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| ZonderKidz; 30 pages; $16.99; Amazon |
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| PG; 107 minutes; Walmart |
What do your characters want? It can be as simple as "a new girlfriend" or as complicated as "improved diplomatic negotiations for the country they're ruling." Just give them some kind of reason to get out of bed in the morning. This includes all supporting characters, even the ones with motivations that don't actually make the page. They'll have stronger voices if you flesh them out.
This is important even for anti-heroes and villain protagonists. If you want the audience to root for your main character (MC), the audience needs to be engaged by them early on, and that means giving them an introductory scene with something human or relatable. Show your mob boss petting his dog. Show your gruff cop making breakfast for his little girl. There are a million ways to tell the audience, "This is someone worth caring about."
While it's understandable that you want your characters to follow along your preexisting plot, it's important not to twist their arms in a way that's unbelievable or contrary to how they would really act. If your plot demands that a neurotic, safety-obsessed lab technician accidentally mislabels something, that's bad writing. It would never happen! Find another way to explode the nuclear bomb.
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| Revell; 360 pages; $15.99; Amazon |
Scrat, Manny, Sid, Diego and the rest of your prehistoric pals from Ice Age are back in an all-new hilarious animated adventure! Business is booming at Sid’s new egg-sitting service but when the dastardly private bunny Squint steals the eggs, Manny, Diego and the rest of the gang take off on a daring rescue mission that turns into the world’s first egg hunt. Enjoy even more nut-tiness with tons of Scrat extras!
The original herd Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Seann William Scott, Josh Peck, Keke Palmer and Queen Latifah are back. Featured guest voices include Taraji P. Henson, Seth Green, Wendy Williams, Gabriel Iglesias, Lili Estefan and Blake Anderson.
When you start reading a novel, do you prefer to be plunged right into the action, or do you prefer a slower, more descriptive introduction to the plot and characters?
My Answer:
I prefer there to be some kind of "hook" in the first chapter that will instantly intrigue me to continue reading the rest of the novel.
Schooldays.
“The Torch”
In 2011 when American Seal Team Six hunted down and killed Osama bin Laden on presidential orders in Operation Neptune Spear in Abbadabad, Pakistan it was the final act in an ultra-secret CIA operation hailed by US president Barrack Obama as a huge success and was seen as the crowning achievement of his presidency. Yet according to Brigadier Shaukat Qadir who investigated Operation Neptune Spear for the Pakistan government, this was only achieved through Bin Laden’s betrayal by Al Qaeda itself, which, by completely deceiving the CIA, received the $25,000,000 cash bounty America had placed on their ailing leader’s head.
