What Makes a Good Book?

Anyone who's seen "The Sound of Music" knows that the beginning is the very best place to start. So, when I'm getting ready to spend six days ranting about good books, I figure I should begin by defining that term.

{My left temple is twitching. That has nothing to do with this whatsoever, it's just really weird.}

Personally, I'm a book snob. Does this narrow my field of enjoyment? Yes. Does it make me a better judge of what's actually good literature?

I think so. But that might just be the snob talking.

For me, a good book must have three main qualities:

1. A good plot. {Tight, realistic, timeless, moral.}

This is just a must, and it can go so wrong in so many different ways. You have the...

To simple: Sarah must rescue her dog. And so she spends the whole book, um, rescuing her dog. The end.

To complicated: Sarah's father used to have this dog when he was a kid that came from a lab in the future, but when his psychopathic grandfather created a time warp and send the dog back, he got lost and Sarah found him but now he's run away only he somehow had futuristic genes and so he's a hippo now and Sarah has to track him across the ocean because he also acquired gills and the power of speech but secretly the grandfather is now back and he's getting together with Sarah's sister, which is obviously gross because Sarah's sister is engaged to the owner of Sarah's dog's groomer, who Sarah is in love with but he's also a mad scientist and--

See?

Unrealistic: The villain spends the whole book being an asshole, then conveniently has a change of heart and everything becomes hunky dory.

Inconsistent: The kind of story that has loose ends that drive you crazy because there's no good explanation for them.

Stupid: I don't think I have to explain this one. Some stories were just not meant to be told.

2. Good characters. {Enjoyable, real, well-developed, unique.}

This is probably my #1 most important quality in a book. If your plot sucks and you can't write, at least make me love your characters. That's actually a lot harder than it sounds, I think, because the characters must be...

Realistic - No one is an asshole for no reason, just like the villain doesn't give up assholery because you can't figure out how to end the story.

Original - The shy girl who's beautiful but doesn't know it and wants the hot guy to look at her. NAWWWWWWWW. Never met HER before.

Unpredictable - Let me guess. The girl shows a sign of "unexpected" courage and the boy notices her. I see. {And have seen since about page four.}

Engaging - If it's the main character, you have to be rooting for him/her. If it's the sidekick, you have to be feeling his/her struggle. If it's the villain, you have to be outraged/terrified/fascinated by his/her schemes.

Appreciable - You have to appreciate the character. Notice I didn't say "like" them. Hopefully you will hate the villain {although we writers sometimes like them because they represent good writing XD}, but you have to appreciate what a good job the author did on them.

Well-developed - If you character is realistic, original, unpredictable, engaging and appreciable but you don't really "get" them {and never do}, they still suck. You have to know why the character is the way he is, how he got there, what he cares about, his past, his hopes, his pet-peeves, his weaknesses. The character has to be a real, multidimensional, complex PERSON or he's nothing.

3. Good writing.

Of course, "good writing" has a lot to do with qualities 1 and 2, but what I mean is that the author has to have a way with words. It's as simple as that, but definitely more complicated than it sounds. It can be little things, like the way they make you see the room without spelling it out, or more obvious things like sentence structure. If every sentence is SUBJECT VERB DIRECT-OBJECT, it's boring as hell.

{Sarah looked at the dog. She walked to the dog. She bent down to the dog. She said to the dog, "Here boy." She put the leash on the dog.

Bleck.}

The author needs to show and not tell, but we've all heard that before. Don't say Johnny was angry, say he drew his brows down in a narrow-eyed glare.

And then you have times when the author needed to just, er, shut up. The author has to realize that sometimes, LESS IS MORE. I love Cornelia Funke's "Inkheart," but she went down hill with "Inkspell" and absolutely lost it in "Inkdeath." Somehow she confused explaining the setting with giving the reader twenty years of backstory including every characters' facial twitch, sock color and greeting exchange. "Inkdeath" could literally have been half its size in my opinion.

Cut the fluff. It's annoying.

And there you have it. The three qualities that I say define "good books." I think this post might be very jumbled and possibly woefully incomplete, but it's quite late, and I have an early day tomorrow.

~Stephanie

Book Week

Hi.

I know. Normally when I start out by saying "hi," it means I'm going to tell you that I'm not going to post. But that's not the case this time. This time, I'm actually just saying Hi. So.

Hi.

I was thinking about lists today, which is something I do a lot. I was thinking that I should have a List Week on Pandora, but then I got to thinking, "Right. List 'Week.' To get all your crud in you'd have to make it list MONTH, and then by that time you'd have a least four or five more little gems to share. Right. List Week."

I decided that List Week was a little too broad. So what did I do?

I made a list of all the categories of lists that I could pick from--

Haha, just kidding. {Although to be honest, that idea is tempting me like no one's business right now. Damn. I might actually do that. And then you could pick which one interests you the most--no. Nonononono. No.}

Actually I just decided to do Book Week instead, and it won't all be lists. I'll have a few lists in there, and a few book reviews on stuff I've been reading. {Or, if school decides to do that cool thing where it swallows me whole, I'll publish some OLD book reviews I wrote. Yeah, I'm that...lazy.}

So, I hope you like to read, and if you don't, I hope you at least have fun reading Pandora this week and making snarky comments to yourself about how reading is such an excruciating chore and you can't believe someone as beautiful and smart as me hasn't figured that out yet.

:D

~Stephanie

Ojos

It means "eyes" in Spanish. You see, not only do I have a fascination {*cough* obsession *cough*} with languages, I also have a fascination with eyes. I've taken eye pictures for years, and that became super apparent to me when I was stalling going to bed last night and looked through my pictures.

Here are some of the favorites I found.

~Stephanie

How Far Is Too Far?

No, this isn't about sex.

When I posted about southern honor the other day, Jay commented with a question that got me thinking. The post talks about how important it is in the south to defend your honor and defend it strongly. I'm not an advocate of rampant violence or anything, but I definitely do not rule out a good slug when seriously provoked.

Jay's question, though, was:

"How far is too far?"

For an awkward first moment, I had no idea what I thought. I didn't comment back right away because I needed to think. I slept on it. And this is what I came up with:

When defending your honor, you go too far if you begin to compromise your own honor or the honor of someone else.

For example. Say some jerk insults your sister. You are southernly obligated to make sure the guy knows never to do that again. Telling him you don't appreciate him doing that might work fine, but mild physical repercussions wouldn't be terribly out of hand.

However. Say you start a huge fight with the guy and really hurt him, or spread a rumor about him, or vow to make his life miserable for the rest of the semester. At that point, it's no longer defending your honor because you are making YOURSELF look like a jerk instead of keeping him in line. That is going too far.

How about a flashback for this next example? Think ancient times during a war. Say there's a fierce warrior whose only pride and joy is his younger cousin. The younger cousin goes out to fight in the warrior's armor and is killed by the enemy general. The warrior might feel bound by honor {not to mention loyalty} to avenge his cousin's death, and that's fine. In those days, the only appropriate response would be to kill the enemy general. And that's fine too.

But say the warrior succeeds in killing the enemy general, and then defiles his body by dragging it behind his chariot, depriving him of a proper burial ceremony. That violates the honor of the enemy general, and is therefore going too far. Everyone deserves burial rights. Everyone, because it's part of honor.

So that's my answer. Defend your honor and the honor of those important to you, but you go too far when you cross the line of morality. You should never compromise your own honor while defending it {how oxymoronic would that be?}, nor should you step on the honor of others.

'Cause that's just dishonorable XD

~Stephanie

P.S. You might remember when I asked you what was "gross" about a post a couple of days ago. Jay, you had a great guess, that the word means "large" in French. That's totally the kind of thing I would do. However, it's still not what I was going for XD

The post on September 1 was the 144th. Do you know what 144 is?

A gross.

It's like a dozen. 12 is a dozen, 144 is a gross.

Yeah, I know. I'm a dork.

TMI

This post is really late, and what I'm about to talk about is completely old news now, but I just found out about it last week:

Jace of the Mortal Instruments has been cast.

*deep breathing*

In case you don't know, I love the Mortal Instruments trilogy. As in, you have no idea how hard it is for me to just type these words normally and not

BIG AND BRIGHT AND OBNOXIOUSLY RIDDLED WITH SMILIES :OOOOO

I'm a book snob, and I think Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments books are some of the best things I've ever read. The plot is tight and unpredictable; the characterizations are realistic and lovable; the books are HILARIOUS, the guys are HOTT and the setting is AWESOME.

If you like modern fantasy with all that, I highly recommend the books. Even if you don't, I still recommend trying them out. I seriously love them.

Oh, and read them in order. Do NOT listen to anyone who tells you otherwise. You CAN read them out of order, but DO. NOT. because you'll miss some of the delightful subtleties and eye-opening backstories that will only make sense if you read them in the right order.

That doesn't sound too hard, but it gets confusing because Cassandra Clare has started another series called the Infernal Devices. It takes place like 200 years before the Mortal Instruments, BUT, you need to read the Infernal books in between the Mortals, as they come out, to get the best effect possible.

Basically, read them all in the order in which they were published. Like this:

City of Bones {Mortal Instruments}

City of Ashes {Mortal Instruments}

City of Glass {Mortal Instruments}

Clockword Angel {Infernal Devices}

City of Fallen Angels {Mortal Instruments}

Clockwork Prince {Infernal Devices, releases this spring}

It will mean a lot to me personally if you follow my advice on this.

Anyway. I didn't actually start this post to talk about the books. I started the post to talk about the movie, but to help you understand how much the movie means to me, I had to start with the books. Obviously.

So far, only the two main characters, Clarissa "Clary" Fray, and Jace Wayland have been cast. No one had any uber-strong preconceived notions about who should play Clary, although I remember seeing mostly Alexz Johnson and Emma Roberts.

In the end, Lily Collins got cast.


I think she looks GREAT for Clary. I'm definitely convinced she can pull it off wonderfully.

Then you have Jace, who {until I read the Infernal Devices XD} was pretty much my all-time favorite guy character of any book, movie, comic book, cartoon, skit, short, play, dream, video game or fantasy ever. Ever ever. His looks might do it alone {okay, I'm actually not THAT shallow}, but when paired with his lmfao sarcastic humor and fighting skills, no one else comes close.

Fan opinions on who should play Jace were almost unanimous, universal. Alex Pettyfer.


Alex Pettyfer looks EXACTLY how Jace is described, and in all his pictures he seems to ACT exactly how Jace is described. Fan opinions were so dead-freaking-set on Alex that his name and Jace's became almost synonymous. When talking to my friends I would use the names "Alex Pettyfer" and "Jace" interchangeably. No one else looked liked Jace, no one else sounded like Jace, no one else acted liked Jace, no one else could PLAY Jace. I was 99% sure that Alex Pettyfer would land the role Jace.

He didn't.

This is Alex Pettyfer, the personification of Jace:

And here is Jamie Bower, the guy who got the part:

...does that just, like, not compute with anyone else either? Jace, the epitome of dangerously charming and frightening attractive...somehow does not come across in this young man. Agreed?

I was pretty freaking SICK TO MY STOMACH about the whole casting decision, but after reading an interview with Cassandra Clare, I've definitely calmed down about it. Seeing this picture also helped:


A lot.

Hm. I'm willing to give Jamie a chance. Alex Pettyfer is still Jace in my mind, but I'm not gonna write this guy off.

Yet.

As you can tell, these books/this movie is really exciting to me, so you can be sure this isn't the last you'll hear of it.

If you've read the books, tell me and we can talk about them XD {Or not.} And if you haven't...do it.

~Stephanie

Stephanie's Europe Journal Day 5

This post is gross. I'll give an award to anyone who can tell me why.

Hint: It has nothing to do with the content of the post.

STEPHANIE'S EUROPE JOURNAL

"Stephanie, Alicia and the French Boy in Spain"
Day 5

7.12.11

"I haven't been doing my travel quotes! For the first couple of days I did that on purpose because I only have 17 quotes, but then I never started. So today is, "There are no foreign lands. It is only the traveler that is foreign." - Robert Louis Stevenson

Guess what? Alicia and I talked to the French boy last night! It took us a few minutes to work up to it, but Alicia went and knocked on his door. I would've, but we'd been staring at him out of door like total creepers and it was awkward. I'm so glad Alicia did though!! If she hadn't it would be another instance of me not carpe diem-ing and waiting too late to find out something awesome.

So she knocked on the door, and he apparently looked at her, then went away. She knocked again and he opened the door and just stared at her. That's when I came out from hiding and saved the day with my favorite tool/weapon XD WORDS!

"Hey," I whispered--Consuela was in bed.

"Hi," he said, looking for all the world like we were the stupidest girls ever, but he found it amusing.

"We don't want to bother you but--I mean, if you were about to sleep--were you? Sleeping?"

He shook his head, not glaring for a second. "No."

"We wanted to talk."

"Tahk?" There was the confused-amused-annoyed look.

"Get to know you," Alicia finally spoke.

"Ah." He got it then.

"What's your name?" I asked as the 3 of us stood in this door way. He was still holding it partway shut.

"Alexei."

"Alexei?" I tried to repeat it. He snickered good-naturedly and said with a shrug,

"Yes, olay." I knew I was a little off XD

"Where in France are you from?"

"In France?"

"Si."

"Eh..." He pointed down. "Sout. The sout?"

"Southern France?"

"Ah, si. Yes."

"Cool," I nodded. A silence stretched between the 3 of us for a minute. Then he opened the door and held up a finger in a "one sec" motion. He went to his things and grabbed something. He held up a pack of cards. My eyes lit up. Yes! Perfect!

"Sure!" We went in and pulled the door to so we wouldn't disturb anyone. It took us a minute to figure out what to play. In the end we just showed him Go Fish. I'm not sure if he already knew it or not, but he caught on super fast. It was a good ice-breaking few minutes.

"When'd you learn English?" Alicia asksed.

"Whaht?" *trademark face*

"How long have you known English?" I said.

"Oh..." He shrugged.

"Did you learn in school?" I asked.

He sort of shrugged, looking honestly unsure.

"Two...I don't know," he said.

"Two years?" Alicia repeated. He shook his head, sort of frustrated.

"I don't know how long...I don't speak English." We laughed.

"What? You're speaking it right now!" said Alicia.

"You speak really good English!" I said. He sort of smile-grinned and nodded. "Much better than I speak French. Or Spanish. I don't speak any French."

"I speak Russian too," he said.

"Me too!" said Alicia. She spouted off something.

"That's not Russian," Alexei said.

"What'd you say?" I asked.

"It is too," Alicia protested. "I means 'stupid monkey wants a banana."

"Styupit mohnkey vants ah bahnana?" Alexei was laughingly making the Face. "That's English."

We laughed.

We finished Go Fish and I asked Alexei if he liked it okay. "Iss too easy," he said.

"Do you know any other ones?" I asked him and Alicia.

"I know a game called Mau," said Alicia to me. "It's where only I know the rules and you and Alexei try to figure them out by playing. If you do something wrong you get a card. And no talking."

"That's horrible!" I said. "I hate stuff like that! What a horrible game!" Alicia laughed at me. Alexei was taking the cards.

"I know one," he said. "It is...for example." He gave us each cards and tried to show us. Some cards were better, he said. The... "What is...?" He pointed to the club symbol.

"That? A club," I said.

"A club," he repeated.

"Club," I nodded.

"Okay. So, it is better card...see, the...the..."

"Club."

"The club is...better--Let's play."

We tried, but we couldn't understand XD It ended with him saying, "No, iss too...complicated. Your game," he said to Alicia. She explained it and we got ready to play.

"Why..." Alexei began, shuffling the cards. "Why you say...is horrible game?"

"Oh," I said. "I just...don't like not knowing the rules.

"Ah," he nodded and smiled.

"You have nice hair," Alicia giggled. He looked at her blankly.

"Huh?" I said. I had missed it too.

"I told him he has nice hair." She looked a little mortified at herself. Alexei was looking at me for help. I shook my head.

"Uh, she just...she likes your hair."

"Whaht?" The Face. I touched my hair. "Oh." He got it and made the Face, with a little extra smile and blush. Then we all found out the time, 10:53, and had to go to bed.

"We'll play tomorrow night," Alicia said after going through me to ask if he would be here. "We don't have enough time." We all said goodnight and went to bed. Alicia and I talked and laughed for a long time.

Right now it's 3:07, siesta, and very hot. We had yellow rice and chicken {and salad and bread} for lunch. It looked disgusting was it was quite good! There was mellon again for desert. It is SO. GOOD. I have no idea what it is, maybe honeydew, but it is so amazing! Sweet and juicy and not a gross consistency. I love it. I also gave the bowl and explained it: "Um hombre en mi communidad hace. Un arbol in mi communidad." {A man in my neighborhood makes. A tree in my neighborhood.} I also gave Consuela and Lucia each a bracelet and said "Mi hermana hace." {My sister makes.}. And I got pictures :)

While we out shopping Consuela bought us each a BEAUTIFUL, most likely handpainted Spainish fan. Mine's red.

I kind of don't want to leave; that is, I want to go home, but I'd rather stay here than go to France and Italy. I think. Well, no. I still want to go to those places. I have lots of presents to get. In Spain I want to get Bri's earrings and Cass's keychain. And I need to get on Mrs. Martha's list of things to see!

{that night}

Rosa took us REAL sight-seeing today! We saw the train station and the colleseum and 3 GORGEOUS churches and mas {more}! Mi favorita estuve la iglesias. {My favorite were the churches.} On the way in the beginning, talking was stilted and slow but very friendly and eager. Rosa asked about my siblings and what my parents do and where I live, and she told us the same things about herself. She's wonderful! I managed "Tengo una hermana" {I have one sister}. Then "Hermana es catorce, pero *makes height with hand* (she's taller than me)." {My sister is 14, but...} Rosa laughed :) And about my dad, "Mi papa es...es iglesia? Y mi madre es professora." {My father is...is church? And my mother is teacher.} She asked what we wanted to be, and I didn't know how to say lawyer at all, so I went for "Escribo." {I write.} Remember, she's talking in full-on espanol. All the tour she went on and on, sometimes having to simplify things for me, but I got it!!!!!!! The more used to it I got, the better I got! Soon, SOMEHOW, I could more or less understand her."

~Stephanie

Southern Honor

So, the other day I was reminded of my strong southern tendencies concerning Honor, of which I am extremely proud. I know for a fact that southerners put more natural stock in honor than other parts of the globe, but do you?

About a year ago I read a book called “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell. It’s kind of a strange book in that it doesn’t really help you do anything, it just helps you understand things. Basically, it examines some successful people, and tries to figure out why they succeeded. There were some really interesting parts, and some parts that I skimmed, but my favorite part the chapter about

“cultural honor.”

It was so fascinating in fact that I've already written a post about it on the other blog, so I'm gonna be lame and basically paste it here. I edited it some because my writing style has matured a little, but the basics are still here.

Stick with me, please, I find this whole thing profoundly eye-opening.

You’ve heard about family feuds, right? How for generations and generations, families will just fight with each other for reasons they might not even remember? Well, let me quote Mr. Gladwell

“One family doing this is a feud. A ton of families right along the Appalachian doing it is a pattern.”

What made people in the south so prone to violent out breaks with each other?

Cultural honor.

You see, the main profession of the mountain areas was livestock so, peoples’ honor was very important. I mean, if you’re a farmer, you try your best to get along with people, but it’s not like anyone can actually STEAL your livelihood. What are they gonna do, pick up the wheat field and take it home?

However, if your job was tending sheep, people very well could steal your hard work. All you had to protect your livestock and your family was your reputation. Build up your reputation as a tough guy and no one will mess with you. Keep your honor intact.

Even nowadays when southerners have jobs other than watching cows all day, the mentality of keeping your honor has stuck around. Maybe it’s because there’s another reason for culture honor. It has to do with heritage.

Back during immigration, a definite trend started with the Scotch-Irish: they settled along the eastern/southern US.

That would be “from the Pennsylvania border south and west through Virginia and West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina, and the northern end of Alabama and Georgia.” And that’s where all this “cultural honor” stuff is big. You can steal my stuff, but you can’t insult my mama. That’s how it works here. *clears throat* I mean, there…

Okay, I’m from North Carolina. And when Mr. Malcolm Gladwell started raggin’ on my homeland, I started getting pretty hot inside.

And as I started boiling, I blinked and realized I was proving his point.

Oh.

Awkward.

I read on.

Gladwell also mentioned an experiment. In the early 1990s, two psychologists decided to get together a bunch of 18-21 year old guys and insult them to see how they would react. They came up with the insult they thought would resonate with them the most. “Asshole.”

The Experiment:

“The social sciences building at the University of Michigan has a long, narrow hallway in the basement lined with filing cabinets. The young men were called into a classroom, one by one and asked to fill out a questionnaire. Then they were told to drop off the questionnaire at the end of the hallway and return to the classroom.”

Half the guys were from the states that were high on cultural honor, half of them were not.

“As they walked down the hallway with their questionnaire, a man—a partner in the experiment—walked past them and pulled out a drawer in one of the filing cabinets. The already narrow hallway now became even narrower. As the young men tried to squeeze by, the part looked up, annoyed. He slammed the filing cabinet drawer shut, jostled the young men with his shoulder, and, in a low but audible voice said the trigger word: ‘asshole.’”

Through different tests that I won’t go into in detail, the suspicions were confirmed. Confirmed A LOT. The cultural honor boys were mad. Even though they didn’t act out in violence, their handshakes were firmer than usual, saliva samples revealed that being insulted had raised their levels of testosterone and cortisol (hormones that drive aggression). The guys were also given a short story and told to supply a conclusion. The story had to do with a guy’s girlfriend being come onto by another guy. The cultural honor guys who had been insulted made it end violently, while the guys who lived in other places did not.

IS THAT INTERESTING TO ANYONE ELSE?

I’m going to be perfectly honest with you:

I never thought people reacted any differently.

Call me ignorant, but I thought this was the same everywhere. I had no idea that in other parts of the US, it wouldn’t be natural to react violently to having your honor insulted. I mean, you just don’t do that here. No one gets upset if you steal their stuff, but if you attack their honor, boy, it’s on.

It’s not just guys, it’s girls, too. I mean, I honestly had no idea that it would occur to anyone not to get wild about something like this…I think I’ve already said that :) But you get the idea.

Who knew? I had no idea that culture honor wasn’t the same everywhere. What a cool eye-opener!

Hope you guys found this at least half as interesting as I did :)