2016 Reading List for YOU!!!

2016 Reading List

These books I found sooooo entertaining and just loved them. Try them if you like.

Series’-

·      Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien)

·      Shadowmagic (John Lenahan)

·      Endgame (James Frey)

·      Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)

·      Skulduggery Pleasant (Derek Landy)

·      The Maze Runner (James Dashner)

·      Narnia (C.S. Lewis)

·      Stravaganza (Mary Hoffman)

Singles-

·      Fangirl (Rainbow Rowell)

·      Eleanor and Park (Rainbow Rowell)

·      Winger (Andrew Smith)

·      We were Liars (E. Lockhart)

·      Laurinda (Alice Pung)

·      Life in Outer Space (Melissa Keil)

·      My life as an alphabet (Barry Jonsberg)

·      Leaving Time (Jodi Picoult)

·      The Hound of the Baskervilles (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

·      The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)

·      The Fault in our Stars (John Green)

·      The Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl (Melissa Keil)

·      The Intern (Gabrielle Tozer)

·      Paper Towns (John Green)

·     Looking for Alaska (John Green)

These books are a few that kept me entertained over the holiday break, and over the year. Of course there are more, but these were the best of the best.

Enjoy reading.

 Richard Mills

Writing a Good Story Part VIII- Conclusion

Now, we’re coming to an end of this ‘How to write a good story series’, so to finish off, I am writing about a conclusion that will make your readers begging for more. I will be posting more on my blog, but not in this series, unless something else comes up. Due to me starting Year 8 (in Australia) I will be very busy, and so, not able to post very often, and will often be restrained to posting once a week. Sorry for this. In the meantime, read the below!

Death is the number one thing to include somewhere along the way in your story, but leaving it to the last minute means that your readers have no time to get over their favourite person’s death. Having the death in the middle of the book means that your readers can find out what happens to those closely related to the late character. This means that at the end of the book, they are done with your story, and are prepared to read another book. HOWEVER, if you leave the death until the end of the book, then you will find that your readers have no time to find out these facts. What happens to the late characters family? What will happen to the characters boyfriend/girlfriend if they had one? This is what your readers want to know. They want to make sure everything is okay because they loved your character.

 

This means, that if you write a sequel, readers will be queuing up to get it, or if you choose to leave the story there, you will have a lot of emails to read!

So,

·      Leave your death until the end of the book

·      Write a sequel!

·      Kill off your main character- it will touch the hearts of your readers, and make them mourn for your characters death.

Regards,

Richard Mills

Writing a good story Part VII- Characters

Characters are the main body of a story. Sure, there is the Story Line, and the setting, but a story can get boring when it has not characters, something for the audience to relate to.

To build your characters you have to have some important criteria. It’s just like real life. In my previous post, I mentioned how dialogue can be based upon real life. The same with characters. In real life, you assess people, characters. You determine whether they are your friends, or not. You have to make this happen for your readers. You have to either let the readers decide whether your character is their friend, or you have to let them know that they are your friend. If you want your character to be a good person, make them do things that you think someone you think is good in this world would do, but do not make them to good. However, if you are writing a crime story, the most common thing to do is make the killer seem really good. Someone so good they would not kill someone, and then reveal how they did it OR make a character so mean and evil that your readers hate them so much that they believe that they did the crime, and then reveal the didn’t. That is just something I have picked up from reading crime fiction.

Anyway. Characters also have to have a profile. There are two types of books. One that outlines the character- tells the reader what colour hair they have, their eye colour etc. The other is one that lets the reader choose. Now, I’m not saying that one is better than the other; it’s just that most famous authors let their readers know the profile of their character. Also, like I said earlier, readers get impressed if a minor detail form the beginning of the book is recalled at the end. This is easier done if the characters profile is created. Say, for instance, you are writing a crime book (sorry for all the crime references, I’ve just been reading Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple!) and you mention that the character has black hair, and they are the killer. Now, obviously, you don’t let your readers know that the black haired person is the killer, you just know this yourself. Anyway, you mention this person’s hair colour at the start of the book, and then at the end, you find a strand of hair that is black. That is not only a link to a minor detail at the start of the book, but could also help your storyline. Bring you more suspects. This is the great thing about Crime Fiction.

Anyway,

Three things

·      Build your characters

·      Make your character relatable

·      Make your audience know whether the character is good or bad- you are the writer, you make the decisions.

R.J.C. Mills

Writing a good story Part VI- Dialogue

Readers, sorry for not posting lately, but I have been very busy- getting ready for school in a few days time.

Lets get straight to it. An important aspect of your story is your dialogue. Your speech can make up a whole character.

Think about how you judge people in real life by what they say. Why should it not be portrayed that way by us writers?

The important thing, however, is to make sure we don’t over-do it. Readers can easily tell when you have over-done something. Also, keeping your readers interested while a scene with dialogue in it can be challenging, but all you have to remember is your real life conversation. Picture the conversation happening in real life, and take it from there.

Over this series, you have heard a lot about one of my favourite writers, Rainbow Rowell. Well, on writing Eleanor and Park, she says that she believes writers do not create the story of their characters, they just find them and pick up their character story. They find the story, and narrate that. Try thinking about that, and you will have your dialogue mastered in no time!

Remember

·      Keep it interesting

·      You have just picked up your characters story, not necessarily created it

·      Picture your dialogue happening in real life, and narrate that.

Richard Mills

Writing a good story Part V- Chapters

Dear Readers,

As I said in earlier posts, it all has to do with the planning. This post is also related to the planning. When you plan, you also have to incorporate the fact of chapter lengths. You cannot go through a book without chapters however, some authors have done a variation of the chapter theme. That will come later.

Anyway, when writing, chapter lengths have to be consistent except for one thing- emotion. If, for example, a character has died, then you can go on about that in a few chapters. A book that I read, but cannot remember the title had something along those lines. A few chapters were just one word. And you read it like a sentence, except it was a few chapters that made up the sentence. That broke my rule but only because it had emotion. It was about death. Generally that rule breaker will be about death. Anyway, onto lighter things. If you are not consistent, then your readers may be unimpressed. Although chapter length is not a major problem, it could really give you that finished edge on your writing. However, if your writing so fantastic, then nothing will make your readers put the book down. So, this post is mainly about finishing touches. Content has already been dealt with in previous posts, but I will do more on it later.

In my introduction, I mentioned authors that had changed the chapter system. A book by John Green, called Paper Towns, did not have chapters, but hours, or time periods before and after the main event in the book. My American readers will be familiar with Green’s work. Another American Author is Rainbow Rowell. Now, in her book Eleanor and Park, she has chapter, but they are sort of separated. In the chapter there are many different views. First there is Eleanor, then Park, then Eleanor, then Park etc., because they are the main characters in the book. Although she does include chapters, I thought it was a little different from the normal way of chapter structure.

Basically

·      Keep your chapter length consistent

·      Try variations- see if it is your thing

·      Only have one word or sentence long chapters if it is focusing on emotion

Richard Mills