You know what, I will tell you guys myself! I am an indecisive schmuck when it comes to choosing my next read. And I used to think it was normal too, until I saw those beautiful posts on monthly and weekly TBRs. Well, as much as they inspired me, they broke me.
How I Choose My Next Read?
So I guess I need a system. FOR CHOOSING MY NEXT READ. That makes sense doesn’t it? I should not be wasting an hour or two of my precious time on deciding what I am reading next instead of reading it already. Especially with the tremendous growth I have been showing when it came to planning of late. It should be a cake walk right?
Let us get on with it, I will choose my next read right away WITHOUT WASTING ANYMORE TIME.
Method 1: Choosing the book (ARC – Advance review copies) that is closest to the publishing date.
Well, these seem obvious right? With planning and I being so chummy these days, I just have to choose one that is near the deadline. I never thought it was going to be this simple. Now I can just read!
BUT.. But I don’t feel like waging a war with the zombie right now. Maybe, I am in the mood for a romance, especially since it is winter and all.
Let me check the Goodreads’ romance shelf.
*Ends up ordering two or three or ten books and spends the night worrying about how broke I am*
Method 2: Choose a book from the recommendations and reviews of your favorite blogger
Today is new day and a new beginning. Let me pick one book before I have my morning coffee so that I can start reading while I commute or run errands.
Let us make this easy. Pick the one that your favorite blogger recommended recently.
But which one? I have so many favorite bloggers and they have so many books on their recommendation.
It is going to take a while, guys. Let me get that coffee first.
*Ends up blog hopping till it is dark, skipping breakfast, lunch and survives on coffee*
Method 3: Pick one that has stayed the longest on your TBR
I will just pick the one that I have in my TBR already.
May be the one I added the first, like the First in first out. This method works so well for stocks in the stores, it should work me too.
OMG, I need to read THIS, I have no idea why I have not read this. It has been so long that I don’t even know where it is. I just have to find this on my shelf.
Well, that is a bust. I have no clue where it is.
Method 4: Pick the one right next to you, literally.
You know what? I am just going to pick that random book that is physically near me and save the time instead of searching for one in these heap.
But my e-reader has like 100s of books and it is near me as it should be as always. Should I pick that one up already? The ‘latest one I added in that’ makes more sense right? What am I if not the most sensible one!
I am going for it. And I am just going to ignore the hard copies and their beautiful covers. Like I care about them. Or do I?
Method 5: Take a quiz or two
Sigh I give up. I can’t do this. I wish someone told me what to read. Someone like Goodreads but not exactly that.
I love Pinterest. Not just for saving ideas or recipes to try out later, but also for my blog. I am not sure how much traffic that has generated for me yet but it definitely has.
Like everyone around here I caught with the Pinterest train when it came out. But I used it mostly for personal stuff like saving for holiday decor or a hairstyle that I wanted to try out for an occasion.
While I knew about group boards that worked well for so many bloggers, I was reluctant to join them because well I am majorly a book blogger and many of my posts are going to have a book cover as its feature image. That may not be so attractive to the other bloggers. So never joined them.
But then I joined some amazing group boards that are mainly for book bloggers and here I am pinning away to glory. If you are not following me yet on Pinterest, ensure you do right away.
Now that I have established I like Pinterest, though not as much as Twitter, I still hate having to navigate those atrociously huge images in a post. Especially when you have more than one Pinterest size image. There I said it.
For the uninitiated, the recommended Pinterest image size is 735px X 1102px according to Canva, which is definitely huge. I know some of us dislike seeing too many GIFs in blog posts but imagine having to see these humongous images.
What if I say you don’t have to see them at all? In fact all my posts have a pinnable image or two, but they are never visible when you scroll down the post. And it is definitely not difficult.
If you switch back to visual mode, the picture will blocked as below.
Save and publish the draft. You are good to go. Don’t worry, all the other images and GIFs will be still visible and can be pinned if you still want to.
You can still add the blog images from your site to Pinterest like you do usually.
Click Save from site on the Pinterest website and add your link there.
Either way you will find this Pinterest image ready to be pinned. And if you click on it, you will be directed to my post, like you would expect.
Now you will be able to share as many images as you want from your posts, but without pesky images bothering your readers.
(Psst.. There is a pinterest image hidden in this post as well. Just try clicking the pin button here)
Let me know if you tried this on your blog. Do you want to see these small yet handy solutions for your blog? Feel free to ask me if you have any doubts.
I seldom lose my cool when I see those glaring plot holes in books and movies. If the book has more than a few, I feel completely turned off and may even DNF the book. Many of us do that and it is not wrong to DNF.
I realized these inconsistencies are much more common than I realized and I decided to explore more on it. In order to make it easier to find and fill those damn holes, I will try and classify the holes in terms of plot and story line into groups.
1. Illogical and impossible scenes
I hate it when in the movies the actor gets shot in their chest with a gun, continues to fight the villain and deliver a fatal blow , yet a single bullet can explode moving cars every time. Don’t you?
For me the simple measure to group these illogical scenes in a plot is to ask myself if they make go ‘But how did he/she?’. More often than not, those questions are rhetorical because we know that couldn’t happen, unless there was a miracle. And if your story is about magic and miracle, please elaborate on how it happened. If not, that is a hole for you to fix.
Let us see some examples shall we?
The highly frustrated curly girl in me, wants to mention about how easy the makeovers are – removing the glass and straightening the hair.
Another one about the bullets. A single man (the protagonist) can shooting 20 men has more chance in destroying them than 20 of them shooting him. It always happens in the movies.
2. Contradictory scenes
Y’all how much I love reading Whodunnits and attempting (and failing) to solve it. But you know what irks me the most there? Plot holes!!
Why does the person who left town in the third chapter return in the final chapter? Please do not say he is the murderer, that is too convenient. Don’t we hate it when luck and coincidence solves them all? Okay maybe I am moving away from the topic. Do not let your events contradict.
Here are some more that would just make me pull the hair off my head.
A person who is trapped in a dungeon appears from nowhere at the last moment to defuse the bomb. He WAS TRAPPED!
You were beaten black and blue in a fight earlier, but without any more new reinforcements you win him the next day. What changed and how?
How did you know land the bull’s eye if you never learnt archery? At the least tell me in advance that you were good at darts. Look out for those events that could not have happened because of something else that happened in the book and kick them off.
3. Unresolved conflicts:
I cannot emphasis too much on this one at all. I mean am sure no one would like to wait for eternity to know what those smaller characters did next in your story. Of course I hate cliffhangers, but I am not talking about them.
While love having lots ofa fewjust the right number of side plots and characters in a story but only when you intend to make them reach their destiny er.. I mean solution. Why else would you include about them, except perhaps to add some conflicts just for the heck of it?
I know some of these might sound a bit over the top but they do happen. As a beta reader I do point out such inconsistencies in the manuscript but it saves a lot of time and your efforts to fix them when you revise your manuscript before you send it to the beta reader or the editor.
Just remember, if it doesn’t make sense to you, your readers won’t understand it either.
What is the most blatant plot hole you have come across in a movie or a book? Do you find these gaps in the plot annoying or they completely obtrusive? Do share with me.
Almost everyone I know and follow on the blog world is either taking part in the #NaNoWriMo or cheering for someone who does. I definitely am in the latter category and all am hoping is to not get stuck in a blogging rut once again. *knocks wood*.
But as a writer, be a blogger or a novelist or a poet, getting into a rut seems too scary, yet it is very possible that any day you might. There are days when I just stare at the blank page waiting for the words to pour out for hours and they wouldn’t.
Well, if this scenario sounds a little true for you then this article is for you. If not, please let us know what kinda crazy potion do you drink each night.
I am gonna try and tell you the secrets of managing the slump or rut so that your writing doesn’t have to stop.
10. Write like you talk
Do not worry about your writing voice.
Why try to change a voice that you use daily to talk to people in your real life? Talk to your readers as you would talk to your friends and family. Don’t try to be the pompous ass that you are not in real life. If you are one real life, DO NOT FOLLOW THIS ADVICE.
9. Talk to a person
More often than not, I get stuck when I try to generalize my readers and talk to them, as a faceless crowd. It is easier to think of that one person who would enjoy your story or post and just write for them. It is definitely less intimidating.
8. Don’t self sabotage
Negative thoughts send us down a spiral. It happens to the best of us and it is easier to say to be positive. But to truly overcome that try and understand its pattern and then solve the cause.
Worried that you are you not organized? Get a spreadsheet or a planner. Worried that you are you not creative enough? Start writing. You are not a real writer? Write MORE.You can do it.
7. Best laid plans
One can never stress enough on the importance on planning. Instead of waiting for an inspiration to strike every time you need to post on your blog, working with a plan makes sense doesn’t it?
Every week I start with a blog plan and schedule for the week which avoids the time I spend on frantically searching for topic when I actually write.
6. That elusive perfect ritual
Every post or article we write is different and the process we end up might be different as well. What I am trying to say is, do not fixate on your perfecting a writing ritual.
There is no one perfect writing process. If you do have one, please share it below in the comment section.
5. Write a spinoff
When you are stuck without knowing what to write read some of your old works. Write a sequel or part two of your most favorite. If you are a blogger, I believe every post can off shoot more posts.
Another thing that never fails to gets started is making a list. Make a list of 10 items. or 20. It could be on anything. Do not try to hard or to make sense. Dump everything on the blank page.
You can even write list of ideas for your posts that you can expand later. I do that often. It never hurts to have an idea bank.
Despite all these I do suffer from ‘staring at the white sheet’ more often than I would like to admit, and there is only one thing that gets me going. I set a timer for a short time, say 20 minutes and start freewheeling. I am sure you will start making sense in one or two bouts.
2. Use your creative muscles
When everything fails, shut your work down and go do something else. Read. Draw. Sing. Dance. Just do not obsess about what you are supposed to be writing. A creative break usually gets us back in the mood to write something. If doesn’t, well you did something else creative didn’t you?
1. Enjoy what you do
Lastly but the most important thing is: write for yourself and enjoy what you do. When you push and push you might end up frustrated, which ultimately is not achieving anything. Write for writing sake and enjoy the writing craft, I am sure your readers will thank you for it.
These are some of the things I do when I have to get over the writing rut, be it for a blog post or copy writing. Let me know if it works for you.
How often do you struggle to write an article or post? What are the things that you do to manage the rut? Do you follow any of these ideas? Let us talk more.
There comes a time when every author has to put an end to their writing and start seeing their work objectively. Their objectivity would go a long away in making their manuscript, or book if I may, appealing to the masses. Of course the beta readers and editors would do their jobs but you would be glad you did your part before sending it off to the professionals.
Much like typos and grammatical errors, a glaring plot hole would turn me off from reading the book completely. When we say plot hole we generally think of the inconsistencies in the storyline or the plot itself, but it is much more than that, don’t you think?
In fact anything that would make your readers go ‘what just happened?‘ in a not so expected way is just the plot holes we are talking about.
As an author you are expected to have already fixed the plot holes when you send your book off to editing and critiquing, but there are some plot holes that are sneaky and may not be visible to your eyes, especially after repeated readings. This makes the use of a beta reader indispensable.
A plot hole is a collective term to all the sneaky inconsistencies in the narrative or a character development of a book or a movie/television programme, to paraphrase the Oxford English Dictionary.
This does not include those apparent inconsistencies that will be solved in the oncoming chapters or books. We can divide such inconsistencies into three heads based on where they may be found.
Inconsistencies in the plot
Plot holes refers to any inconsistencies in the plot or any event in the story line. Plot refers to anything from the place, time and events that take place in those places and times.
Inconsistencies could be illogical, contradictory or ignored. Let us examples of each of these cases.
Illogical plot hole:
A character who is terminally ill gets well miraculously just to be a part of a love triangle.
Contradictions:
A character that living 2000 km away from his lady love, drives back to her hometown in a single night to save her from the villain.
A plot that is ignored or forgotten:
A character that goes missing (i.e forgotten) all of a sudden for no reason.
2) Inconsistencies in the character development
We are never gonna hear the end of how Lily has brown eyes, when we all knew she and Harry had the same blue eyes. Or why Buzz has to pretend freeze around humans if he thought he was a real space ranger.
And that is exactly what we are talking about.
Anything that character does or does not do as the reader has been told to expect of him is an inconsistency and thus a plot hole.
Some examples of such holes are:
A mighty super villain has a change of heart about destroying the planet just after a small setback.
A protagonist that never grows, changes or is affected by the plot.
3) Inconsistencies in the world building
This is a major one, especially in the fantasy genre. The fictional world that we write for includes why things happen the way they do and why the characters react how they do.
We need to know the reasons and motivation behind the character’s actions before we can relate to them and continue to root for them. But when these fails, the readers stop caring about what happens to the characters and the plot.
Some examples of issues in terms of world building:
An antagonist whom we fail to see as powerful enough.
Sub plots that are not closed.
Why the lead falls for the female and why is it different from the other times?
While these plot holes may not be apparent to you, your readers are definitely going to find them out and it is critical that you should too. You could always reach to a friend, a fellow writer or a professional beta reader requesting them to give a read to weed these out.
Aside, I am considering to write more on these series, what do you say? Should I continue these writing topics? Let me know in the comment section.
Are there plot holes that do not fall in these headers? Do you plot holes turn off from reading further? What is the most annoying plot hole issue that you have read? And authors/writers, tell us about the plot hole you had and how you fixed Let us chat.
