Every Friday I like to decorate desecrate a photo in Japan with a heavenly haiku. I bribe my wife to add her own as well, so we can get as many interpretations as possible, and sometimes a Japanese one happens to float in off a gentle breeze of inspiration.
Last week we composed haiku for a mama praying mantis. Here’s this week’s photo of a shiba dog in a stegosaurus costume for Halloween:
This week for my RocketNews24 W.T.F. Japan article, I wrote about the top budget Japanese Halloween costumes.
Halloween is becoming bigger in Japan every year. Even though trick-or-treating still isn’t really a thing, dressing up very much is, and there are some Japanese monsters that make for great costumes.
Unfortunately Japanese costumes can be a little hard to come by outside of Japan, so this week I worked together with my wife to show off how you can make your own for extremely cheap. Every costume is about $6 or less to make, and pretty much guaranteed to be unique.
So if you need a costume and you’re short on cash… I think you know what to do.
Last week on Tips-y Tuesday we looked at how sharing our writing is scarier than Halloween but totally worth it. This week I’d like to talk about something I know I fear as a writer: wasting time.
Whenever I start a new writing project, one fear above all hovers over me: the fear that I’m wasting my time. Not that I’m wasting my time because the book might not get published (see Finding “The One” for more on that fear), but that I’m wasting my time because halfway into the book – or maybe when I reach the end – I might discover that I don’t like where it’s going and will have to scratch it.
And if that were to happen, months – perhaps years – of my life would have been wasted on something that didn’t matter.
Last week on Masterpiece Monday we saw examples of good action scenes that build tension by subtracting things. This week I’d like to show off an awesome example of something more subtle: callbacks.
Callbacks happen when a detail in your story refers to something that happened earlier. They’re cool because they make the reader feel like they’re rewarded just for reading. It’s like a little inside joke between reader and narrator.
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green has some excellent callbacks in it. Here’s one of my favorite ones from the very beginning, when the narrator Hazel talks about her cancer, her “depression,” and her support group:
“Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effects of cancer. But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying. (Cancer is also a side effect of dying. Almost everything is, really.)”
Then just a few paragraphs later we get this:
“This Support Group featured a rotating cast of characters in various states of tumor-driven unwellness. Why did the cast rotate? A side effect of dying.”
The repeated “side effect of dying” bit is super effective here. It not only emphasizes how all-encompassing thinking about dying is for Hazel, but also her cynical and slightly macabre sense of humor.
The same kind of callback happens soon afterward:
“I didn’t want to take the elevator because taking the elevator is a Last Days kind of activity at Support Group, so I took the stairs.”
Then a little later:
“Michael was next. He was twelve. He had leukemia. He’d always had leukemia. He was okay. (Or so he said. He’d taken the elevator.)”
If you hadn’t read the part earlier about the elevator being for kids on their “last days,” then that final bit wouldn’t have made sense. But with that proper setup, we get a chilling reminder of Hazel’s reality and another peek into how she emotionally deals with it.
Though there are more callbacks through the rest of the book, I really like these ones in the first chapter for another reason: they help to establish a bond between the reader and Hazel. Right away it’s like we’re part of little (albeit grim) inside jokes with her. Such a powerful bond between reader and main character helps ensure that we care about them quickly and want to keep reading to see what happens to them.
Having trouble getting readers to relate to/care about your main character? Try adding in some callbacks in chapter one and see what happens. We can’t all write like John Green, but we can at least try to learn from the pieces that make his characters so awesome.
(Featured image via GAHAG, edited by me)
Every Friday I like to celebrate a photo in Japan with a freshly-formed haiku. I bribe my wife to add her own as well, so we can get as many interpretations as possible, and sometimes a Japanese one happens to float in off a gentle breeze of inspiration.
Last week we haiku-ed up a cat wall. Here’s this week’s photo of a pregnant praying mantis:
This week for my RocketNews24 W.T.F. Japan article, I wrote about the top five craziest Japanese certification exams.
When I worked as a Japanese tutor, I would often tell my students that Japan has a test for everything. They didn’t believe me when I told them about the “housewife certification exam,” so now was my chance to finally show them the hilarious truth!
Honestly, I’m not a fan of tests. A lot of my students expressed a desire to take the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Exam), but I advised against it. That may sound strange, hut here’s the truth: there’s nothing really to be gained from taking the test. Let’s say you pass Level 1… great! You’re exactly the same person with the same knowledge you were before you passed it! Let’s say you fail it instead… great! You’re still the same person!
I suppose the argument can be made that in studying for the exam you learned more about the subject, but most teachers agree that “teaching to the test” is horrible. I would have much preferred by students study manga, anime, books, or anything intended for native Japanese speakers, rather than the artificial Japanese created for the exam.
But hey, that’s just me. If you love tests, more power to you! Maybe you’ll find some great ones to take on this list.
Last week on Tips-y Tuesday we looked at how to schedule a hot date… with writing. This week I’d like to talk about something that I and many other writers dread doing: sharing our work with others.
I was inspired to write about this after reading a recent blog post at Operation Awesome. It was an interview with Brandon Ho, a screenwriter, where he talked about his journey going from “script to screen.” You can read the full post here.
There’s a lot to learn from Brandon’s words, but one part I really liked was this that he had to say about sharing your work:
Last week on Masterpiece Monday we looked at a character with a sexy voice (even though we never actually hear her say a word). This week I’d like to show off a great example of something that I find difficult to pull off well: writing action scenes.
Writing an action scene is tough. You have to keep tension high and fast-paced, but at the same time you need to provide enough details so your reader can follow what’s going on. But if you provide too many details, it just falls flat. It’s the writing equivalent of walking a tightrope… on a unicycle… taped to each foot.
One book that does action scenes very well is (unsurprisingly!) Harry Potter. Let’s take a look at one particularly great passage. It’s during Harry’s first broomstick-flying lesson, when Malfoy steals Neville’s Rememberall and is taunts Harry up in the air with it. Suddenly he throws it as far as he can, and we get this scene:
Every Friday I like to commemorate a photo in Japan with a hot-out-the-oven haiku. I bribe my wife to add her own as well, so we can get as many interpretations as possible, and sometimes a Japanese one happens to float in off a gentle breeze of inspiration.
Last week we came up with lovely odes to a bear mug. Here’s this week’s photo, taken at Inuyama in Aichi prefecture:
This week for my RocketNews24 W.T.F. Japan article, I wrote about the top five Japanese autumn foods. I’ve been wanting to do a few articles about food here in Japan, but none of them really felt “weird” enough to be part of the “Weird Top Five” series.
My editor suggested I just change the “W” to stand for something else for a singe article, so after a lot of soul-searching and Google-searching, I came up with “Well-Fed” instead.
The article is still similar in tone to my previous articles, but it’s a little bit different, so we’ll see how it goes. Maybe there will be more Well-Fed Top Fives in the future, maybe there will be none – it all depends on those sweet, sweet clicks.
So if you want to know what autumn is all about in Japan, check it out!
