7 ways to identify a fantasy villain

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am reading, epic fantasy, fantasy, villain motivation, villains

If you’ve just started a new fantasy series and aren’t sure who the villain is, there are some easy ways to find out. Watch for a few key traits and if more than four show up in a character, you’ve definitely found the series baddie.

1. Miserable childhood

Morgana Pendragon, basically the cover girl for Daddy Issues Monthly.

Fantasy villains cannot have happy childhoods—EVER. In the slim chance one or both their parents weren’t awful, said parent(s) must die a gruesome death, preferably with the young villain watching.

2. Anger management difficulties

Even if the character displays a cold, controlled exterior most the time, they cannot be a villain without an eventual angry outburst, usually in which they do something horrible and violent. Most likely, this results in the death of a character you really liked.

3. Ugly pets/minions

A face only a villainous taskmaster could love.

Anyone who hires deformed, aesthetically challenged creatures no one else would even look at must surely be a bad guy. However, there is a loophole, so long as the beautiful minions are used for seduction-based intelligence gathering.

4. Racism/Elitism/Sexism/Religious purism/Some other nasty “ism”

The villain will probably be the most prejudiced character in the book. Genocide and lines such as “she’s only a woman” and “it’s my birthright” are dead giveaways.

5. Dysfunctional love life

Xena and Drago. Some whacked out stuff going on there.

The villain must either a) have lost their soulmate which spurs them on this hellish crusade and/or b) have a long string of serial relationships to put Henry VIII to shame and/or c) wants someone who wants them dead.

6. Is secretly the protagonist’s father/sibling/miscellaneous lost relative

Assuming the villain did not kill the protagonist’s father/mother, then this one of the spot-on ways to identify him/her. Families suck and that is the moral of the story.

7. Creepy obsession with protagonist/protagonist’s love interest

WTH Rahl? Do you have any idea how bad this looks???

If the villain and protagonist are of the opposite sex, the villain probably has a thing for him/her. If the protagonist is a girl, there will be some rape-y comments in there at minimum, same for a male protagonist’s love interest. The “we could rule the galaxy” speech may also come into play.

Did this list miss your favorite typical fantasy villain trait? Let me know in the comments!

Reading Outside: Does it even happen?

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am reading, nerd girl problemts, reader problems, readerly, summer reading

Summer is nearly over (sorry), school’s about to start up (so sorry), and that means less reading time for students, teachers, and pretty much everyone connected to education (so, so sorry).

Here we have what appears to be the youngest Weasleys reading their family history on the potentially Nargle-infested lawn.

This summer, like others before, I have been baffled by aesthetic pictures of people reading happily on beaches, porches, hillsides, and in meadows. But something I’ve often wondered is if this phenomenon even occurs in nature.

To read outside where I live, you must brave not only the scorching Texas sun and varied array of violent insects, but also intermittent wind gusts. I’ve tried reading in hammocks, on porches, and under trees, but the only time it has worked is in the shelter of some non-picturesque wall over concrete. Even then, it wasn’t exactly comfortable. (My backside does not appreciate extended periods squished against cement.)

I know some people claim to do it, but do they really? I know it makes a good photo, but the subgenre of outdoor book photography is mostly false advertising.

There would be a blinding glare on like half a page. She’s not fooling anyone.

Reading my Kindle outside has generally proven easier, just because of the light adjustment setting. But if I’m in bright sun, I’ve got bigger problems, like impending lobster face/neck/arms/shoulders/legs. Then, you’ve got birds and car fumes if you’re in the city and chiggers, snakes, and Lord knows what if you’re in the country. To be honest, I’m terrified of the wind blowing my book into the ocean at the beach. Not to mention sand gets into the spines and just…ick.

I’m not saying it’s impossible, I’ve just found it to be incredibly uncomfortable. Either way, I think this is definitely one of those “expectation vs. reality” things. I’ll stick to reading indoors with solid walls and air conditioning, thank you very much.

How to (legally) get free books

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am reading, booknerd, bookworm, ebook lists, for readers, free books, indie author, kindle freebies, young adult

There have been times when I found myself torn between wanting books and wanting electricity. But if you’re willing to look, there are still lots of ways to snag reading material without breaking the bank or the law.

-Request an advance review copy from the author/publisher

If you’re interested starting a book blog, most publishers will post sign ups on NetGalley where you can apply to receive copies of books to review. Indie authors are frequently searching for reviewers as well and will let you know on their websites/newsletters. For example, Erica Stevens gives the option for free review copies of new titles to all her newsletter subscribers.

-eBook freebies

You can read eBooks on your smartphone via the free Kindle app and it opens up a cornucopia of possibilities. Lots of indie authors (and traditional publishers) have started giving away eBooks as promotional copies. There are lots of options here. You can sign up for newsletters like Bookbub, keep an eye out for mention of promotional days on an author’s social media, check on their website to see if they have any freebies, or go to Amazon’s “free” category in your favorite genre.

-Best Sellers in Teen & Young Adult eBooks
-Best Sellers in Christian Fantasy eBooks
-Best Sellers in Fantasy eBooks
-Teen & Young Adult Medieval Fiction eBooks
-Teen & Young Adult Sword & Sorcery Fantasy eBooks
-Asian Myths and Legends eBooks
-Arthurian Fantasy eBooks

-Read to review

There are Goodreads groups, Facebook groups, and co-ops that arrange free books for folk in exchange for reviews. While I don’t have any specific ones to recommend, they are out there and I know some people have had good experiences. However, this can be a bit of a toss-up as far as quality, though Goodreads does offer regular giveaways.

-Libraries

While I do generally prefer being able to keep my books forever and ever, the vast selection and options are amazing. Be sure to check here first if the book you want is traditionally published. Even if the library doesn’t have the book you want, they can sometimes order books through partnerships with other libraries. It never hurts to ask!

Just in the course of getting all the links together for this post, I have more than ten new books for my ever-growing TBR. There is an almost endless supply of books out there, just waiting to be read and in this digital age, plenty of them are free!

So go forth, fear not for your wallets.

Sex in YA books is ruining my generation: Part III

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paranormal romance, romance, sex in ya, ya, young adult

I’ve been called narrow minded for this series, but that’s what happens when you suggest *gasp* sex isn’t always a good idea. In truth, my saying we need less sex in YA has about as much to do with slut shaming as Starbucks’ treeless holiday cups have to do with persecuting Christians.

So here we go…

I wasn’t going to write this third installment, but I feel like some things need clarification before we move on. For starters, I’m not big on telling people what to do with their lives. I’m really not. However, there is a big difference between saying the world doesn’t end if a young person decides to cross that line and blatantly enforcing the idea that teens need to undergo sexual discovery.

For about 200-300 years, Western culture has embraced the idea of sexually repressing people, particularly women. This led to a lot of “you’re going to hell” and “good girls don’t want sex” crap. It resulted in a lot of puritanical ideals, especially in religious circles, because people really suck at this whole moderation thing.

Over the past century, we’ve started along the sexual/women’s liberation road, but it is just that—a road—and you can veer off either side. (Remember what I said about people sucking at moderation?) When I’m reading a NYT bestseller in the lower Young Adult genre with two 14-year-olds getting it on, I start to get worried.

The dose makes the poison.

There’s a time and a place for everything. We’ve all heard that too much of anything is bad, but the thought bears repeating. As someone who read YA through high school, I can tell you that those books (with scant exception) definitely show that only weirdos and basement dwellers aren’t going all the way by the end of the book/series. YA is full of protagonists getting mocked for their sexual ignorance and the solution to this is inevitably sexual activity. Sex is no longer something people are just shown to want, it is something they had better want.

In (hopefully) tidy conclusion:

I have known too many wonderful people who felt inferior for not being in relationships or stayed in bad ones and due to the idea of the quintessential significant other and sex life that our Western culture encourages. Yes, books make up a small part (unfortunately) of the media we young people are exposed to, but they remain a part of it nonetheless.

(Also, this is a book blog and it would be kind of dumb for me to start wailing at the music industry.)

Whatever the case, your sex life does not determine your self worth either way. But going back to the points I brought up in Part II, I have never met an adult who told me they wished they’d dated more in high school/college. Not one.

Part I

Part II

Sex in YA books is ruining my generation: Part II

Tags

paranormal romance, sex, teen romance, writing, ya, young adult

Last week we talked about all the sex in YA and how I think it’s horrible and all that. Now let’s talk about why.

Nobody seems to bring this up…

Regardless of whether or not high school students should be having sex, whether or not people should embrace/explore their sexuality or what have you, no Young Adult book I’ve read accurately portrays how much young people give up for these early relationships. Boys and girls both.

Even when there wasn’t sex involved, I cannot tell you how many people I have watched sacrifice and compromise their own dreams for the sake of a boy/girlfriend. So many times, I have wanted to scream “he/she’s not worth it!” when people I cared about quit the sport they loved, ended friendships, turned down the chance to get paid to travel, or changed their college plans for the sake of the (invariably ungrateful) person they were dating. 

It has never once turned out well and those I’ve talked to have always ended up regretting those lost opportunities. Not even sex in the cases where it applied, just what it caused them to miss.

The unpopular opinion that might get me strung up.

We need better story lines in YA than this “cure the virgins” fad. Yes, yes, it’s true that sex is considered a part of the “coming of age” story that YA often follows and I know sex sells, but it wouldn’t kill anyone to write with more restraint, for lack of a better word. The target audience of YA are mostly still forming our opinions and beliefs about the world. We often don’t even know who we are until college or later and the things we read, watch, and hear influence us sometimes more than we realize.

Books, like any other form of art, shape tour perspective and too many YA books today are shaping my generation’s perspective on sex into something ugly. It’s not about shaming those who have had sex or choose to write about it, let me make that clear. The point is that publishing, like Hollywood and the music industry, are telling us that sex is free of consequences and fun and everyone should be doing it. Also, everyone wants to do it and if you don’t you are either lying or haven’t found the right partner.

But it’s okay to not have sex and there’s a hell of a lot more to it than I’ve seen in the media. YA authors need to stop and do a bit more research. Screwing around, especially during that phase, can quite easily ruin your life, especially if you let it divert you from what you should be focused on. People in the YA age range have a lot of things to learn and discover and romance is just one tiny piece of that huge puzzle. There’s your morality, what is important to you, what work makes you passionate, figuring out what you want to pursue in college, if you even want to go to college…LOTS OF THINGS BESIDES SEX, OKAY?

And then there are the stories about how the protagonist realizes that relationships aren’t all that necessary at his/her lifestage and moves on. But seriously, I can think of a grand total of ONE book where they didn’t have to have sex before the protagonist figured it out.

Apparently, writers and publishers think young adults just aren’t smart enough to recognize trouble before screwing it.

To be continued in Part III.

Part I

Sex in YA books is ruining my generation: Part I

Tags

paranormal romance, teen romance, writerly, ya, young adult

Okay, okay, so that’s a melodramatic title, but hear me out.

The genre of Young Adult is divided into two subgroups with lower YA falling in the 13-15 age range and upper YA aiming for the 16-18 zone. Many sources may have slightly different parameters or definitions, but that is the gist.

It’s not that we can’t handle sex talk.

Before we go any further, I want to say yes, it’s true young people are capable of handling a lot more than their parents and teachers generally give them credit for. Even in my  early teens, I could follow and carry on conversations with my father’s friends which ranged from local politics to international business.My brother was no different and I have many friends who have handled huge levels of responsibility and maturity from a young age.

That being said, I do not think people in the 14-18 age range are incapable of making mature and responsible decisions. However, I frequently find the attitude toward sex in YA novels disturbing. Lately, I’ve started to wonder if most YA authors are just YA authors because they wanted to write about girls losing their virginity.

There’s the first trope from Satan…

Girl has perfect sex with the school’s conveniently hot bad boy who has always been a jerk to every girl before her, but totally changes because she “silences his demons” and blah, blah, blah. 

Scenario No. 1 has a laundry list of things wrong with it. There’s the unrealistic expectations and the idea that you should go into a relationship hoping to change someone (and said idea should die a slow, painful death). Not to mention I’ve yet to encounter a bad boy love interest who wasn’t borderline or outright abusive.

Abuse in all it’s forms has been normalized by the Romance genre for so long (remember when Romance heroines would be raped by the heroes so that it would be socially acceptable for them to have sex?) and we certainly don’t need that scum in the YA section.

…and the second trope from Satan.

Girl has awkward, disillusioning sex with a guy who turns out to be an ass, but on the rebound discovers that casual sex is awesome so long as they use protection and her partner is hot.

First of all, I don’t really understand how casual sex can be healthy (go read a medical textbook) or safe (go watch Criminal Minds) for anyone, but we’re focusing on the YA genre here. Scenario No. 2 is most disgusting because it encourages the idea that everyone is having sex and if you don’t, you’re weird, sheltered, immature, prudish, puritanical, or whatever the enlightened (aka sexually active) people are calling it these days.

But clearly this is all acceptable because it’s completely realistic. I mean, who gets to college age without having sex? In this century? No, everyone has definitely done “the do” before they’re old enough to vote and it’s imperative that we cure all the virgins as quickly as possible because society might crumble and anarchy ensue if we don’t.

To be continued.

 

One Genre to Rule Them All: A (very) biased opinion as to why fantasy is superior

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epic fantasy, gif, my one true literary love

Believe it or not, I was once too good for fantasy. I thought the idea was silly, after all, who could take all that magic and monsters seriously, hmm? Not me, that was for sure. But as I have said before, it seems to be my lot in life to end up adoring/obsessed with things I once disliked. Eight years ago, I discovered fantasy literature and now there’s no going back.

As a reader, fantasy adds a level of excitement and, for lack of a better word, awesome to stories that I just can’t find anywhere else. As a writer, fantasy opens up creative opportunities in a whole new way.

It’s far easier to get around a reader’s preformed ideas about a society or time period because I build my own and I don’t have to feel guilty about historical accuracy, though I often try. If, in a fit of idealistic fervor I decide I want to throw in a certain social issue (like I did in the Argetallam Saga with people’s black and white viewpoints on war) I can do it in a way I think offers better perspective, is more tactful…and less likely to incite confrontation.

In fantasy, can have our good old fashioned political intrigue and military tactics, but then we can have the added bonus of sorcery, monsters in literally every shape and size, and whatever else we want. Unlike science fiction, we don’t need to adhere to the laws of physics, because we can make our own. We can pick and choose which fragments of realism we want and scrap the ones we don’t. Furthermore, fantasy allows us free rein to use reverted morality systems based in chivalry and honor and I far prefer that over most modern paradigms. (I’ve said I was old fashioned before.)

Being a teen girl, I am also very fond of romance and in this genre there is more than rhapsodizing or attraction (though I’ve read and written plenty of both). Here we have the opportunity for love across lifetimes or worlds and stakes that can be an individual’s very soul. There’s the chance for mystical bonds and soulmates and…sigh.

With mages, dragons, knights, viragos, and every other form of the mythic and legendary, the potential of fantasy is limitless and its ability to transcend the boundaries of our world is unparalleled. Though I might read other genres and occasionally write something that isn’t swords and sorcery, epic fantasy is my one true literary love and I don’t see that changing any time soon.

Me and my Kindle

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amazon, ebooks, free for kindle, indie authors, kindle, kindle paperwhite, readerly

A few years ago, I saw on Facebook that there was a free promotion for a book I’d been wanting to read for awhile, Thorn by Intisar Khanani. The catch? It was for Kindle. At the time, I was a staunch literary purist. eBooks were the inexcusable digitization of literature and I was much to good for that. But…it was free. You can’t argue with free, can you?

So I caved and downloaded the Kindle iPhone app, hit the infamous “one-click” button, and let the book sit around for weeks. And weeks. And months. Finally, I went and took a little peak at it. A little peak turned into a few chapters, a few chapters turned into a few hours—hey, this story was pretty darn good and who cared if it was an eBook, it was awesome!

By the time I scrolled past the last page, I was not only irreversibly hooked on the author, but a love of eBooks had taken root in my soul. I ended up downloading more free eBooks, sampling the beginnings of series that ranged from “why was this published” to “give me the sequel before I hurt someone.” In no time at all, I was buying complete series in eBook, periodically hijacking my father’s Amazon account to go on digital shopping sprees. My iPhone app quickly filled up with books I liked to reread, books I wanted to read, and books I to this day haven’t read—just like a “real” library!

For my eighteenth birthday, my grandparents gave me the ultimate gift for a bookworm—a brand new, shiny, gorgeous Kindle Paperwhite. The very first book I read was Reemergent by A.M. Hargrove, the final book in a series I had devoured via my iPhone app.

Me in Starbucks mere minutes after leaving Best Buy, flaunting my prize before a camera. (If you look closely, you can see Reemergent is open on the screen.)

My Kindle opened up a world of possibilities. With a display that didn’t render me blind after a few hours, a bigger screen, and better visibility, I could even read the big, fat fantasy epics as eBooks!

I can’t count the number of series I’ve been able to try, start, and adore because of my Kindle (actually, they’re all listed on Goodreads). From The Cat’s Eye Chronicles to The Captive series, Legends of Regia to the Shadowlight Saga, awesome is just as prolific in eBook as it is in print.

eBooks have helped me as a writer, too. Without those little things called Kindles and Nooks, my stories would not have reached half the readers they have. Permanently free, Fanged Princess is reaching new fans every month and none of it would be possible without eReaders.

So despite all the things Amazon has gotten wrong, there’s at least one they got right—creating a little thing called the Kindle for all the little bookworms like me to use and love.

I said “Fantasy,” not “Paranormal Romance”

Tags

fantasy, genres, paranormal romance, subgenres, swords and sorcery, urban fantasy

Not too long ago I was checking the Amazon bestseller’s lists and found Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight listed under “Fantasy.” I then spent several moments blinking at the screen, contemplating what diabolical devilry this was and how anyone could so drastically confuse genres. Once I got over my snobbery, I realized why someone might think Twilight belongs in the Fantasy genre. After all, vampires in high school don’t belong to Nonfiction or Contemporary. But Twilight is not Fantasy, it is Paranormal Romance.

Paranormal Romance is a subset of the Romance and—yes—Fantasy genres, but tends to be a closer relation of Romance than Fantasy. The supernatural elements in Paranormal Romance are generally a source of conflict that adds more complication to the couples’ relationship in place of something like Edward Ferrars’ prior engagement or Shakespeare’s Capulets and Montagues. (There are exceptions, but I did say “generally.”) If you want to be a literalist, PNR can technically be lumped in with the Fantasy genre, but then some people say hippopotamuses can technically be lumped in with racehorses.

(Then there is the difference between your standard Paranormal Romance and a true Fantasy Romance, but that’s for a whole other blog post entirely.)

If you look at my reading list from last year, you will note that I am quite fond of Paranormal Romance and I’ve been known to write a bit of it. Some of my favorite books of all time belong to that subgenre, but my one true literary love will forever and always be true Fantasy.

When I say “true” Fantasy, I mean the Swords and Sorcery subgenre that encompasses series like Throne of Glass, The Lord of the Rings, Shadowmarch, and Game of Thrones. One cannot get much truer to Fantasy than a magical world born from the author’s mind. But series like Harry Potter and Inkheart also fall into Fantasy.

Fantasy means a setting entirely different from our everyday surroundings, whether that be an entirely different reality or a tweaked version of our own. Harry Potter takes place in Hogwarts and the Wizarding World, The Mortal Instruments takes place in the seedy underbelly of the supernatural world (at least the first book mostly did, I haven’t gotten to the others), and the Sword and Sorcery examples I’ve given are self explanatory. In a Fantasy book that takes place on Earth, there should be some preternatural element around which the story revolves, like in The Exemeus or A Wrinkle in Time and in all Fantasy subsets the villain should have motivation involving the ethereal or be using some sort of ethereal power to achieve his/her ends or both.

I grew up with Fantasy from the time I was old enough to watch Disney movies and it was kind of like a third parent or maybe a fourth sibling. That might be just a tad dramatic, but the fact remains that I am deeply passionate about the genre and that makes me deeply protective of what makes it what it is. So call me a nit-picker and a literary snob, if you must. I will be over here, staunchly preaching the traits and distinctions of the true Fantasy genre.