Worderella Writes

Book: Never Let Me Go

Kathy grew up in the sheltered, English countryside at the Hailsham boarding school, where the students were raised to believe they were special. Only in her teens does Hailsham reveal how special the students are. Kathy’s narrative slowly reveals from hindsight how a simple deception defines her life.

This story is intense, subtle, delicate. Its characters are flawed, obsessively so. The overlying plot is science fiction, but without the hopeful ending we expect from genre fiction. If you liked Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, which I did, then you will definitely like this book.

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Books on Display

I understand that other people don’t have the luxury or know-how to create a library in their closets. So, keeping in mind that I haven’t tried some of these products, nor am I receiving any sort of kickbacks for talking about them, here are a couple of really cool book display ideas that I found while searching online.

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“Gender Genie” saves the day

So about a week ago I read about an author who was having trouble with her hero’s voice… that is, she couldn’t seem to make him actually sound like a man. And then she remembered a great online tool created from an actual study in which some academics discovered men and women do, in fact, speak differently: The Gender Genie. They even came up with an algorithm that predicts whether the person speaking was a man or a woman.

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From the Notebook: Victorians and the Environment

By the High Victorian era, which describes the 1870s and beyond, many activists and doctors were starting to connect the welfare and livelihood of Londoners to their environment around them. In the 1860s, the Thames in London was so fetid, so polluted, that Parliament scheduled its activities so the smell wouldn’t sit stagnant in the heat. It was too hot to sit in the rooms with the windows shut, but with the windows open, the smell was so unbearable that men compared it to actual torture. Cholera, spread by bacteria in liquids, was a great epidemic in the 19th Century because of the sanitary conditions.

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Article: Hold on to Your Plot Part 3

And now, the finale for the article on how to hold on to your plot!

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New Blog Layout

So, I don’t know how many of you actually came to the blog yesterday, but if you did, I apologize. I don’t have a PHP interpreter on my computer, so when I made changes to the layout I had to upload them to the blog to see if it looked like how I wanted it to. I’m pretty pleased with the end result! The colors are a little more subtle, and I find it more visually pleasing than the last layout I made. I especially like the horizontal links along the top. I had to change the actual blog code to get that trick working…

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Book: Silent in the Grave

Always weak, Sir Edward falls to the floor while he and his wife, Lady Julia, entertain some friends. Julia is sent from the room by her father, but not before a mysterious and dark man, Nicholas Brisbane, warns her that this was very likely murder. Certain Brisbane is mad, Julia disregards his warning until a year later, when she throws off her full-mourning and starts to pack away Edward’s things…only to find a death threat shoved in his desk.

For you historical fiction writers looking for a first-person narrative, this book is a great example from which to learn. Julia is impetuous, frank, and conflicted, all great character traits for a narrator. First book in the Lady Julia mysteries. See Silent in the Sanctuary for the sequel.

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Book Meme!

So I normally don’t do memes, but Word Nerd tagged me and I like this one, so I’m doing it. Which, while I’m on the topic, how do you pronounce the word “meme”? Is it “mem” such as memory, or “me-me”? What is the history of this word? Why does it mean “fill out this fun questionaire that will take up space in your blog, thus allowing you to provide content without having to think too hard?” Perhaps that’s a bit harsh. But that’s why I fill out memes, haha. If that’s the plural of meme, that is.

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Article: Hold on to Your Plot Part 2

A continuation from the article I posted here, read about how you can hold onto your plot by working with your characters, etc.

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