard way that even our heroes do questionable things.
While the line is very fine, there is still a difference between flawed protagonists and flawed heroes. The plot of a novel focuses on a protagonist, i.e. the main character. This character can be good or bad, loved or reviled, active or sedentary, etc. Heroes, on the other hand, become role models of sorts, characters to whom we aspire. For example, Macbeth is the protagonist of Shakespeare’s MacBeth but, I would argue, is no hero, certainly not someone I would use for a role model. Nymphadora Tonks, on the other hand, is not a minor character in Harry Potter, not a protagonist. Nevertheless, I look up to her and would not hesitate to call her a hero because of her sacrifices and bravery.
With this difference in mind, should there be flawed heroes in literature? My answer is of course.
Flaws, whether in heroes or a minor villain, give the reader something to hold on to, something of themselves which they can find in the character. I would go so far as to argue that flaws make heroes in literature possible. We see all our possible successes in our fictional heroes; when we see these successes coupled with flaws much like our own, we latch onto that character as a possible version of ourselves. We sympathize with their struggles, root for them to prevail, and feel their emotions at every turn. Flaws give us our connection to fictional heroes; take them away and we just have another saint or martyr who’s nothing more than a name.
Being flawed doesn’t make a hero any less of a hero; it makes them interesting.
Theoretically, heroes are like any other character. Readers relate more to them when they’re flawed, and so the best heroes should be flawed. Yet readers have a hard time admitting that their heroes are flawed heroes. Criticize Harry Potter for being a hormonal teenaged boy soaking up the limelight and Potterheads will descend upon you like a flock of vultures. (I would know, I used to react that way and sometimes still do.) What we don’t realize is that we can still look up to certain characters even with their flaws. We just cannot make them some inhuman idol to worship. We must also remember that the flaws make the stories interesting. If our heroes didn’t have flaws, we wouldn’t have any reason to worry about their success, would we?
In life, we have to take our heroes and their digressions with a grain of salt. Some are forgivable, others are not. Some mistakes can be righted with an apology and others take much more, if they can ever be righted at all. Mistakes are a part of life and as long as our heroes learn from them–more importantly, so long as we learn from them–then some bit of good may come from it. Admire the good flawed heroes have done but judge their wrongs as you would anyone else’s. After all, they’re human, too.
Thoughts on creating flawed heroes? On our tendency to idolize heroes, both fictional and in real life? Drop a line in the comments. Let’s start a discussion!
