Columns

Your Favorite Book Sucks: 'The Giving Tree' by Shel Silverstein

February 25th, 2015

I can hear you thinking it. Not The Giving Tree. It’s a timeless children’s classic. Many (myself included) have warm and fuzzy memories of our parents reading it to us as we were tucked into bed, and many more no doubt continue to read it to their own children. The story of a tree’s love for a little boy taught us about friendship, selflessness, and how to exploit them. That’s right—The Giving Tree is nothing but a book of terrible relationship advice for children.

Read Column →

Storyville: Making Relationships Feel Real in Your Fiction

February 24th, 2015

Today we’re talking about how to make the relationships in your fiction feel real. There’s nothing worse than reading a story about a couple and thinking, “That would never happen.” Or, what about a father-son argument or sibling rivalry that feels out of whack, lacking authority and coherence? Let’s talk about romantic relationships especially, but other relationships as well—what you can do to make them feel layered, truthful, and unique.

Read Column →

The Seven Deadly Sins of Dialogue

February 23rd, 2015

Ursula K. Le Guin has said that scenes with dialogue are where emotion happens in fiction. According to the emerging body of neuroscience on fiction, such scenes are also where fiction most clearly approximates actual lived experience, that "vivid and continuous dream" of which John Gardner spoke.

Read Column →

LitReactor Community Spotlight: February 2015

February 23rd, 2015

I just woke up with this computer in my lap. Apparently, I had decided it was time to do another community update, and then... I can't remember. Whatever it was, my room looks like Michael Bay was in charge of decorating, and I have a new contact in my phone under "Zeeby the Flying Guy." Also, I am fairly certain that this isn't my mattress. February, right?

Read Column →

10 Great Loose Film Adaptations

February 20th, 2015

I'm sure you've heard the term before in reference to movie translations of literary texts: loose adaptation. As bookish people, those two words can make us cringe sometimes, because we assume if an adaptation of a novel we love is loose, then it will undoubtedly be a "lesser than" experience, retaining none of the source material's awesomeness.

Read Column →

Jane Austen reviews ’Fifty Shades of Grey’ by E.L. James

February 19th, 2015

Bubble image via Ruffles and Restraints As well as writing six novels on the subject of love and marriage, Jane Austen kept up regular correspondence with her family, including her niece, Fanny Knight, who once asked her for advice on whether she should marry for love.

Read Column →

Stop Laughing at Yourself: A Loud Legacy of Exclamations

February 19th, 2015

To repeat a quote that basically everyone on earth has heard already, F. Scott Fitzgerald once said that using an exclamation point “is like laughing at your own joke.” We’ve all known that person who suffers from inappropriate exclamation overuse. They sprinkle in an extra punctuation mark at the end of every paragraph, even with an occasional audacious smiley face dotting the tails of two in a row.

Read Column →

Sneaking Around in YA: 6 Kickass Female Spies

February 18th, 2015

Everybody loves a strong female lead, and thankfully there's quite a few clever, sneaky girls lurking around the Young Adult shelves. Whether they're fighting crime in the halls of the local high school, fending off the the bad guys in Cold-war Russia, or shaking things up in a steampunk setting, these girls know how to kick butt and take some names. Get acquainted with some kickass female spies in these six Young Adult novels. 

Read Column →

The Two Hours' Traffic of Our Stage: 9 Films You May Not Know are Shakespeare Adaptations

February 17th, 2015

Shakespeare adaptations have been a significant fixture in cinema since its beginning, the first coming into being as early as 1899 with King John. Types of adaptations range from straight forward versions, complete with Shakespeare’s lines and settings, to modern retellings in new, unexpected locations, to mixtures of the two, like Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996).

Read Column →

32 Valentines: Showing Love For Books And Writers

February 16th, 2015

All photos by Peter Derk In third grade, there was this country kid in my class, Bryan. He was one of these kids in school who definitely lived on a farm. He wore tight black jeans and a black cowboy hat. On Valentine's day, he gave this girl Stephanie roses. I thought this was about the ballsiest thing I'd ever seen.

Read Column →