A Book Review of The Emotion Thesaurus

Find it on Amazon here! :)

One of the biggest problem areas for writers is conveying a character's emotions to the reader in a unique, compelling way. This book comes to the rescue by highlighting 75 emotions and listing the possible body language cues, thoughts, and visceral responses for each. Using its easy-to-navigate list format, readers can draw inspiration from character cues that range in intensity to match any emotional moment. The Emotion Thesaurus also tackles common emotion-related writing problems and provides methods to overcome them. This writing tool encourages writers to show, not tell emotion and is a creative brainstorming resource for any fiction project.

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (May 6, 2012)

Page Count: 172

What I liked: When my mentor read over my manuscript last year she said I had a lot of generic actions (frowned, sighed, smiled, ect.). The first thing I thought was "How in the heck do I fix that? No one told me about this problem!"

So last year I struggled with trying to eliminate as many of those as I could during a rewrite, but for Christmas I got this Emotion Thesaurus and using it while editing my book has made keeping the emotional tags varied much easier!

The book has just about everyone emotion you could think of and many ways to portray them either physically or internally or mentally and more. Some of the physical ways I never thought of but when I pondered on it I thought to myself "Yeah ... wow people do actual do that. Heck, I do that!"

It has come in so much handy and is much better than wracking my brain to come up with something and I end up spending forty-five minutes on one paragraph (Yes, that happened to me. Don't judge!). Throughout the book it also has helpful tips on how to get the most out of your emotion. This is a great tool and not too expensive either! It definitely has permanent residence on my desk. :)

What I didn't like: I can't really think of anything I didn't like ...

Content Cautions: It's a thesaurus ... Nothing to set off alarms here unless you consider some mention in a PG way of some ways some emotions are expressed bad.

Over all I totally recommend this for any writer! :D Five stars!

About the Authors:

Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi are the creators of the award winning online resource for writers, The Bookshelf Muse (now Writers Helping Writers). Members of SCBWI, both authors write in the Middle Grade and Young Adult genres.

If you enjoyed this review, you can find more over on the Book Reviews tab of click the link. :)

If you liked this post, come back every Saturday for more writing advice, character interviews, book reviews and more! On Sundays I have Soundtrack Sundays where I post a new score piece, Tuesdays are Tea Tuesdays with tea reviews, Wednesdays I have Wonderful Word Wednesdays where I post a new vocabulary word, and Fridays are Fan Fridays where I post tags and other goodies. To help support my dream to be an author follow this blog, like me on Facebook, watch me on deviantART, and follow me on Pinterest and Twitter. If you want to know more about my books check out them out here. Thank you! :)

A Little Late Year's Beginning Post!

Matt and Ingrid from Subsapien Grafting (Drawn in 2013)

Hey I know it's late, but better late than never to do a beginning of the year post! It's in the first month so I'm good lol. XD Well firstly, I want to say thank you to all my followers of here, my Facebook page and Pinterest. I really appreciate all of you and you encourage me to keep on writing.

Hello to my new readers! I'm a young writer who works at a yogurt shop by day and writes by night. I'm a nerd and I love all things Whovian, Middle Earth, and Narnian. My dream is to be a published author. Thanks so much for viewing!

Some posts you all really enjoyed looking at last year were:
How to Write a 3D Villain Part 2
What Anime Can Teach Us About Writing
Tone Down But Don't Water Down

Last year I really got serious with writing and platform building. I wrote two drafts last year, edited a bunch, entered in contests, and did more blog posts than ever before. And thanks to you readers you've helped that grow. :) I've grown mentally and spiritually during its course. It was a good year for the most part, but I have a feeling this year will be even better.

Here are some of my goals for this year:

1.) This year I really want crack down on writing -  I'm going to finish editing Subsapien Biomech (the first book of my science fiction series Subsapien), work on the second and third book of that series, my fantasy Starbloods, and my newest idea for a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. It's set in a fantasy steampunk environment where Little Red (called Mor in the book) is a werewolf huntress. You can check out more about it on my Pinterest board for Red Hoods.

2.) I want to do a new character drawing at least once a month - I love drawing and it really helps me visualize my characters. Below are a few drawings I did last year. ^ ^

Emil (Subsapien Grafting)

Brian (Subsapien Grafting)

Serra (Subsapien Grafting)

3.) This year I'm going to work very hard on posting consistently - I know I have a problem with that lol.

An update about what's going on now concerning progress for my dream: currently I'm editing Subsapien Biomech. I'm aiming to pitch it to an agent who was interested in my at a writer's conference in February/March. If I don't get one there I'm gonna start querying. :)

Now for some questions for you all ...

How have you all liked the blog this past year? Would you like to see any more of anything? Less of anything? What are some of your goals for this year?

Thank you again for your support! Happy Late New Year! :D

You May Also Like: 
Fall Update 2013!
Summer Update!
I'm now twenty and other updates!
Conference!
Hot n' Cold

If you liked this post, come back every Saturday for more writing advice, character interviews, book reviews and more! On Sundays I have Soundtrack Sundays where I post a new score piece, Tuesdays are Tea Tuesdays with tea reviews, Wednesdays I have Wonderful Word Wednesdays where I post a new vocabulary word, and Fridays are Fan Fridays where I post tags and other goodies. To help support my dream to be an author follow this blog, like me on Facebook, watch me on deviantART, and follow me on Pinterest and Twitter. If you want to know more about my books check out them out here. Thank you! :)

Writing Humor Into Your Story

Hey, all! I'm finally back with another blog post! I took an end of the year hiatus but now I'm back. :) And I'm working hard on editing my sci-fi novel Subsapien Biomech. ^ ^ But anyway ... on to the post!

Humor is important for your story whether it's a dystopian, a fantasy, or a contemporary. It isn't just for comedies. It endears you to the characters of the story. It can help relieve tension in the story, because though tension can be good it becomes exhausting at times so a little joke or a funny incident can be a nice break. And hey, everyone likes to laugh.

Mahogany!

A tool used a lot by writers is the Comic Relief Character. They crack the most jokes or do the most funniest things either on purpose or naturally and bring a little humor into the story.

Some examples are Sokka from Avatar: the Last Airbender, Walter Foley from the Dragons in Our Midst series by Bryan Davis, Merry and Pippin from the Lord of the Rings, and Effie Trinket from The Hunger Games trilogy. One from my science-fiction series Subsapien is Emil.

Though these characters are often funny that shouldn't be the sole role of the character. These characters are also vital to the plot of their stories. Keep that in mind if you decide to include a comic relief character.

What makes you laugh? What do you laugh about with your friends? Do you like random humor? Like a character thinking up something totally out of the blue like Si Robertson from Duck Dynasty? Do you like witty humor like from Jane Austen books and films? Do you prefer goofy humor like Sokka from Avatar: the Last Airbender? Do you like slapstick like when a character does something klutzy?

You can find a way to weave this into your books during a rest period in your story or possibly in the middle of the action. If it makes you laugh, the reader most likely will too. A couple funny lines scattered here and there makes your story more enjoyable and this especially helps with darker stories. Effie Trinket not intentionally is the humor of the Hunger Games. She lightens up the mood when things get too tense.

Be careful about having too many funnies or your book becomes a comedy or they will become tedious. Strategically place your jokes at appropriate times in your story and they'll be the most effective. Sometimes a funny scene is good, but if it slows down the story too much you'll want to cut back.

Some examples of some good well-placed humor:

1.) In Avatar: the Last Airbender Season 2 Book 2 Earth Episode 11 "The Desert" the gang was stuck in the

Sokka (Avatar the Last Airbender)

desert and wandered for quite some time. To add in a way to make the journey less tedious the writers had Sokka drink some hallucinogenic cactus juice and it was hilarious.

2.) In the Hunger Games film, Haymitch, Peeta and Katniss were having a conversation over breakfast that got a little tense. When Katniss stabbed the table the with a knife Effie Trinket shouted from across the room, "That's mahogany!" This was both funny in its randomness and showed the character's over the top concern with materialistic things.

3.) In the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Merry and Pippin were fleeing from an orc in Fangorn Forest. Pippin climbed up a tree to avoid their pursuer while Merry was being attacked by the orc, but the tree turned out to be an ent (a living tree creature).

The Ent saved Merry from the orc, but held both the hobbits in a crushing grip unsure if they are friend or foe. In the middle of the Ent's indecision on whether to kill them or not Pippin said, "It's talking, Merry! The tree is talking!" This effectively broke up the tension a little.

I hope this post helped you in writing humor! Happy writing and may the muse be ever your favor! ;)

Do you have a Comic Relief Character? What are some funny jokes in your books? 

You may also like:
Six Tips For Line Editing
Tone Down But Don't Water Down
Write What You Know ... And What You Don't Know
Twelve Rookie Writer Mistakes and How to Mend Them
From Lemons to Book Experiences

If you liked this post, come back every Saturday for more writing advice, character interviews, book reviews and more! On Sundays I have Soundtrack Sundays where I post a new score piece, Tuesdays are Tea Tuesdays with tea reviews, Wednesdays I have Wonderful Word Wednesdays where I post a new vocabulary word, and Fridays are Fan Fridays where I post tags and other goodies. To help support my dream to be an author follow this blog, like me on Facebook, watch me on deviantART, and follow me on Pinterest and Twitter. If you want to know more about my books check out them out here. Thank you! :)

A Review of Masters & Slayers by Bryan Davis

Buy from Amazon!

 The planet Starlight is controlled by dragons. Because of the depletion in their atmosphere of an essential gas, pheterone, they must search for a way to survive. They know that a network of gas veins exists deep beneath the crust of their planet, but, being dragons, they are not skilled with ways to drill. 

    One dragon, Magnar, finds humans on another planet he calls Darksphere, captures several of them, and forces them to drill through Starlight’s crust in order to release the gas. A man escapes and returns to the planet of humans. He tells everyone about the missing people they call the Lost Ones and how they went through a portal to a dragon planet. Since the portal doesn’t always work, he is unable to prove his story, and nearly everyone thinks he is crazy or maybe he murdered the others.

    A few believe his story and form a group called the Underground Gateway, which refers to the portal. Unfortunately, the escapee’s son is imprisoned and becomes inaccessible, so the Gateway has to try to piece together information as they secretly search for the portal. After many unsuccessful years, they are considered by most to be nothing more than crackpot conspiracy theorists. 

    One hundred years after the initial enslavement, Adrian Masters, a 24-year-old expert swordsman, sets out on a journey to find the portal to the dragon planet. He is accompanied by Marcelle, a sword maiden of amazing skill whose ideas about how the operation should be carried out conflict with his own. Adrian believes in using stealth and cunning to free the slaves, while Marcelle opts to take a more direct approach. This causes friction between these two warriors, though they respect each other’s skills highly. 

    When Adrian and Marcelle find the slaves, they learn that these longsuffering people have no memory of their origins, making them reluctant to believe the two would-be rescuers, especially since the dragons crush any opposition to their cruel tyranny. Undeterred by the overwhelming obstacles, the two warriors set out to free the slaves and face mortal danger at every turn. As they battle dragons, endure torture, and dispel superstition, they learn that an ultimate sacrifice is the only way they can bring liberty to the oppressed.

Series: Tales of Starlight (Book 1)
Genre: Adult Fantasy

Publisher: Living Ink Books (September 10, 2010)

Page Count: 400

What I liked: I've actually enjoyed this book a bit more than the YA partnering series, Dragons of Starlight. Perhaps it's because I'm older, perhaps I have a different mindset now or maybe I just like Adrian's and Marcelle's story a bit better.

I felt more for the slaves in this book. I could really see the devastating suffering they went for especially with the Cattle Children. They broke my heart. I enjoyed being in the contrasting point of views of Adrian, Marcelle and Drexel. It was neat seeing the different perspectives of Starlight through them.

I also like the concept of the spirit Starlighter, Cassabrie inside of Adrian. Another innovative Mr. Davis idea. The book possesses good twists and classic Bryan Davis description. He always paints vivid descriptions. :)

What I didn't like: What I didn't like is what I usually don't like with many of Mr. Davis's books is that I feel like the dialogue is a little forced or overly prosy. I had trouble getting into the mindset that a child was speaking when her dialogue was so mature. Perhaps this is what Mr. Davis was going for, but it bothered me to a degree.

Content Cautions: The book has some violence and implied mature concepts, but it's all very subtle. Basically this book is pretty clean. :)

Over all I give the book four stars! :) Thank you, Mr. Davis, for another good book. :)

About the Author: 

Bryan Davis is the author of the following young adult fantasy series: Dragons in our Midst, Oracles of Fire, Echoes from the Edge, and Dragons of Starlight. He also wrote I Know Why the Angels dance, a contemporary novel for adults.

After laboring as a computer geek for 20 years, Bryan followed a dream to become an author. He began by writing a story to motivate his seven children to gain some excitement about writing, and that story grew into a novel. After spending the next eight years learning the craft and enduring more than 200 rejections from publishers and agents, he broke through with his best-selling series Dragons in our Midst. He is now a full-time author and lives with his wife, Susie, and their children in western Tennessee.

You can find him on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and his website! I also have an interview with him I had on the blog!

Other Books by Bryan Davis:

Dragons of Starlight:
Dragons of Starlight Book 3: Diviner
Dragons of Starlight Book 4: Liberator

If you enjoyed this review, you can find more over on the Book Reviews tab of click the link. :)

If you liked this post, come back every Saturday for more writing advice, character interviews, book reviews and more! On Sundays I have Soundtrack Sundays where I post a new score piece, Tuesdays are Tea Tuesdays with tea reviews, Wednesdays I have Wonderful Word Wednesdays where I post a new vocabulary word, and Fridays are Fan Fridays where I post tags and other goodies. To help support my dream to be an author follow this blog, like me on Facebook, watch me on deviantART, and follow me on Pinterest and Twitter. If you want to know more about my books check out them out here. Thank you! :)

Six Tips For Line Editing

Wow, you've written an entire manuscript some 70K words. You've cried and stressed during the macro edit as you had to cut and mesh scenes and fill in those plot holes. Now you're near the finish line, and you've come to line-editing or micro-editing. You have to get every little sentence perfect. If you're there right now, I am too. XD And, well, it's intimidating to an extent so here are some tips I have to help you with this daunting task.

First of all, you have to prepare your editor eyes. You should be doing this all the time by learning as much about the craft of writing as possible. There are so many free resources out there if you don't have the coin to invest in a writing craft book just yet, but I suggest getting your hands on some in the future. Reading blogs has helped me like crazy. There are so many good ones like Go Teen Writers. You can't edit if you don't know what to look for! And grammar and typos are just a small portion of editing.

Now you may have already done this. That's good so here are six tips for line-editing!

1.) Read Books and Analyze the Writing - If you love to write, you probably love to read so as you read study how that author describes or how long the sentences are or paragraphs or just every little detail. Did you like it? Did it bring you deeper into the story world? Do you think that author could've given you a clearer picture?

2.) Critique Other People - Get involved in a critique group on Facebook, forums, a writer's society, or just with a group of writer friends. I have gotten drastically better at editing from editing other people. Mistakes start popping out, and it makes it so much easier to find them in your own writing. I highly recommend this.


You've done some preparing now let's get to it! WARNING: Editing is time consuming. If it's going too fast, you're probably missing something, so one thing about editing is to be patient and slow and the biggest skeptic there ever was lol. If a sentence sounds like it could be misunderstood or cheesy then it probably is.


3.) Read Your Work In Your Head Slowly - Read at a snail's pace and question every line. Is it too long? Is the mood for the scene I'm wanting being portrayed? Could I describe that better? Would the character really say that or should I cut the line all together? Oh look! A typo!

4.) Read Your Work Out Loud - Call me crazy, but I can't stress this enough. I read over each page of my manuscript in my head and then out loud and when I read out loud I find stuff that I didn't catch reading in my head! I especially recommend reading your dialogue out loud.

You went through the whole manuscript on your own and maybe you asked your friend or your family to help you with that one line you stared at for a half hour (Yes, I've been there, too.). Now it's time to bring in the Calvary.

5.) Have Someone Else Read Your Work Out Loud - Find a devoted friend or family member that'll do this, because it helps immensely. You find things you wouldn't have before this way either by reading along silently or just listening.

6.) Have People Critique You - Have some people read over your manuscript or just parts of it even. Make sure they're not just closed friends who can sometimes be biased, but people you don't know as well. It can either be someone you know or someone in a writers group.

I hope these tips help you in your editing process! Happy writing and may the muse be ever your favor! ;)

Do you have any questions about editing? Do you use any of these methods or do you have one I haven't mentioned?

You may also like:
Twelve Rookie Writer Mistakes and How to Mend Them
Nine Ways to Meet Writer Friends: A Guest Post by Lauren Claire
A Book Review of Go Teen Writers: How to Turn Your First Draft Into A Published Novel
Write What You Know ... And What You Don't Know
Tone Down But Don't Water Down

Characters in Costume - Sidekick Characters - Pro

This month I'm participating in young author Gillian Bronte Adam's Of Battles, Swords and Dragons of Adamant's Characters in Costume Challenge! December's Challenge is Sidekicks! My bestie, Cassidy, has let me use her Halloween Pro costume pics for it because she's awesome. ^ ^

Pro Jamerson is from my YA futuristic science-fiction series, Subsapien. She grew up in a bad part of the capital city in the Prime Dome and works for the world's leading scientific company to support her family. She is a biomechanical subsapien meaning she's half human and half robot--sort of like a cyborg--hence the metal arm. Biomech for short.

For a few years now her biomech parts have made her smart, fast, and strong. Her arm can shoot out her fist attached to a long cable like a harpoon gun. She uses her ability to punch enemies from afar or as a grappling hook. Magnetism in her hand allows her to have a firm grip on metal for grappling.

She loves to wear jeans or basketball shorts since she is a tomboy. Her hair is nearly always in a ponytail. Though she wears t-shirts, she likes showing off her tightened muscles in a tank top. She also enjoys sneakers and multiple necklaces and bracelets as her personal fashion statement and her glimmer of girlishness.

She's spunky and a wizard at martial arts. Laced with a Southern accent she has a quick wit, and she's a frequent user of sarcasm. She shows my main characters Bryce and Caleb the ropes in their new home at Rota's Laboratory of Technological Research or L.T.R. Though she likes to pick on her boys a lot, she is a faithful friend and definitely a wanted ally in a fight.

If you'd like to learn more about her, check out her book description in Current Projects, her profile in Characters or some of my drawings of her in the Art Gallery. ^ ^

Thanks for letting me participate, Gillian! :)

Have you done Characters in Costume before? Have you ever dressed up as a character of yours before? Has anyone else?

You may also like:

Characters in Costume Challenge - Hayli

Interview with Pro Jamerson (Subsapien)
Interview with Sybra (Legend of the Orb) & Pro (Subsapien)
Interview with Caleb Heagen
Interview with Jeff Parker (Subsapien)

If you liked this post, come back every Saturday for more writing advice, character interviews, book reviews and more! On Sundays I have Soundtrack Sundays where I post a new score piece, Tuesdays are Tea Tuesdays with tea reviews, Wednesdays I have Wonderful Word Wednesdays where I post a new vocabulary word, and Fridays are Fan Fridays where I post tags and other goodies. To help support my dream to be an author follow this blog, like me on Facebook, watch me on deviantART, and follow me on Pinterest and Twitter. If you want to know more about my books check out them out here. Thank you! :)