#if I had the brain power I’d incorporate it into my rewrite

[vicontheinternet]

I just need to know why they didn’t make bloom and aisha each other’s foils instead of retconning icy. Why not have both of them be host for the dragon flame and water stars perspectively. Like yea bloom and icy could’ve still been hero/villain foils but hero/hero foils is where it’s at, the dragon flame and water star aren’t supposed to exist in the same dimension as each other like they could have learn to co-exist as friends and as host who are hosting being who hate each other and could destroy not only each other but the the whole magic dimension. It could’ve been another reason why Aisha’s parents kept her in the castle because they didn’t know where or who had the dragon flame after domino got wiped out or if bloom got safely away. It would’ve been so interesting. Small update to add on some more ideas

[everything-y-nothing]

someone please write this fic

being on lockdown during this pandemic resurrected some major bamon feels. my brain started to obsessively develop the plot for a bamon fanfic and since I do not consider myself a writer, I’m surrendering it to the void.

For your consideration, Bonnie and Damon’s lives after the TVD series finale starts something like this:

Bonnie needs a fresh start after the shitstorm of the last 8 years. Her friends are safe and moving forward with their lives, so she decides to go back and finish up college...far away from Mystic Falls. The idea of exploring anything supernatural is lost on her, so instead of following in Grams’ footsteps as an Occult Studies professor, she takes a different path. Bonnie discovers her passion for Human Rights and Global Health, earning a PhD in Social Epidemiology. Working for a nonprofit jumpstarts her solo trip around the world, traveling through various parts of Africa and southeast Asia.

Her love of travel and social justice advocacy inspires Bonnie to create a digital media publication to share her unique perspective. Self proclaimed anti-influencer, Bonnie creates Currently: Conquering the World with Dr. Bonnie which delivers education through travel – simultaneously offering honest first-hand travel insights, educating followers on important issues faced by the highlighted destinations and checking privilege. The platform uplifts the voices of WOC, POC and marginalized people. It has been featured in a couple of major publications, donates to local nonprofits, hosts a podcast and has a sizable social media following. Bonnie posts a booty shot for every 1,000 new followers to her instagram account to show that there’s no correlation between a badass bitch in a bikini and intelligence.

Magic takes a backseat to Bonnie’s career and she’s okay with it. She still practices and befriends a handful of witches and warlocks through her travels. However, she keeps the magnitude of her abilities mostly under wraps. There’s not a snowflake’s chance in hell that she will let the power of her lineage be taken advantage of again. Bonnie Bennett - joyful, unapologetic BAMF, brainiac and humanitarian - finally found her inner goddess and is making good on her promise to live her very best life.

Bonnie keeps in touch with the remaining members of the Mystic Falls Scooby gang, though marginally - FaceTime sessions with Caroline and Elena when they can fit into each other’s schedules and time zones, long conversations with Matt, and random texts from Damon complaining about anything and everything. In time, the calls become fewer and no news is good news in her mind. Plus, she has a business to run, places to be, people to educate and a patriarchy to dismantle.

At first, Damon struggles acclimating to his new human life. He’s not pleased to have to take up exercising to in order to maintain his physique and misses the strength and agility he once had as a vampire. The lack of bloodlust is a plus. Cooking and eating real food is way more rewarding and enjoyable, another plus. Although, he gets mildly depressed that his body needs to build up an alcohol tolerance and can actually now die from overdrinking. He finally has Elena all to himself which is all he ever wanted and he should be walking on cloud nine, but it’s all so overwhelming. Time is fleeting and he realizes how much he had taken it for granted. He misses Stefan so goddamn much and it doesn’t help that his best friend/favorite drinking buddy skipped town on him. He spends one whole year mourning his brother, wallowing in self-pity, and being the domesticated boyfriend to his Pre Med fiancé before he gets his shit together.

Inspired after binge watching Tidying Up on Netflix, Damon starts applying the Konmari method to the Boarding House. In the attic, he finds his bachelors of architecture along with a set of licenses he got for ‘shits and gigs’ back in the 80s and it sparks something in him. He was productive as a vampire, after all. Damon convinces Caroline to compel NCARB and the State Board of Contractors into reinstating his architect and contractor licenses – because that’s what family is for – and starts a design and contracting firm, working mostly on small tenant improvement projects in and around Mystic Falls. His first project is to renovate the Boarding House which he later hands over to Alaric to run the Salvatore School.

Damon and Elena get married in between the time she ends Pre Med and starts Med School. It’s a spontaneous ceremony at City Hall which Matt documents via Facebook Live. They make it through one year of marriage before things start to go south. With Elena now further away for Med School and Damon running his business in Mystic Falls, they barely make it work to see each other on weekends. Damon falls in love with a dilapidated old bar in the heart of town and purchases it, throwing himself into a major renovation. It serves as a nice distraction from the growing divide between him and the “love of his life.” Year two is the tipping point – Elena wants him to relocate closer her, Damon wants to continue growing his business in Mystic Falls and neither wants to compromise. They see each other even less and argue more until Elena admits she has been cheating on Damon with a colleague, and their decision to part ways is mutual. Not so epic love, after all.

The breakup isn’t as painful as he thought it would be since Elena and him were living separate lives already. He sells the property for which he planned to surprise his ex-wife with a family home and readjusts his plans for the bar to incorporate a second floor loft for himself. It takes Damon almost a full year to finish renovations on his pride and joy, Savior. Blood, sweat and tears went into preserving and restoring original, historic architectural features. He took great care in curating every single detail and it paid off because his bar was voted best in the county and has become the go-to place for intimate date nights and an impeccable drink selection.

Nine years after Bonnie hightailed it out of Mystic Falls for good, three years after founding Currently: Conquering and two-ish years after the grand opening of Savior, the former besties run into each other on the streets of Havana. The run and jump hug from when Bonnie resurrected herself from 90s Hell is relived and they play catch-up over medianoches. Bonnie is leading a group of travelers through Cuba for the next 10 days while Damon is on sabbatical to celebrate his thriving business ventures and divorce. He critiques the photo composition her latest ass shot posted to IG and she points out his new frown lines that would put Stefan’s to shame – and just like that, they’re besties all over again.

Bonnie invites him to join her tour group and having no set itinerary, Damon agrees. It’s truly refreshing to see Bonnie in her element. Bearing witness to the person she has grown into after the supernatural drama of yesteryear only reinforces Damon’s admiration of her. Having no real destination after Cuba, Damon piggybacks onto her next guided tour, leaning into the local culture that his best friend has grown to love so much. He even follows her to Costa Rica before he has to return home.

(Annnnnd that’s where it stopped)

Comments:

Does a similar fic already exist and I just don’t remember haven’t read it?

Would it be too much to ask for accurate characterization and spot-on snarky dialogue, and like, not written in first-person narrative?

Timing - I’ve estimated approx 9 years until Bamon meet up Cuba. Not sure if it makes logical sense with everything that happens in between.

Damon and Elena’s child(ren?) - didn’t consider them...the Gilbert’s shouldn’t procreate, IMO. I don’t plan on watching Legacies and not sure what is canon. The plot would need to be adjusted if included. Regarding the origins of Stefanie Salvatore - I’d say keep this character as DE’s spawn instead of rewriting as Bamon’s kid. Since Stefan killed Enzo, the name would be a sore spot for Bonnie.

Bonnie’s career - mimics that of Dr. Kiona who runs hownottotravellikeabasicbitch on IG - follow her! She’s awesome.

[youknowjustfandomstuff]

TRoS: A Spoiler Review

Quick note: I just got back from seeing the film, so I’m sorry if this review comes off as overdramatic or harsh. My emotions are running high at the moment. So please view my thoughts knowing that!

Pros

Daisy Ridley’s performance was particularly phenomenal, as was Adam Driver’s and John Boyega’s. I wish the latter two were given more weighted scenes to work with.

The Leia scenes felt very believable in the story and were incorporated well.

Ben and Rey kiss. Basically all their scenes together were engaging and entertaining, but I credit that to the actors.

Naomi Ackie. I really liked what little we got of Jannah.

Cons

I’m not going to tag any of the writers, actors, or crew in my opinions, but TRoS was just so...stupid. As shown above, there were a few scenes I loved. But the rest made the hope inside me crumble to pieces. Let’s start at the beginning: the scroll.

Instead of giving us context of where the galaxy stands, the normally succinct but holistic scroll info dumps about Palpatine and the supposedly huge threat he poses to everyone, despite him being absent in the first two movies. 

Then our first shots reveal Kylo, and subsequently our heroes, looking for Sith wayfinders. Which every character takes in total stride. I get that there was a time jump, but the stakes aren’t just higher or lower than in the previous two films - they’re entirely new stakes, foreign to the plot of the sequel trilogy. 

Rose was side-lined to random generic one-liners, Finn spends half the movie hammering it into the audience’s skulls how worried he is about Rey (which like - fine, sure, we got that I guess from the 50,000 times you scream “REY!” but that’s mostly it. 

Poe at this point feels like a character who's been reconstructed about half a dozen times given all the different traits and histories pasted into him throughout this trilogy. I like his relationship with Finn, but part of me wonders guiltily if maybe he should’ve died in TFA. We spend wasted time in TRoS learning more about his past, which I can’t imagine anyone cares too deeply about at this point...I mean, it’s the final film. 

Besides, we’re too busy learning all the answers to Rey’s lineage. They couldn’t have just let it rest. I’m not against exploring more of her history with her family, but the way Rey gets bludgeoned over with questions about her “family name” and the painfully-constructed concern the movie crafts for learning just who Rey’s parents are was tiresome and irritating.

- Pause for quick spoiler-y rant, possibly with swearing:

I fucking hate that they turned Rey’s parents into parents who loved her and only left her on Jakku to spare her life. Like, it couldn’t possibly be that any parents would abandon their child on a desert planet and have her fend for herself. Rey just wouldn’t have been able to come back from that, they had to have loved her. There was so much potential for her character to be someone who overcame parental neglect, a really relatable struggle that I don’t think is explored enough. To me, this swerve took something important away from her character. I kinda burn with grief when I think about it too much.

Rey Palpatine. I’m sorry, but that was the most ridiculous theory I’d ever heard of. I’m pretty sure it was even joked about by the actors during TLJ press. I have no words, only laughable disbelief.

All the fake “deaths” - except for when it mattered. In this film, we see Chewie get exploded in a ship and are led to believe that Threepio’s memory gets wiped for good. Both are cheerfully explained away with dubious excuses. And yet, you’re telling me you can’t come up with a Force reason to resurrect Ben Solo who shares a powerful force bond with Rey? There’s not Force power that can bring him back? If nothing else, they could at least have had the decency to show him as a force ghost in the end, or show Rey looking for a way to bring him back. I understood Vader dying. He’d gotten his trilogy as Anakin. But Ben Solo was a young man who’d just found redemption and love. I hate this message of redemption = death. It’s bullish*t. He already “died” when Rey stabbed him on the waterfront - there are such things as metaphorical deaths in stories. Killing him off felt wrong and utterly hopeless. This was not Star Wars.

Overall, the writers basically abandoned the sequel trilogy in favor of resurrecting already resolved plots from the OG trilogy, and then re-finished them off in confusing and pathetic ways. In doing so, this movie rendered so many actions of the past films weightless. And I’m not even talking about killing Ben, which is what personally hurt me the most. TRoS is jarring in how it screams “this is the end!” with every scene, somehow attempting to provoke nostalgia but warping the feel of the whole saga in the process. I wasn’t even buying what I was watching by the end. 

I’m sure there’s more I’ll think of later, but my brain is too overwhelmed. A disappointing conclusion that I will likely rewrite/finish in my head.

[collusioncomics]

Still Not Dead Yet...

You may have guessed that I’ve got some blockage in the brain, hence the lack of content for months now...  I’ve had a few ideas on the back burner that I kept passing on when I ran into issues, until finally now they are all the only things left on the back burner.

One is [Orion/Ghost Rider] and [Mister Miracle/Black Panther], another is the Fantastic Four, featuring [John Constantine/Reed Richards], and then also the Shazam family, which I’ve just had a few competing drafts of...

As for the the New Gods thing, my issue is largely that actually getting to Orion and Mister Miracle means having to iron out the whole God Wave, Source Wall, and New Genesis-v-Apokalips backdrop and that’s just tedious.  I’m also still wavering on how to handle [Mister Miracle/Black Panther] in a way that doesn’t feel too ham handed, or worse just really awkwardly insensitive.  On the one hand Black Panther’s real core appeal points hinge around Wakanda being on Earth’s Africa and on T’challa being a proud and powerful king.  Innately having to incorporate the New Genesis thing meddles with that.  Sure, he can still be a black guy in space, but the untethering from Earth and Africa takes a lot of the bite out of that.  Also, while I love the idea of using Apokalips’ slave camps, and Mister Miracle’s escape artist and chains motifs to create a chain breaker and slave liberation narrative, it does feel like it’s kind of a step down from the stature of the Black Panther image.  So there have been many rewrites, and none have felt right.  Also several of them have necessitated heavy rewrites to the larger background lore as well, so that wastes a lot of time.  It’s just been a tricky one in general.

With the F4 there’s a nigh infinite dilehma in constantly shuffling around basically everyone other than [John/Reed] and [Spectre/Dr.Doom].  I’ve tried Enchantress, and Madame Xanadu, and Deadman, Pandora, and even Black Alice as components to go with Susan Storm, but of them all none quite click the way I’d like.  Johnny Storm too has been tricky to find a good match for, although I’m rather partial to Shade the Changing (Wo)Man, but Negative Man, Deadman (again), and Zauriel, among others were passed around.  For Ben, Deadman was once again considered, Zauriel again as well, Blue Devil, Ragman, and Frankenstein’s Monster are all ideas I can still recall.  For a moment I even considered just throwing the whole family together with the Trench Coat Brigade, but that felt super arbitrary and with no real synergy.

Key to a lot of this were ideas about sticking to Johnny’s “Flame On!” sequence to produce/retain some form of flashy, almost finger snappy, activation.  Zauriel offered the option of him bursting into holy flame while sprouting wings, perhaps also of flame, which was certainly tempting.  Zauriel was also an option for Ben, albeit from a different angle; lending to Thing’s Thing-ness and Zauriel’s biblical origin the idea that he might take the form of a biblical canon angel, a collection of looping rings and eyes and wings and fire rather than a man in any sense was very appealing to Ben’s “everyone treats me like a monster/freak“ drama, but it also made the logistics of any kind of day to day life too bizarre to gloss over comfortably.  Deadman too offered opposed angles for the two of them; with Johnny it would be a kind of astral projection power with an emphasis on the “projection” as far as visual design goes --launching him out of his body in a very dramatic fashion-- but for Ben it’d be more of an existential terror, with his disembodied spirit having no body of its own and able to possess only inanimate objects, with the inclusion of corpses, rendering him very literally The Thing(s).  Sue actually has less compatibility issues, but all of them are also pretty equally do-able, which left her waiting on the other two in the event that making a decision for either Johnny or Ben might offer some synergy with one of Sue’s many options.

And finally the Shazam Family...

I bring up the family together here and not just Shazam because his powers actually make him pretty tricky to work with.  I actually considered Kamala Kahn’s Ms.Marvel, but that felt really on the nose.  I considered him and Black Bolt as a play on words of power and literal voice powers, but incorporating the Inhumans was messy at best.  I considered the Runaways and merging The Pride (the villainous parents) with The Salem Seven.  I considered merging Black Adam with Nicholas Scratch and the Salem Seven with the Seven Deadly Enemies of Man.  (Keeping in mind here that I’ve sort of already committed to [The Wizard Shazam/Agatha Harkness])

For a while I messed around trying to find some way to mix and match the whole Immortus storyline with the fact that we have Kang and Zod together here in Collusion, and that Shazam is kind of a Superman knockoff, but that went nowhere...  I tried Shazam and Adam Warlock...  At a very early stage in Collusion I even considered Shazam and Deadpool and Howard the Duck...  And for a bit even Black Adam and Dr.Doom.

It’s just been a real big weird mess trying to pin down a balanced trio of powers, origins, and personality.

There’s also a whole mess involving the Skrull that I haven’t even gotten to a point where I could start a draft, not that I’m sure where I’d start it...

But I’ll get back to posting something more substantial eventually.  I do think stepping away from all this when I did was probably a good move.  But it’s the  getting back into it that’s proving tricky.  Still, I figure some kind of update beats nothing, and honestly I meant to do even this post sooner and put it off. Also, I confess I’ve distracted myself in the meantime with alternate fusions as well as just faffing about with things we’ve already got more or less set in stone, without adding anything new.

Not a great use of time, I know... :P

[phoenix-downer]

More writing asks...

@dusky-dancing​ - Yes, and in a few cases it helped me get unstuck on a scene or chapter I was stuck on! It’s like my brain is always working on the problem in the background, and then voila it comes up with something and tells me. I’ve also realized potential plotholes this way as well that I was able to go back and fix.

For you: 2, 24, 27 :)

@heartoffantasyislife - I’m guessing you’re asking for Those Who Dreamed, right? (spoiler warning for anyone who hasn’t read it yet and wants to)

Well, it was like a bunch of separate ideas I had that came together into one whole.

Back around... early Fall 2016 I want to say it was, I was talking to a friend about our ideal SoKai endgame. We were theorizing about how the ending of KH3 might go, wondering if Sora might gain the power to control Kingdom Hearts. And then I thought BUT WHAT IF SORA CHOOSES TO GIVE UP ALL HIS POWER TO BE WITH HER. I got pretty excited about that idea and it stuck with me. It just really struck me as something he would do, you know?

Then I played 0.2 in January 2017 and got pretty excited about the thought of Kairi training and decided to explore that, especially since Kairi seemed a little reluctant at the prospect of training with Lea. I wanted to write about him truly turning over a new leaf and earning her trust enough that they became friends.

The prospect of Kairi fighting Vanitas also contributed to my eagerness to write the thing because I knew it was too good to pass up.

Around July I think it was I thought some more about the “Sora gaining the power of KH” theory and wrote my first take on it. It was originally just a oneshot, but I knew it could easily turn into something more.

Then I was writing the chapter of Dear Sora where Riku arrives on Radiant Garden and tells Sora and Kairi and Ven what happened with Aqua. My darn brain was like WHAT IF SHE RAN INTO TERRA AND HE’S STILL TERRANORT and I resigned myself to the fact that this fic that was originally a oneshot was about to get even longer than its 15 already planned chapters.

So I told my readers Dear Sora was wrapping up but that the story would continue, please wait as I write the rest of it, etc., etc. This was around August 2017. Then, I was like WELP now I have to figure out how to save Terra because let me tell you, he will probably be the most difficult person to save in KH3.

Well, I’d read didsomeonesayventus’s Soranort stuff before and liked the idea and that was in the back of my mind. I was on the train coming home after hanging out with some friends one evening when the means of Terra’s salvation hit me like a lightning bolt (like I said, my brain is always working on these things in the background).

Sora would trade places with him.

I knew I had to write about it. I just knew it. I got that super excited giddy feeling I get when I KNOW I’ve hit gold. So I took notes on my phone, jotting down as much as I could. I wrote the original version of Sora trading places with Terra soon afterwards, as well as Sora giving up his power to be with Kairi. The midpoint (at the time) and ending of the story.

Well, I knew how I wanted to end the story, and I knew what the cost of Terra’s salvation would be. I saw derekscorner’s theory about using data to bring back Roxas, Naminé, and Xion, and I incorporated that in as well. I toyed with having Sora make the deal with Xehanort at the beginning of the story and going back to go through with it, but in the end I had him do it all at once in Chapter 16 (15 on FFN).

Originally Sora was going to be rescued from Xehanort and then the x-Blade would have been created at the same time, but Sora was so traumatized that I knew I needed to rewrite things so that was more spaced out. Give him time to rest and heal, you know? I didn’t want to risk darkness-induced apathy for my readers, either. So that made the story longer.

My initial take on the recovery period was actually kind of dull, there wasn’t much happening. I knew I needed to add in more conflict, more plot. But the first draft of Those Who Dreamed was finished by around January 2018, and it was significantly shorter than the story is in its final form. I figured I had plenty of time to edit the later parts I wasn’t quite happy with though because I had such a good backlog built up already.

Well, I started posting in February 2018, and a reader wondered if the prologue was hinting at Eraqus coming back. And then inspiration struck once again. I figured out a way to include Eraqus and incorporate time travel in a way that hopefully wasn’t too confusing. There was the conflict that the “Sora needs to recover” part of the story was lacking.

Other ideas came to me along the way - Sora gaining full control of his Heartless form, Naminé's meltdown and use of her full powers, Sora seeing how Xehanort figured out Kairi was a Princess of Heart, even how Sora rescued his friends from the x-Blade (which is now one of my favorite chapters!) were all added in during the editing process.

I also had to cut some material out (like a Treasure Planet visit and a Camelot visit) because they just weren’t fitting. Really too bad but who knows, maybe I can use that material in the future.

But yeah, it was really a bunch of ideas all coming together into one whole little by little! I think having so much time to think about it definitely helped. So did having people to bounce my ideas off of.

Anyway, asks for you: 11, 25 43 :)

[ncmagroup]

By Brian Massey

  Here are fourteen persuasive writing techniques that will trigger a response from your visitors.

Have you ever wondered why nobody is responding to your offers?

Why do people read your landing pages and then leave?

Why do people see your ads and keep scrolling?

You have a great product. You are offering an in-demand service. So why does nobody seem to be interested?

The answer boils down to psychology. Simply put, you aren’t being persuasive. You aren’t managing to trigger that little thing in your visitors’ brains that snaps them to attention, gets the heart rate pumping, and compels them to keep reading.

Today, we’re giving you a handful of tools that marketers and advertisers have been using for decades to captivate audiences and compel a response.

  1. Focus on resonating with emotional problems.

Everyone has problems, and your product or service is designed to help people solve one or more of those problems.

A lot of businesses simply dive into explaining their solutions. One of the most powerful persuasion techniques, however, is to start by resonating with your readers around the emotional problems they are facing. When people see someone describing something “painful” they are experiencing, it pulls them in and prepares them to buy into the solution.

Another word for this is “empathy”. People want to feel like you empathize with their problems and that it drives the mission of your business.

US President Barack Obama once said this about empathy:

“You know, there’s a lot of talk in this country about the federal deficit. But I think we should talk more about our empathy deficit – the ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes; to see the world through the eyes of those who are different from us – the child who’s hungry, the steelworker who’s been laid-off, the family who lost the entire life they built together when the storm came to town. When you think like this – when you choose to broaden your ambit of concern and empathize with the plight of others, whether they are close friends or distant strangers – it becomes harder not to act; harder not to help.”

That’s how empathy works. When you put yourself in your readers’ shoes and let them know you understand what they’re going through, they’ll be more inclined to listen to you. When you resonate with them on their problems, they will resonate with you on your solutions.

For instance, let’s say you want to write copy to sell a tool that solves the problem of content managers having to host their marketing tools on several different platforms. You could make your copy all about that problem and then introduce your tool in the end.

Here’s a great example:

In this example from Entrepreneur Alliance, the product is a monthly subscription to a group where real entrepreneurs help each other out. As you can see in the copy above, which appears just below the fold, the company quickly addresses some of the common pain points many new entrepreneurs experience when trying to get started. They also address the frustration people feel when they are constantly assaulted by new people trying to sell them something.

If you are reading this copy and you too have experienced this frustration, then you are far more likely to be intrigued and even compelled by the solution that the Entrepreneur Alliance then proposes to you.

Of course, in order to legitimately resonate with your audience’s pain points, you have to first understand your audience.

Understanding Your Audience

Michael Port offers the FESP model for understanding an audience that you will perform for or write for:

How does the world look to your audience Financially?

How does the world look to your audience Emotionally?

How does the world look to your audience Spiritually?

How does the world look to your audience Physically?

In our example above, the marketing person may see the world like this:

Financially, she’s spending too much on multiple tools.

Emotionally, she’s struggling to manage a “Mississippi of tasks.”

Spiritually, she feels obligated to deliver value from these expensive tools.

Physically, she struggles with the stress of managing content effectively.

This FESP copy should speak to her needs right out of the gate.

In the context of a landing page, it’s usually best to dive into these needs and problems using your value proposition or immediately following your value proposition.

2. Incorporate facts, data, and other analytical information.

While point #1 is very emotionally driven, selling isn’t all about emotion.

Certain segments of your audience might be more analytical.

Certain products or services aren’t geared towards emotional problems.

Even when you can utilize emotion, backing it with hard data strengthens the pitch.

One of the best ways to sell is to demonstrate “irrefutable” evidence that your solution is the best possible option for the prospective customer.

Legendary advertising creative director William Bernbach once said, “The most powerful element in advertising is the truth.” In the digital age, “truth” looks like facts, statistics, case studies, etc.

We employ this in our own marketing here at Conversion Sciences. We can talk about our experience and expertise all day long and even resonate with the problems our clients have dealt with, but at the end of the day, what prospective clients really want to know is:

Have you had success with past clients?

Aka do you have the track record to prove you will succeed with my business?

Since we drive an average conversion lift of 15 to 25% with our clients and have a 90% retention rate, we like to include that information in our copy whenever possible.

This is about as soft as it gets in terms of analytics, but since it is true, it serves as a powerful signal to clients considering our services, demonstrating that we aren’t just talking about AB testing. We are actually getting results.

Do the same in your own copy as often as possible.

3. Demonstrate social proof at key junctures.

Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation.

In other words, monkey see, monkey do.

When we are making a decision, we want to know that other people consider it to be the right decision. Who are these “other” people?

Specific people we respect

People who are in a similar situation to us

Large quantities of random strangers

In 2017, social proof often takes the form of influencer recommendations, customer testimonials, and social share count.

For example, CoSchedule asks visitors to click TRY IT FOR FREE on their homepage. Visitors are then taken to a page that contains a testimonial and highlights the company’s most recognizable customers.

Be specific in your case studies and testimonials.

Customer stories and testimonials have been shown to improve sales online. Customer stories work best when they are specific. See how Unbounce does it on of their pages:

Testimonials are more compelling with details.

The best customer stories and testimonials will offer the customer name, company, title and a picture. When appropriate, add the city and state of the speaker as well. Also, consider things like age when appropriate.

Favor testimonials that avoid judgments, like, “We loved working with this company!” Instead, focus on a specific result. The more specific your numbers are, the more believable they are.

These stories answer the question, “What did people like me experience?”

4. Use tone to add emotion and keep things interesting.

What does it mean to use one’s tone in writing? Basically, it means writing like you would talk in real life. Your tone can breathe life into your copy. It can make your writing a lot less boring for prospects to read.

David Ogilvy once said “Tell the truth but make truth fascinating. You know, you can’t bore people into buying your product. You can only interest them in buying it.”

When I asked Sam Hurley (founder of OPTIM-EYEZ) to share his number one advice on persuasive writing techniques, he said, “It has to betone. A sentence that equates to the same meaning can be written in 10 different ways…Each variation will evoke 10 unique reactions — and the difference can ultimately mean conversion or exit.”

In other words, you can rewrite a sentence in several different ways using your tone to effectively pass your message across to prospects and make it sink in their minds.

Take this post from Derek Halpern, for instance:

The tone is as important as meaning.

See what did he do there?

Derek used three different sentences to ask just one question: “Do people read long sales pages?” Why? He wanted to sound like a normal person in his tone; not a company trying to sell something.

If he was going to ask the same question in a real-life setting, he wouldn’t just ask Do people read long pages? would he?

No, he’d naturally ask follow-up questions just like he did in the example above. And those (follow-up) questions will mean the same thing as the original query. But they’ll make his message sink in his readers’ minds.

Your tone is important. It helps you talk like a fellow human being, not a business trying to make sales. It helps you build trust. And because your readers are also humans, they can very well relate with your tone when they see it in your copy.

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”― Robert Frost

In other words, people react according to what they see in your copy. If they see you shedding tears, they’d be moved to tears. If you crack jokes, they’ll laugh (or at least give you a smile). And so forth. That’s how it works.

Be careful with your tone.

Can anyone actually insult their prospects (or readers) deliberately? I’d love to answer that question with a no, but it happens. I recently found this while doing research for one of my clients:

Does it really pay to call your prospects mediocre?

This form saying I’m a mediocre content marketer if I don’t sign up for the whitepaper. It that true?

But does that slur really convert better than being polite? Did it get me converted? Heck, no! I actually got pissed off! I don’t know about you, but I cringe when I see Calls to Action like this.

There are several polite words that you can use to persuade people to do something. This CTA, for example, got Career Advice 261 sign-ups within 24 hours from a single guest post on The Muse:

This button copy is probably too safe. “Submit” is a tone-deaf word.

Yet, it contains no word that could potentially insult anyone.

5. Take time to bring up and cover objections.

You should never begin writing copy with a pre-determined word count. It doesn’t matter if your copy ends at 400 or 3000 words. What matters is that you say everything that needs to be said.

More specifically, what matters is that you cover all the key objections.

An objection is an argument that tends to come up from the customer’s end to justify saying “No” to your pitch.

For example:

If you are selling me a productivity app and I say, “Well, I don’t think I need an app to be productive,” that’s an objection. If I ask, “Why would I pay for an app when there are 30 other productivity apps that are free?” that’s an objection.

In an interpersonal sales meeting, the power of the objection goes to whoever brings it up first. If I ask you about all the free apps and then you respond, it tends to sound like you’re justifying a problem. Since I brought up the objection, and I think I’m pretty smart, I give it more weight than your response.

On the other hand, if you bring up the objection first, you win. If you introduce the cost and then immediately begin talking about how free productivity apps either utilize distracting advertising or have a low budget and thus numerous technical problems, both of which defeat the purpose of a productivity app, suddenly that potential objection has now become a selling point.

With online copy, the customer never speaks, so you have time to address as many objections as you feel is necessary. There may be just a few or there may be numerous objections that need to be covered. The important thing is that you give yourself time to cover them all.

6. Draw attention to your points with rhetorical questions.

Rhetorical questions draw attention. They’re not meant to be answered, which means that they shouldn’t have an answer. If your question can easily be answered with a “yes” or “no”, it won’t invite the visitor to read on.

Instead, pose questions that make the reader think, “What does this mean?” or, “How will you do that?”

What if we had one single solution that can perform all these functions?

Life would become extremely easy for content marketers, right?

We had a significant increase in leads for one of our addiction center clients using the rhetorical question, “Are you ready to stop lying? We can help.”

Of course, I didn’t expect answers to them. But if you’re a content marketer, you were probably answering those questions in your mind, agreeing to my point of view that an all-in-one tool is the best option for content marketers.

That’s how rhetorical questions work. They pull attention, get readers’ attention and lure them to keep reading your copy.

7. Use hyperbole to communicate value.

Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration to make your point to readers. Hyperbole should be used carefully. If you claim to be the biggest, best, or leader, your persuasive copy must deliver proof very quickly.

For example, take Contently:

Really? Does the world’s best content marketing actually run on Contently?

There are certainly other companies out there that get more ROI from content marketing than Contently’s customers. But, their exaggeration is immediately backed up with the logos of some of the biggest companies in the world, the implication being that they use Contently to run their content marketing.

Another example here is Campaign Monitor’s “Send email your customers can’t ignore”.

The headline makes us ask, “How do you do that?”

In this case, the hyperbolic claim makes the reader ask, “How do you do that?” Will all customers read your emails just because you sent them using Campaign Monitor? Probably not.

Unfortunately, the hyperbole isn’t backed up by proof. Only more claims are offered. This page goes on to invite the visitor to watch a video to get the proof.

The link between the hyperbolic claim and the proof is stretched thin, requiring the visitor to watch a demo.

The longer the distance between your hyperbole and the proof, the more tenuous your persuasive argument becomes.

But you get the message they’re trying to pass across, right? Campaign Monitor helps you send emails that get opened and replied.

8. Open your first paragraph with a hook.

Once readers move past your headline, the next phase they’ll be meeting with is your opening paragraph. It tells them if they should keep reading your copy or head out to somewhere else.

There are a couple of ways to create a hook in your copy. You could start with a question like this one:

That very first line (After all, that’s the dream, right?) will spring up a question in the mind of most readers. They’ll start wondering what the dream might be. And they know they have to keep reading to find out. That’s the hook right there.

Another way to create a hook would be starting out with an eye-catching phrase. This could be anything that has the potential of making your readers pay attention. For example:

9. Start small and utilize escalating agreements.

Avoid hitting the nail on the at once­­––especially when you’re writing on a complex topic or for an audience that’s pretty tough to persuade. Begin by beating about the bush a little and give your readers simple valid points to agree on before they get to the complex parts of your copy.

This will help you persuade them to read your copy with ease no matter how complex the topic is and have them nodding their heads in agreement as they read on.

For example, calculating the Net Present Value of a sum of money is mostly a complex topics for folks who aren’t finance-savvy. I mean, it was pretty much a really tough topic for me in my first year studying finance in University. But see how the guys at Maths Is Fun made it look so simple by implementing escalating agreements:

See how they start their exegesis with a set of simple, valid opening sentences that virtually anyone would agree with? Notice that when readers agree that money now is more valuable than money, later on, they’ll mostly move to the next line because they agreed with the previous sentence? That’s escalating agreements work. And that’s how to use it to persuade readers.

 10. It’s OK to use technical details.

Part of resonating with an audience is speaking in their language. When you use relevant jargon or communicate in technical terms only your target segment understands, you help position yourself as an authority in your space and build a community of people who use the same terminologies as you.

So how do you write with simplicity and still use jargon to show that you are a guru?

See how Apple uses a mix of both waffles and plainness in their copy for iPhone 7:

“iPhone 7 dramatically improves the most important aspects of the iPhone experience. It introduces advanced new camera systems. The best performance and battery life ever in an iPhone. Immersive stereo speakers. The brightest, most colorful iPhone display. Splash and water resistance. And it looks every bit as powerful as it is. This is iPhone 7.”

Notice how all that contains no single jargon even though the copy is about a technical product? Yes, that’s simplicity. Virtually anyone would understand it.

Now see how they used technical terminology on the same page––after enticing readers with jargon-less copy:

Apple’s use of jargon to build credibility.

Now some readers might not know what an optical image or f/1.8 aperture means. That’s certain. But they’re most likely going to stay with the copy because it’s interesting to read and not stuffed with too much technical mumbo-jumbo.

Veteran copywriter Robert Bly said the following in a recent newsletter:

“…almost without exception, virtually every successful direct response promotion is written in clear, concise, conversational copy. It’s the style used by John Forde … Clayton Makepeace … Richard Armstrong…Ivan Levison…Paul Hollingshead …Steve Slaunwhite…and just about every top six- and seven-figure copywriter I know. Why? Because it is plain English that virtually always gets the best response — proving that when it comes to communicating, simple writing is the best writing.”

11. Use short and to-the-point statements.

Short, concise statements can be memorable, fun and persuasive. They help to reduce cognitive overload, the need for an excessive amount of mental effort to understand things.

See how the folks at Fiftythree do it on their jobs page:

It’s difficult to condense messages into persuasive bites, but it can be very rewarding.

Copy doesn’t have to be wordy all the time. Just straight to the point and you’d have passed your message across in a split second.

12. Focus your headline on the biggest benefit you’re offering.

Irrespective of how many benefits your offerings can provide, you need to figure out what your biggest benefit is and make your headline focus on. Too many websites “bury the lead.” This means that the most powerful point of the page is relegated to a subhead or the body of the copy.

A typical example here would be SumoMe. They offer several tools but the biggest benefit they provide is traffic and customers:

SumoMe doesn’t “bury the lead.”

Traffic and customers are what SumoMe’s prospects care about the most, so they put that in their homepage headline. David Ogilvy once said this about headlines:

“On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. It follows that unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90 percent of your money.”

13. Tell stories.

There has been a great deal written about stories. This is because they are proving to be so effective. Stories suck people’s attention into your copy. They make even the busiest people pay attention to whatever you’ve got to say or sell.

As an example, see how MAG International uses the art of storytelling to describe the havoc that landmines wreck:

  Stories quickly help the reader relate to a situation.

Stories are most effective when:

Readers don’t know about the problem.

Readers may know about the problem but haven’t considered finding a solution.

Stories may not be effective for readers that are frequent buyers or are very familiar with your solution to their problem.

14. Flaunt your Unique Selling Proposition (USP).

Of all these persuasive writing techniques, this one is the most effective in our tests. Your unique selling proposition (USP), could be anything that entices visitors to stay and read. It can be that you have low prices, superior quality or anything helps your readers rationalize reading on. For an e-commerce company, the USP includes your positioning, return policy, shipping policy and guarantees.

First, your selling proposition often doesn’t necessarily need to be unique. It just needs to be communicated. Rug Perfection offers hand-made rugs made of natural materials. They offer free shipping and pay shipping for returns as well. Would you know that from the copy on their website?

Rug perfection doesn’t flaunt its unique value proposition, such as its fantastic shipping and return policy.

Your USP doesn’t have to be complex. Persuasive writers are able to summarize your place in the market in just a few words. This is true of Kissmetrics.

Kissmetrics clearly defines their unique position in the market by referencing a competitor.

If calling out your competitor like Kissmetrics seems a little too aggressive for you, you can simply flaunt your unique value without mentioning any rival’s name. See how GoDaddy displays their unique 1-month free trial on their homepage:

The free trial is unique to the hosting industry.

There’s virtually no other web host provider that allows a month free trial. So that’s a USP for GoDaddy.

Start Using These Persuasive Writing Techniques

People are getting smarter year-by-year. Each time we want to shop for anything online, we mostly prefer to check out a number of options and choose who we’d like to do business with.

So a smart move you can (and should) make now is to ensure your web copy and content is focused on enticing, engaging and ultimately persuading prospects to pay attention to your brand and offerings.

  Go to our website:   www.ncmalliance.com

14 Persuasive Writing Techniques That Trigger A Response By Brian Massey Here are fourteen persuasive writing techniques that will trigger a response from your visitors.

[char27martin]

The Differences and Similarities Between Writing a Novel and Writing for Television

For as long as I can remember I’ve been a storyteller. As a child, I scribbled ideas in journals, jotted story arcs on napkins and dreamt up book ideas when I should have been learning quadratic equations. In my teenage years, I filled more journals with bad poetry and even worse short stories. After an extended detour as an actress and countless hurdles along the way, I found my calling as TV writer. For five years, I wrote on various TV shows before I embarked on writing my first novel, Baby Doll, a contemporary crime thriller. It’s a daunting task to write a book, but one in which I was slightly more prepared for. Thankfully, some of the skills I learned in the writer’s room and what I discovered writing my own TV scripts were applicable to novel writing. Others, I had to learn along the way. Here are three screenwriting techniques that came in handy when I wrote my first novel, Baby Doll, and my upcoming second book, The Walls, as well as three tools I had to learn anew.

This guest post is by Hollie Overton. Overton is the author of THE WALLS (August 8, 2017; Hachette/Red Hook) and BABY DOLL (July 12, 2016; Hachette/Red Hook), an international bestseller that has been published in eleven countries. She is also a TV writer and producer who has written for Shadowhunters, Cold Case, and The Client List. An identical twin, Hollie grew up in Kingsville, Texas but now resides in LA with her husband. You can visit her at www. hollieoverton.com.

3 TECHNIQUES IN TV WRITING THAT WORKED WELL FOR WRITING NOVELS

Characters

If you look at any critically acclaimed show from the last fifteen years—Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Nurse Jackie—you’ll see what sets them apart: character. Walter White, Don Draper, and Jackie were all incredibly complicated. I’ve always focused on writing powerful characters in the TV world and I applied that same standard to my books. Each character needs a strong goal, complicated relationships, and a compelling arc. Crafting characters that are real and relatable, despite the extreme circumstances I put them in, is at the heart and soul of writing TV, and the same goes for writing books. Without unique and complex characters, a reader simply won’t invest in a book and that was my guiding force—creating characters that stayed with them long after they turned the last page.

Pacing

In an hour-long TV drama, you have 50-60 pages to tell a story, and you better make them count because audiences have short attention spans. If you want to hold their interest, you must keep the story moving. When I’m in the writer’s room breaking a story, we’re always working towards an act out, or the scene before a show goes to commercial. The goal is to create a moment so exciting that the audience cannot wait for the return to the show from the commercial break. If you re-watch episodes of Breaking Bad, you’ll see how expertly they crafted each act out. Streaming services like Netflix and Amazon are making a fortune creating binge TV that’s impossible to stop watching. When I began writing Baby Doll, I kept that in the back of my mind. At the end of each chapter, I’d ask myself, “Does this push the story forward?” or “Am I invested in what’s happening with the characters?” If I thought the reader might get bored or confused or want to put the book down, I’d rework that chapter. I love hearing from readers that they couldn’t put my book down and that’s what a strong act out or chapter end does.

Dialogue

Crafting realistic and believable dialogue is one of the most important skills a TV writer can possess. An audience is savvy and instantly understands when a character sounds too old or too young or simply not right. Dialogue must also push a story forward and tell us who the character is by demonstrating how they speak. Are they young and talk really fast with lots of slang? Do they have an accent or a specific speech pattern that makes them unique? All of these details are important to consider when writing dialogue for TV. Novel writing requires the same care and precision. In fact, the bar can be even higher, because you don’t have a skilled actor delivering the lines. That’s why when I write, both TV and books, I read every line out loud to make sure it doesn’t sound false.

[Get Query Help: Click here for The 10 Dos and Don’ts of Writing a Query Letter]

THREE NOVEL WRITING SKILLS I HAD TO LEARN

Beware of the Backstory

As a TV writer, I learned early on that backstory is the ultimate no-no. But when I began writing books, I was surprised by how much time I had to spend not getting bogged down by it. Just because you have more time to tell a story in a novel doesn’t mean that you should. The last thing you want to do is inundate the reader in what happened to a character before the book even began. In my case, lots of rewriting was required before I found a way to incorporate my characters’ past experiences into the narrative.

Painting a Picture

TV writing is a visual medium, but the writer isn’t the lone visionary. You have the director, cinematographer, and an entire production team working together to bring it to life. In a novel, it’s all in your hands. It isn’t enough to simply write, A storm is brewing. You must tell the reader what the storm looks like, how it sounds, and how it makes your character feel as it’s raging outside their window. Writing description in a novel required retraining my brain and constantly reminding myself that a novel is my canvas, and I have a lot of leeway to create the world I want readers to see.

Endurance

The biggest struggle I faced when writing my first two books was that the finish line seemed so far away. A TV script is 50-60 pages. It’s possible to write one in a few weeks. But writing 300-400 pages is a much bigger endeavor. While I was writing Baby Doll, I was unemployed, planning my wedding, and trying to find a job in TV. There were times when I thought, I’ll never finish this and even if I do, what’s the point? Fortunately, I had family support, an encouraging writing mentor, and the resolve that I was telling a story I wanted to see through to the end. Novel writing is not an instant process. It’s a bit like running a marathon. You have to keep your eye on the prize and know that one day you’ll finally reach the end of the book.

What I learned writing for both mediums: storytelling is universal. Learning how to write TV, novels, or both requires a steep learning curve, but once you’ve mastered one, there’s no reason not to try your hand at the other. Who knows where it could lead you?

The biggest literary agent database anywhere is the Guide to Literary Agents. Pick up the most recent updated edition online at a discount.

If you’re an agent looking to update your information or an author interested in contributing to the GLA blog or the next edition of the book, contact Writer’s Digest Books Managing Editor Cris Freese at cris.freese@fwmedia.com.

  The post The Differences and Similarities Between Writing a Novel and Writing for Television appeared first on WritersDigest.com.

from Writing Editor Blogs – WritersDigest.com http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/differences-similarities-writing-novel-writing-television

[yougotcrit]

A long, long time ago... 40 years ago, to be exact. 40 years to the day when Star Wars (1977) first hit theaters, and what a journey it has been during that time. To truly appreciate this landmark of a film, I’d like to step back and evaluate one simple question.

What is Star Wars?

It’s so much more than a movie. Its roots are simple enough; a story of good versus evil, a journey of discovery, an adventure to places unknown. The Greeks were playing that old song and dance long before Star Wars came along. So what set it apart from these other stories?

It’s the brain child of George Lucas. 

Love him or hate him, none of it would be possible if not for him. Through his imagination he brought life to his creations, showing us creatures and places we never dreamed of. And oddly, he was near the only one who believed in the project. Hardly anyone expected it to be the success it became. But thanks to George’s passion and persistence, in conjunction with a talented cast and crew, we have the most iconic film in history.

It’s iconic.

The soundtrack; the title crawl; the locations; the costumes, props and special effects; the characters; the movie quotes. The list goes on. Even the film’s blunders are iconic (The Kessel Run in 12 parsecs. The Stormtrooper banging his head in the doorway.) 

So many films wish they could be half as universally recognized as Star Wars. Even if you’ve never seen Star Wars, chances are good that if you saw an image of Darth Vader, you’d know his name. That’s the power of the franchise, it’s something that, as a society, we all share and love together. 

It’s controversy.

And perhaps that’s why many fans have such a love-hate relationship with George Lucas. The creator, in an effort to actualize his original vision which was hindered due to the constraints of the technology at the time, decided to revisit his beloved films and alter them. On paper this sounded all well and good. The movies would be digitally restored and remastered to counter the gradual deterioration of film, a necessity if you want to preserve the films. And the space battles, which had been filmed with models originally, would receive a fancy, polished CGI upgrade. So what caused millions of voices to cry out in protest when the Special Edition of Star Wars was complete? Two things. Lucas took it upon himself to fill every scene he fancied with superfluous amounts of CGI, to the point where it’s so crowded with nonsense you can’t see what’s happening. It marks one of the first instances where CGI was abused in cinema. But even more controversial was Lucas’s alteration of history. Replacing the actor who played the dying and older Darth Vader with Hayden Christensen was a slap in the face. Adding the Jabba the Hut scene in A New Hope was clumsy and unnecessary (don’t even mention how the movie’s name was changed to Star Wars: A New Hope). And let’s not forget who shot first. It was Han. Han shot first.

If that wasn’t enough, there’s also the prequels. Nothing causes more rage among fans than the three films that nearly ruined Star Wars forever. Poorly written, boring, poorly acted, and occasionally racist, the prequels were not the films we were looking for, and they complicated the continuity of the original trilogy. No one was happy. You’d cause less uproar trying to rewrite the Bible than what Lucas did with the prequels. To make matters worse, despite such a public outburst against the prequels, George Lucas remained unapologetic and uncaring towards the fans’ disappointment. After all, it’s his baby. He could do with it as he pleases. Until he sold it, of course.

It’s money in the bank.

Even before George Lucas sold the rights to Star Wars to the Disney Company for $4 billion, he was raking in the cash. The films alone were very successful, the very first blockbusters, but thanks to some poor foresight on the part of the movie executives, Lucas kept the licensing and merchandising rights everything Star Wars to himself. And that’s where the real money from the movie is made. More well than you can imagine. Action figures, tee shirts, Build-A-Bears, tote bags, Legos, collectibles of all shapes and sizes; Even a mini fridge shaped like R2-D2. There’s no limit to what Star Wars fans will pay if it’s got the logo slapped on it. And nobody knows exploitation like the Disney Company. Promptly after their purchase they began churning out more films to further the saga, not excluding spin-offs or solo films. And boy, have they gotten a return on their investment. With plans to open up a Star Wars themed park at Disney World, the Disney Company’s going to see profits that George never considered.

It’s a whole universe.

How big is Star Wars? It’s big. There’s series upon series of novelizations about the Star Wars universe, much of it obsolete since Disney’s takeover. Not to mention the story lines from each and every video game, at least two television animated series, and every character, regardless of how brief their appearance in the films, has at least half a webpage dedicated to its biography on Wikipedia. Each of these contributes to a much greater world that even the movies never explain in detail. Few franchises and properties come close to the level of detail and universe building that Star Wars has created, which is why it ranks in the top of all circles of nerdery, geekdom, and fanisms.

It’s a community.

If you’ve never heard of the 501st Legion, I suggest you look them up. They are Star Wars enthusiasts, whose love and passion for Star Wars is so great that they’ve come together as “an all-volunteer organization formed for the express purpose of bringing together costume enthusiasts under a collective identity within which to operate.” These guys get together to build and wear authentic and customized stormtrooper costumes, among other characters, and then they attend events to promote an interest in Star Wars. They do this on their own time, using their own funds, and they do a lot of charitable work. And it’s because they all love Star Wars. But it goes beyond cosplaying. There’s groups dedicated to collecting memorabilia. Musicians come together to play John Williams’s amazing scores, incorporating lightsabers into the act. Star Wars even helped a family through a rough time, when a husband, diagnosed with terminal cancer, was allowed to see The Force Awakens (2015) weeks before its release and days before he became one with the Force. Star Wars brings people together, and brings out the best in them as well.

It’s a technological achievement.

This one can’t be overstated enough. Until May 25th, 1977, there was every other movie, and then there was Star Wars. Audiences had never seen anything like it. The film pushed the boundaries of the available technology, inventing several new technologies along the way. Advancements in sound, costumes, green-screen technology, puppetry, model building and so much more all stemming from Star Wars. It’s hard to imagine in this age of CGI that all the ships in the original trilogy were mere models hanging on wire in front of a blue screen. Pixar’s computer animation was originally a branch of LucasArts, so we have George to thank for that as well. But Star Wars continues to push the limits of technology, even in the real world. It’s influenced modern day prosthetics, robotics, and for Pete’s sake, even hologram technology is available these days. In time, maybe we’ll have our own lightsabers, because there isn’t a person out there who wouldn’t like their own lightsaber.

It’s inspiration.

There’s no end to imagination, so I don’t see why there should ever be an end to Star Wars. What began as the musings of one man has become a myriad of ideas and tangents and spin-offs and parodies and all manner of art. Fans cosplay as original characters of their own design. Spaceballs (1987) would not exist if not for Star Wars. It has inspired conventions, fan fictions, food, and the names of children. Yes, I’ve met a real life Anakin once. Some people have Star Wars weddings and funerals. Star Wars is so expansive, with so much source material, it can be incorporated into nearly anything. It seems to me that we’ll go to any length to bring that galaxy far, far away a little closer to home. That’s Star Wars.

Happy birthday, Star Wars,

You Got Crit

(Feel free to read my past reviews for the more recent Star Wars movies: Here and here.) 

(Like what you read? Then Share! Or Like! Or Follow! Or leave a Comment! Didn’t like it? That’s cool too! I’d love to hear feedback! Thanks for reading!)

[fullybookedreviews]

A girl named Rose is riding her new bike near her home in Deadwood, South Dakota, when she falls through the earth. She wakes up at the bottom of a square hole, its walls glowing with intricate carvings. But the firemen who come to save her peer down upon something even stranger: a little girl in the palm of a giant metal hand.

Seventeen years later, the mystery of the bizarre artifact remains unsolved—its origins, architects, and purpose unknown. Its carbon dating defies belief; military reports are redacted; theories are floated, then rejected.

But some can never stop searching for answers.

Rose Franklin is now a highly trained physicist leading a top secret team to crack the hand’s code. And along with her colleagues, she is being interviewed by a nameless interrogator whose power and purview are as enigmatic as the provenance of the relic. What’s clear is that Rose and her compatriots are on the edge of unraveling history’s most perplexing discovery—and figuring out what it portends for humanity. But once the pieces of the puzzle are in place, will the result prove to be an instrument of lasting peace or a weapon of mass destruction?

Rating: 4/5

I think I had a completely different impression of what this book would be like, so while it popped up on my radar, I didn’t actually take much notice. But I saw it in the bookstore one day, recalled a couple of good reviews, and thought I’d take a chance. Don’t you love it when a hesitant decision pays off?

I was expecting something really dense, for some reason, but I found it easy to follow the flow of the story. The book follows an epistolary format, consisting of interview transcripts and diary entries. And while there is certainly a lot of technical information included, it didn’t feel overwhelming. I suppose it’s a difficult balance, between providing the neccessary technical info but risk hurting the brains of your readers, or just being hand-wavey with the details and have us questioning ‘but how would that work?’.

But this thing…it’s different. It challenges us. It spits in the face of physics, anthropology, religion. It rewrites history. It dares us to question everything we know about ourselves…about everything.

The premise of the tale really fascinated me. Firstly, finding a random statue of a body part in the field. Where do you possibly go to from there? And then the real crux of the matter – other species out there, waiting to make contact with us, but only when we’re reached a certain point in evolution and aren’t still living in caves waving sticks at each other. Humanity is really young, in comparison to the planet, and indeed, everything else contained in the universe.

I won’t go into any further detail, but it certainly had me hooked, and there is an ending that will have you anxiously counting down the days until the sequel is released.

I was somewhat less impressed with the characters – the worldbuilding, mystery and plot are the strengths of the novel. Rose comes across as deified by the other characters, the two males on the project were fairly one dimensional, and Kara, the fiery pilot, has a lot of personal issues that obviously are pushed to the background in favour of the science-ing. (Yeah, I’m making up words left, right and centre today.)

Something that really struck me was the sheer amount of wry humour that the author incorporated. It had me smirking and shaking my head at the audaciousness of the narrator. Indeed, the central figure of the novel, and the one conducting all the documented interviews, is a mysterious one.

-North Korean troops gathering…inside North Korea. That is unheard of.

-They were massing very close to the border.

-North Korea is the size of Ohio. It would be geographically challenging for them to gather very far from the border.

Overall, the tone of the novel is slightly menacing. We know exactly what humanity and governments are like in the face of a potential threat and powerful weapon, and there is some astute commentary on the way we tend to doom ourselves, without any help from outside influences.

Bluffing doesn’t mean what it used to. No one wants an all-out war, and everyone knows it. Both sides know the other doesn’t want a fight, so we push each other against the wall, a tiny bit further every time. It’s all about saving face but, basically, we’re playing chicken, and both sides think they can do whatever they want because the other guy will never use it’s nuclear arsenal. It probably won’t be today, but someday…someday one of us is gonna be terribly wrong.