100+ Blocking Ideas for Your Characters

No, I'm not talking about blocking in a fight. I'm talking about the theater term. Last year, I went to New York City after attending Realm Makers in Pennsylvania to visit my cousin who is pursuing her career as an actress. The two of us went to see a Broadway of The Phantom of the Opera. I loved the play as a whole (cause it's Phantom of the Opera on freaking Broadway), but we did have to admit there were some weird blocking issues (such as cleaning an apple on the inside of one's thighs and crawling on one's belly on the floor. I don't know why. XD). Blocking is the movement that the actors are supposed to be doing either during dialogue or when they're not doing anything so they're not just standing there awkwardly. 

Some great examples for blocking are in the Lord of the Rings and Avatar: The Last Airbender. I can think of many scenes where Aragorn is sharpening his sword or cleaning a deer, Sam is cooking, Sokka is taking a sip of water or working building armor, and Aang is feeding Appa just to name a few things. The characters are always doing things that are realistic and relevant to the scene. 

Since I just went to the opposite side of the country for the same conference in July, I got to thinking about my NYC experience again. Blocking is completely applicable to writing. We don't want our characters just standing or sitting awkwardly all the time during rest points in the story. They should be doing something and it's logical for them to be doing something while resting and/or during a long swath of dialogue. So I came up with a list of fifty different blocking ideas for your characters, so we don't have them twiddling their thumbs or rubbing apples on the inside of their thighs. Now I organized this list by genre, just to give a sense of order but these things can go across genres easily.

A Book Review of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

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"'There is a plot, Harry Potter. A plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year.'" 

Harry Potter's summer has included the worst birthday ever, doomy warnings from a house-elf called Dobby, and rescue from the Dursleys by his friend Ron Weasley in a magical flying car! Back at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for his second year, Harry hears strange whispers echo through empty corridors - and then the attacks start. Students are found as though turned to stone... Dobby's sinister predictions seem to be coming true.

So Your Character is From Qatar ... Featuring Sumaica @ Life & Times

It's time for this week's So Your Character is ... Post! This is a weekly segment where I interview lovely volunteers from around the world to give you a firsthand account of being a citizen of their respective country or having a disability. I'm hoping to encourage international diversity, break stereotypes, and give writers a crash course on how to write a character from these different places on our planet. If you haven't checked out last week's  So Your Character is from Pakistan ... be sure to hop on over there and give it a read!

I've mostly been fascinated by Qatar because it's one of the few words I know that you don't have to use a Q followed by a U like in English. XD I know it's in the middle east but I didn't know much else about it until Sumaica came on the blog to talk about it!

Disclaimer: The content below may be culturally shocking to some. Each of these posts are as uncensored as possible to preserve the authenticity of the cultures of each of the interviewees.

(None of the Images are Mine)

Wanted: A Superhero to Save the World Blog Tour, Giveaway, & Character Interview!

Today I'm part of the blog tour for Bryan Davis's new release, Wanted: a Superhero to Save the World! Mr. Davis is kicking off his self-published middle-grade novel with a tour across blogs and here is one of the stops. I've been friends with Mr. Davis for wow, about eight years now, so I'm happy to be helping him with his newest novel. Let's get some info about the book then we'll get to the character interview and giveaways!

The Significance of Hair in Stories

I close the scissors over the hair by my chin. How can I look the same, when she's gone and everything is different? I can't. 

~ Tris Prior (Insurgent)

Hair may seem like a shallow subject, but it can say a lot about a person. How we keep or don't keep our hair can say a lot about who were are as people and even what's going on in our lives. How we style our hair can say a lot about where we live whether that be geographical location or time period. Hair can also be very signature for a character and if that hair changes it can be quite jarring and often a character lets that hair change for a reason, intentional or not. Thus I wanted to explore more about the significance of hair and how it can add depth to your story. 

So Your Character is From Pakistan ... Featuring Zainab @ A Bibliophile's Obsession

It's time for this week's So Your Character is ... Post! This is a weekly segment where I interview lovely volunteers from around the world to give you a firsthand account of being a citizen of their respective country or having a disability. I'm hoping to encourage international diversity, break stereotypes, and give writers a crash course on how to write a character from these different places on our planet. If you haven't checked out last week's  So Your Character is from Turkey ... be sure to hop on over there and give it a read!

Disclaimer: The content below may be culturally shocking to some. Each of these posts are as uncensored as possible to preserve the authenticity of the cultures of each of the interviewees.

(None of the Images are Mine)

Writing Lessons from Anime: Fate/Zero & Fate Stay Night: Unlimited Bladeworks

This anime franchise has been out for quite a while, but I just got to watching it last month. While most anime are based on manga, this one was based on a visual novel where you have choices as to where you can go in the story. Since then it has been made into several animes based on the different paths you can take in the story. I personally like this path, which is the Archer path. 

Fate/Zero is like a prologue to the Fate Stay Night animes. It sets up the story and makes more sense after you watch that one first. Unlimited Bladeworks comes directly after it with the next generation of mages as main characters. Anyway ... the whole series is about this event called the Grail War. This is when mages from selected mage families summon servants who are heroes from the past to participate in a battle to the death for the grail, which is an infinite wish device. It can grant the winner anything his or her wants.

It's a very complex series, going into many points of views, bringing up a lot of neat philosophical questions, and featuring a lot of great characters, whether they be good or evil. It was hooked to it as soon as I started watching it. I highly recommend it if you like anime or manga or even if you aren't into anime and manga and want to try it out. Without further ado, let's get to what we can learn from this series!

Any excuse to use an Iskandar gif.

This is my Genre, Now Tell me Yours Book Tag & I Write YA and MG Tag

Beautiful People isn't going up this month I guess, but I have a backup plan! More tags! I love doing these even though it does take me a while to get to them. XD And these are ones I haven't seen circulate too much yet!

So Your Character is From Turkey ... Featuring Leona @ Leona's Blog of Shadows

It's time for this week's So Your Character is ... Post! This is a weekly segment where I interview lovely volunteers from around the world to give you a firsthand account of being a citizen of their respective country or having a disability. I'm hoping to encourage international diversity, break stereotypes, and give writers a crash course on how to write a character from these different places on our planet. If you haven't checked out last week's  So Your Character is from Lebanon ... be sure to hop on over there and give it a read!

Disclaimer: The content below may be culturally shocking to some. Each of these posts are as uncensored as possible to preserve the authenticity of the cultures of each of the interviewees.

(None of the Images are Mine)

Villain Necrologies and Debacles: The Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit Edition

Villains meet their demises in so many different ways. For some this means death, for others, this means an unfortunate incapacitating situation. Writers put a lot of thought into how their antagonist finally fails, but which way is best for your villain? That all depends on so many different circumstances, including audience and genre. This is what inspired my series "Villain Necrologies & Debacles." Over time, I'll be analyzing different animation studios, franchises, and more. These posts are meant to show you what sort of defeats have been done whether common or uncommon, perhaps inspire some villain defeats of your own, or you can just enjoy the morbid humor. Check out last month's Studio Ghibli Edition!

September is Tolkien month so I thought it perfect to do a Necrology and Debacles posts about Tolkien villains! Tolkien's villains have a lot of well-deserved and creative deaths combined with Peter Jackson's director's vision. There is no "Villains that Lived" section because all of these died and I don't know about you, but I was happy these meanies met their bitter ends. I'm expanding past the obvious villains to some smaller ones because The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit have so many points of views that many of these charaters have their own personal villains like The Master of Laketown was to Bard the Bowman and Gorbag was to Samwise Gamgee. 

Warning: Spoilers for all of the villains in these movies. 

A Book Review of Cress by Marissa Meyer

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Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together they're plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and her army.

Their best hope lies with Cress, who has been trapped on a satellite since childhood with only her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker; unfortunately, she's just received orders from Levana to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice.

When a daring rescue goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a high price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing stop her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only ones who can.

So Your Character is From Lebanon ... Featuring Nadwa @ Painfully Fictional & Nicole @ A Dance Between the Pages

It's time for this week's So Your Character is ... Post! This is a weekly segment where I interview lovely volunteers from around the world to give you a firsthand account of being a citizen of their respective country or having a disability. I'm hoping to encourage international diversity, break stereotypes, and give writers a crash course on how to write a character from these different places on our planet. If you haven't checked out last week's  So Your Character is from Greece ... be sure to hop on over there and give it a read!

Disclaimer: The content below may be culturally shocking to some. Each of these posts are as uncensored as possible to preserve the authenticity of the cultures of each of the interviewees.

(None of the Images are Mine)

Good Parents 101

Good parent characters are surprisingly hard to find especially in YA and MG. They're either crappy parents or just not in the picture, but parents can make some awesome characters. I, for one, am tired of seeing idiot parents or strangely absent parents. Even as a kid, I was annoyed when I watched a show or movie and the parents were so disrespectfully portrayed. They're not complete idiots who are oblivious to their kid's escapades. It seems that many parents somehow don't know that their kid is doing all of this risky stuff and don't even suspect a thing. Trust me, real ones that actually do their job do so. These people raised the child, remember?

Now I'm not saying these parents have to be perfect. No one is perfect, but I think the best parents are those who admit their lack of perfection. It makes them more relatable to their children. Parents have a tough and sacrificial job. I may not be a parent, but I believe they should be portrayed respectfully. I'm not saying villainous parents are out of the question because those are a thing, but I want to focus on writing good parents who are great characters.

Monthly Summary: August 2017

August was an interesting month. Nothing extremely eventful went on (besides the solar eclipse, more on that in a sec) but it felt super busy throughout. I got a lot of stuff accomplished, though most of it felt like catch-up from July haha. XD I'm also beginning to feel fall. I can't wait!