Lauren's Rules to Writing

(based on her fifteen years of novel-reading experience, and the .001 percent* of the world's books she's actually read.)

NUMBER ONE:
NEVER REUSE AN ENDING YOU'VE WRITTEN BEFORE (AND SUCCESSFULLY GOTTEN PUBLISHED SO THAT THE WHOLE WORLD KNOWS IT). I don't mean as in "she gets her guy," I mean, for example, things like (lord knows I love her) Meg Cabot's books, where more than once she uses the ending where the guy the heroine was "too unpopular for" becomes interested in her 'for her spirit' and they live happily ever after. It gets old, and so many of them do it. 'Geek falls for Prom Queen,' 'To Hate is to Love,' 'Not in His League, but He Loves Her Anyway'; the list goes on.

NUMBER TWO:
EVIL NEMISES CAN'T ALWAYS BE SORRY. How many times, at the end of some book series, or just some book in general, do you see this?! In non-fantasy books, you can't exactly just kill off the bad guy, so when he/she is done chasing after the good guys, they're just suddenly sorry and have seen the error in their ways. No way, hosea! An example of this (another killer, because I love it again) would be in the most recent Maximum Ride book, where, while the bad guy still may die, they're sorry and confessing that they actually did it because they were jealous, even though they've hunted the main character since BEFORE book one. I understand that they may have a good heart, but after nursing a grudge for that long, how do they just give up?

NUMBER THREE:
GOOD GUYS AREN'T ALWAYS NICE, EITHER. There is no one out there (and I'm saying this because book characters are supposed to be modeled after people) who doesn't have a bad day - and not the kind where your hair won't fix right or you failed a test; I mean hardcore PMS, storming-and-you're-without-a-coat-but-you're-stuck-outside, everyone hates you days? It actually happens a lot! In books like (ow, ow, ow...) Artemis Fowl, though maybe he can get a code wrong once in a while, he's a GENIUS with a MANSION and a BUTLER who never hates him or calls him an annoying little brat. On the other hand, books like Harry Potter and Inkheart are all for the bad days; Harry more than once almost tears his friend's heads off to their shock and anger, and as for Inkheart, who knew you could be betrayed and left by almost everyone in almost one day?

NUMBER FOUR:
THE MAIN CHARACTER DOESN'T HAVE TO BE NORMAL. I'm not talking about the fact that they're a regular joe, just the whole concept of something being different about them. It seems like it's been pushed a lot lately to use a normal, average character to put your reader eye-to-eye with, but looking back at Maximum Ride, who wasn't rooting for the winged girl with her winged posse, trying to fit in, but aching to stand out? In Midnighters, the whole plot of the series centers around a group of kids from Jinx, Oklahoma who are able to do special things, not to mention see 'The Midnight Hour'**, an hour where time is stopped at midnight exactly, everything but them and a whole heck-load of monsters frozen. Originality rocks the boat.

NUMBER FIVE: (the last -for tonight, at least-)
WHILE THE BOOK IS A GREAT ADVERTISING PLACE, MAYBE ADS SHOULD BE KEPT OUT. Brand names? Other book titles? Rockin' bands? In the book So Yesterday, the narrator tried his hardest to keep brand names out of the book - and for good reason. Not only does it seem kind of tacky to talk about things completely unrelated to the story, it also causes whatever the character was jammin' out to or reading for the millionth time to soar in popularity (ex: Twilight to Romeo and Juliet, Pride & Predjudice, Muse [guilty for a short time on that one], etc.) and influence the reader's choices if they really do start feeling like they could know/be friends with the main character. It really can't be prevented, but it's still a pain in the butt if you over-do it.

Mkay. Peace spoken. :)
Oh, yes, I just got done reading a horrifyingly lame book.

The musical isn't worth talking about right now***, so I'm trying not to remember that I have to wake up at five a.m. tomorrow morning to get ready for it. Especially since it's 12:17 at the moment. :)


* How cool would that be to actually KNOW?

** I really don't remember; the only reason I read it in the first place is because it took place in Oklahoma. Not many popular books do, and for good reason.

*** I love these things. But back to the real reason I put this one here... It's great, it really is, but it's kind of a let down for me. I don't have much to do besides sweat, dance for 15 minutes, and get dressed and undressed. It's just... not fun, which makes me sad. I so want next year to be here.