Always innovative Toronto Public Library lets us check out humans as well as books
In comfy green chairs in front of a massive and sunny window overlooking Bloor Street, several different conversations are taking place between pairings of strangers. A CBC journalist is telling someone about the stories he's covered. A Tibetan Buddhist monk is talking about his journey to Canada and about the importance of peace.
Age no excuse for failing to learn a new language - life - 22 July 2011
IT'S never too late to learn another language. Surprisingly, under controlled conditions adults turn out to be better than children at acquiring a new language skill. It is widely believed that children younger than 7 are good at picking up new languages because their brains rewire themselves more easily, and because they use what is called procedural, or implicit, memory to learn - meaning they pick up a new language without giving it conscious thought. Adults are thought to rely on explicit memory, whereby they actively learn the rules of a language.
Alignments, Allegiances, and Loyalties
So, you want to write about a villain who stops being so villainous, and perhaps even becomes a hero? Or do you want to write about a hero who becomes more of a "dark" hero, or even an outright villain? Or a character who just plain switches sides? This is a subject that is often handled badly, with the character progression coming off as forced and contrived.
6 Ways to Hook Your Readers
Although I consider myself an avid reader, I must admit I have a short attention span when it comes to getting into books. If you fail to grab my attention in the first few lines, I start spacing out. Most readers are like me.
Plotting, Conniving, and Manipulating
Plotters, connivers, and manipulators are a popular character archetype, showing up as villains and heroes alike. The recent Doctors. Loki. Batman. Rumplestiltskin.
Ten rules for writing fiction
Elmore Leonard: Using adverbs is a mortal sin 1 Never open a book with weather. If it's only to create atmosphere, and not a character's reaction to the weather, you don't want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways than an Eskimo to describe ice and snow in his book Arctic Dreams, you can do all the weather reporting you want.
Writer Creates “Color Thesaurus” To Help You Correctly Name Any Color Imaginable
Ingrid Sundberg, a writer and children’s book illustrator, created a very useful infographic chart for anyone struggling with color names. The writer says that she loves to collect words that can help give her stories variety and depth. Show Full Text
Improve Your Character Writing
Look through the eyes of the opposition. By now, you’re probably used to seeing the world through the eyes of your protagonist. Now, try seeing the world and your protagonist through the eyes of characters who disagree with or even outright hate your protagonist.
25 Things You Should Know About Storytelling
1. Stories Have Power Outside the air we breathe and the blood in our bodies, the one thing that connects us modern humans today with the shamans and emperors and serfs and alien astronauts of our past is a heritage — a lineage — of stories.
Why Most Writing Tips Are Useless (and How to Really Up Your Game)
You’re impatient to become a better writer. So naturally you love writing tips. You eagerly devour each new one, hoping to give your writing brain a small but valuable upgrade. But in practice, new tips appear so regularly that you struggle to keep up. You don’t know which tips to try and which to ignore, and each new practice is quickly replaced by the next. One week you’re trying to use more emotion in your writing.
Write Better Ensemble Casts
Another fine article contributed by J. Avoid homogeny, if possible. It's all too easy to create an entire group of characters who are almost just alike.
