Special Effects Budget

Happy Friday Post Guys!

I hope everyone's doing well on their New Year's Resolutions so far. It's only the third day of the New Year, so I hope that you're still going strong. If not it's not too late to pretend like it's a new resolution and you never messed up! Start today! It's never a bad time to make a resolution to be more productive!

This is actually a post that I wanted to make a few months ago and just never actually got around to doing. As some of you probably know and some of you might not, the movie "Enders Game" came out in November last year. I was really excited for that movie because it was an adaptation of one of the best Sci-Fi novels ever and it had Harrison Ford (whoot whoot) and Asa Buttefield whose parents were divinely influenced to meet so that he could be born to play Artemis Fowl.

End of story.

But, a story for another time, yes?

Sometime around the movie's release, my mom discovered an interview with Mr. Orson Scott Card and decided to email it to me. I read the interview and one answer of Card's really stood out to me. The reporter asked him if he wanted to make movies out of the rest of his books and he said, essentially, that if Ender's Game was a success sure why not, but if it wasn't no one would ever produce it even if he did. Then he said this:

"But, you know, whether that happens or not, my career is in books. There I have an unlimited special effects budget. And I can cast however I want." ~Orson Scott Card in an interview about the Ender's Game movie

Amen. AMEN. 

Can I just say amen again?

Amen.

Movies tend to have a lot of advantages over books, especially when it comes to appealing to the public. There's music, actors, movement, pictures, colors, explosions, it;s a lot shorter, and it takes a lot less brain power to watch than it does to read.

However, as Card so eloquently put it, in books, you can do a lot more. You can explore more. You can go places you can't with movies. You can create things you wouldn't be able to replicate (well or cheaply) with special effects. You can cast whoever and however you want and you don't have to actually hire anyone or deal with any fussy agents who want their actor's name first on the advertisements. It's great!

But as with anything in this world, it does come with a catch.

You have to be your own special effect's department.

You don't have to deal with money or how much it'll cost to make whatever crazy thing you're putting in your book, but you do have to describe well enough that  if someone did ever try to turn your book into a movie, fans would get mad at the special effect's division for messing it up.

The same goes for actors. You don't have to deal with fussy agents, or actors, or feeding them M&M with all the green ones picked out,  or dealing with their make up crew... but it also means that you have to bring them to life. You have to make them as real and substantial as a trained actor or actress can do.

So you do gain a lot by writing instead of creating a movie... you just have to make up for it later!

New Years Resolutions

Happy 2014 everyone!

I hope everyone's 2013 was a good one, and I hope that 2014 will be an even better one!

There are a lot of things that come with a new year, perhaps the most common of which is New Years Resolutions. If you live in my life, you're probably going to get hounded about making them just about every day for the next two weeks. The people in my life are highly supportive of New Years Resolutions and goal setting and such.

But you really can't blame them.

Harvard once did a study, and I really wish I could find the exact study, but I couldn't find it, where they interviewed one of their classes. These are Harvard students, so they're all already really smart and hardworking. They asked each of the students whether they had made New Years Resolutions. This is one of the reasons I wanted the study, so I could give you the exact number.

I think about two thirds of the class or something had made resolutions, half of them had written them down, and ten percent had written out a plan for how they were going to accomplish their goal.

Ten years or later, the students who had made goals were making some percentage more money that the group that hadn't. The one that had written the goals down were making even more money than them and the group that had written out plans was generally making more than twice the group that had written their goals down.

Now I know that this is a young writers blog, but I want you to take this and apply it to anything that you want to accomplish this year.

1. Think about what you want to do or accomplish. Actually think about. Then:

2. WRITE IT DOWN. Type it up or write it down and put it somewhere where you're going to see it. Don't type it up and hide it in a folder on your computer you never look at like I did last year.

And then, especially if it's a vague resolution like "Lose weight" (The number 1 resolution for Americans in 2014) or "Get organized" (Number 2) 

3. MAKE A PLAN FOR HOW YOU'RE GOING TO DO IT.

Don't say "Lose Weight", say

"Every Monday, after school at 3:30, I will go jogging for 30 minutes. 
Every Tuesday, after school at 3:30, I will do Pop Pilates for an hour. 
Every Wednesday, after school at 3:30, I will go jogging for 30 minutes. 
Every Thursday, after school at 3:30, I will do Pop Pilates for an hour. 
Every Friday, after school at 3:30, I will go jogging for 30 minutes. 
Every Saturday, I will get up at 8:00 and go jogging for an hour. 
Every Sunday, I will rest."

Use specifics and repetition. 

• Every Monday
• 3:30
• Jogging on some days, Pilates on others
• Half and hour or an hour
• I will go jogging, not I will try  ("Do, or do. There is no try.")

I use exercise because it's an easy one to plan out (though so hard to actually execute... I'm a couch potato... Exercise is icky.) There are some that are harder to plan out, I'll give you that. It's hard to plan out a goal like "Enjoy life to it's fullest" (4th most popular resolution). It's really hard to plan out a resolution like "Get a book published".

However, it is not hard to make a resolution to write a blog post every Friday, which just so happens to be one of mine.

It's not that hard to make a resolution to write 500 words a day. 

That's it. 500 words. Just sit down and write 500 words. You're not allowed to write 499. It has to be 500 or more. Even if you have writers block and you have no idea what you're going to do or what you want to write, just write them. EVERY. DAY. Even if you hate them, go back, delete those 500 words the next day and rewrite them if you want to or have to. But write 500 words every day.

By the end of 2014, writing 500 words every day, you will have written 182,500 words. That's easily two novels. So even if you delete what you wrote the day before every other day, you've still written a sizable novel by the end of the year.

Set a time. Right when you get home, before you start your homework. Right after you finish your homework. After your shower. Pick a time and most importantly STICK TO IT. 

If your goal is to edit your novel (that would be me ladies and gentlemen), make a resolution to spend 20 minutes or more either thinking or editing or rereading or rewriting your novel a day. 20 minutes. Even if it's just sitting there and debating with yourself whether you really need this chapter in there at all or something else. 20 minutes.

DO IT. Set a time and stick to it.

If your goal is to get it published, spend that same 20 minutes or longer working on query letters or looking for agents or editors you think might be willing to take you on. 20 minutes a day. That's it. That's not even the length of a sitcom. 

And finally

4. Do whatever you have to to remind yourself. 

• Write sticky notes to yourself and put them all over the place. 
• Tell a friend. I'm actually really good at making sure other people make their goals. A friend of mine once wanted to finish this book that she needed to finish for a project and I bugged her every single day about it until she finished. Friends can help you. 
• Put reminders on your phone. 
• Reward yourself. 
• Guilt trip yourself. 

Whatever works for you. Use a couple different methods at the same time.


Don't put it off or ignore it. If you take it seriously, you'll do it.

And I hope you will, whatever your goal is, literary or not.

Wishing you the best success and see you on Friday! Happy New Year!

- The Vinshire Sisters

Steal Like an Artist

Today, I would like to introduce a concept that my AP English teacher likes to call “Stealing Like An Artist”.

In truth, when he talks about “stealing like an artist” he’s really reminding us to cite every single thing we ever add to an essay… ever. However, I’m stealing his phrase and using it for my own purposes, which coincidentally related to what I’m talking about.

I want to air out the dirty laundry right now. I am not talking about plagiarism.

Plagiarism is, in a simple phrase, no cool.

If there is anyone among my audience that hasn’t had their head bashed in hundreds upon hundreds of times by their English teachers about what plagiarism is and to never do it, plagiarism is when an creator, typically an author of some sort, uses someone else’s ideas or concepts or characters or what not and passes them off as their own.

It’d be like me writing a book about a girl named Beth and her best friend Marie who find out that they have magical powers and have to go to a school to learn how to control their powers where they attend classes every day and learn how to do magic and find out that they're destined to fight an evil wizard who's trying to take over the magical world.

The saddest part is that I actually did try to write that book in the 3^rd grade. Marie could breathe under water. I don’t remember anything about Beth which is funny considering she was the character based off me.

Does this mean that you will never be able to write a book about a teenager discovering they have magical powers?

Of course not. It’s certainly hasn't stopped someone yet.

Does this mean you will never be able to write a book about said teenager going off to learn how to control their magical powers?

No, probably not.

Does this mean you will never be able to write a book about said teenager going off to a magical school to learn magic from a wise old man and perhaps fight off a Dark Lord?

… yeah. Unless you are severely clever and tactful, which would be extremely hard.

This being said, are there still authors who write very similar novels? Yes. Many people have accused Suzanne Collins of plagiarizing Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale for her novel Hunger Games. Both novels are about a dystopian world where teenagers are placed in an area of some sort with lots of weapons and told to kill each other until there’s only one survivor. She claims that she had never even heard of Battle Royale until after her book was published.

Is this true?

I think only Collins herself knows. A lot of people think that she’s lying. I’m personally inclined to believe her. There have been more than enough times in my life where I’ve come up with some idea or done some project that I think is completely original only to find out that someone else has come up with the same thing.

It happens. Especially in writing.

It’s one of the biggest problems that any creators face. Trying to create something new.

I’m not going to claim that everything’s been written, every genre created, every character flaw explored. I’m sure people thought that when some crazy English lady named Mary Shelly wrote about a scientist named Frankenstein that used electricity to create life, a monster named after himself, and the science fiction genre.

However I am going to venture to say, and I’m sure many Literature professors would agree with me, that there are only a handful of stories that have ever been told and will continue to be told as long as humans exist to tell or listen to them.

Some people will tell you that there are only two stories, some four, some thirty-six.

Explaining all of these is a post for another day though.

So, if every story has been written… what are we supposed to do?

That’s the fun part that ties in with stealing like an artist.

Literally almost any major plot device you can come up with has been used before, even if you don't know it. Whether by the Greeks, a French writer in the 18^th century, Shakespeare, or in past ten years.

So basically no matter what you write you’re stealing from someone else.

The trick is doing it well enough that no one cares.

You can do this by mixing and matching plots and devices and character traits and such. That’s one of the best ways to create a character in my opinion; mixing and matching character traits until they become a real person. Take a plot device here, a plot twist there.

Then, perhaps most importantly, you put your own flair on it. Whatever it is that makes you different, your idea different, your novel different. That’s what really makes a story unique. That’s the part that you’re really selling to an agent, or an editor, or readers. That is the answer to their question, “why should I read your book and not one of the thousands of others?”

I will quote myself in this regard. “All the good plots have been taken. So be discrete when you steal.”

The Pros of Acting Things Out in Your Bathroom

Or your bedroom. Or any room of the house that you can act or shout things out loud without too much concern from your parents/the rest of your family.

This is one method that I will endorse to the ends of the earth. I’ve always had an interest in acting, personally. Not as in I want to go to Hollywood or star on Broadway, but more I really enjoy taking Drama classes at school and I was in the school play once. I played Theseus in A Midsummer’s Night Dream. Had a beard. It fell off during our finally performance. That was a tricky situation. I nearly had a heart attack on stage, but just kept on acting until the Rude Mechanicals entered and stole the spot light to fix it.

But my escapade on stage are not why you’re reading this.

I have always believed that acting is a great way to help improve your writing. More specifically scenes than your writing as a whole, but still very beneficial. To act well, you really have to put yourself into the character’s mind. You have to try to think like them and feel what they’re feeling, and that’s really the best way to be able to write them. There’s just something different about acting or speaking their roles to yourself though. It makes the more real than if you’re just thinking of dialogue in your head.

It’s also a great way to figure something out if you’re not sure how you want a particular scene to go. Sometimes when I’m writing a scene I’ll just go upstairs to my bedroom and start acting the scene out with myself. Or sometimes I’ll explain the situation to my little sister and she’ll help me come up with something for it. Sometimes it doesn’t work and I don’t use anything that I came up with while I was acting it out. Then again, sometimes I end up getting hit with the perfect line and I have to run downstairs and type it up as quickly as I can.

I usually do this in my bedroom before I go to bed, or while I’m taking a shower, or as I’m washing my hands. It’ll sometimes happen while I’m sitting at my computer, but I find it works slightly better if you’re up on you're in a different setting. I would also suggest going somewhere where’s it’s not going to disturb too many people (or convince too many of the witnesses that you’re crazy. I made the mistake of doing something like this in my AP English the other day… staring at a wall talking in a Russian accent… yeah…).

Now, you do not have to do it the way that I do. Margaret likes to pace in giant circles making faces with music playing loudly. I think silence and sitting still helps better. It’s one of those methods that works better if you’ve tailored it to your own preferences and see what helps you out the best.

And the best part is it often helps with Writers Block too!

Have you ever tried this before? How had it helped you in the past?

Music Playlist

Now, let us not confuse this post with Music and Playlists. This is a different post, though it is almost directly related to it. After writing that post, I decided that it would be a really good idea to, instead of giving you guys vague ideas about what to listen to while write, to give you an actual example of what Margaret and I like to listen to. So I created a Youtube channel and created one!

Music Playlist by Amanda and Margaret Vinshire

As of right now, the playlist contains these songs:

Explosions in the Sky- Birth and Death of the Day

Davin Laz- Cristofori's Dream

Hanz Zimmer- Up is Down

Hurt- Silver Linging

Jon Mclaughlin- So Close

Jason Walker- Echo

Coldplay- Viva la Vida

Snow Patrol- Chasing Cars

Snow Patrol- Set Fire to the Third Bar

Nick Lachey- Whats Left Of Me

Monary- Travelling by Ambulance

30 Seconds to Mars- This is War

Vienna Teng- Anna Rose

Hanz Zimmer- Time

Linking Park- Castle of Glass

Typler Ward, Lindsey Stirling, Chester See- Daylight

David Lanz- Faces of the Forest

Ellie and Landon Austin- Safe and Sound

Rob Thomas- Little Wonders

Taylor Swift- Haunted

John Mayer- Dreaming With a Broken Heart

Mulan's Decision

Vienna Teng- Antebellum

Lindsey Stirling and Pentatonix- Radioactive

Regina Spektor- The Call

Withing Temptation- Memories

Withing Tempation- Angles

Narnia Battle Theme

John Powell- Forbidden Friendship

Piano Guys- Moonlight

They are NOT in any particular order. Quite frankly, they're just in the order that they're on my favorites list.

These are my favorite "Epic Scene" songs:
Explosions in the Sky- Birth and Death of the Day

Hanz Zimmer- Time

Mulan's Decision

Lindsey Stirling and Pentatonix- Radioactive

Narnia Battle Theme

Depression/Desperation/Hopelessness ect.:

Davin Laz- Cristofori's Dream

Jason Walker- Echo

Snow Patrol- Chasing Cars

Snow Patrol- Set Fire to the Third Bar

Nick Lachey- Whats Left Of Me

Monary- Travelling by Ambulance

Ellie and Landon Austin- Safe and Sound

John Mayer- Dreaming With a Broken Heart

Regina Spektor- The Call

Withing Temptation- Memories

Withing Tempation- Angles

Fluffy Songs:

Jon Mclaughlin- So Close

Vienna Teng- Anna Rose

Typler Ward, Lindsey Stirling, Chester See- Daylight

Hopeful:

Rob Thomas- Little Wonders

David Lanz- Faces of the Forest

John Powell- Forbidden Friendship

Multiple Genre:

Hanz Zimmer- Up is Down

Hurt- Silver Linging

30 Seconds to Mars- This is War

Linking Park- Castle of Glass

Vienna Teng- Antebellum

Piano Guys- Moonlight

Writing about Late 1700s/Early 1800s. particularly dictators of the French variety:

Coldplay- Viva la Vida

As of this point in time, most of the songs on here are Amanda's writing songs, mostly because Margaret has yet to get me a list of her favorite writing songs. Once she does, I'll be sure to update it. Unfortunately we haven't really gotten the chance to talk much recently. School makes people busy which makes other people sad.