In Review – Page 2 – BELINDA CRAWFORD

Altaica by Tracy M Joyce

January 9, 2015September 23, 2014 by Belinda Crawford

I’d been hanging out to read Altaica ever since I saw the cover art (yes, I know, I’m shallow) and once I had my hands on it, I devoured it (in the literary sense). The storyline was engaging, the plot kept rolling along and there was never a moment when I was bored or tempted … Read more

My Bookshelf on WWW Wednesday

February 26, 2014 by Belinda Crawford

I’m currently reading Witches of East End by Melissa de la Cruz and Alliance by Mark Frost. I started watching the television spin-off of Witches of East End. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t horrible either, so I thought I’d give the book a go. So far, I’m 8% of the way into the ebook and, like … Read more

Blake Synder's Beat Sheet, with template

January 27, 2014 by Belinda Crawford

Cover of Save the Cat by Blake Snyder — If you want to understand how the beat sheet works, check out this book.

Best for those outling a new work.

What’s awesome about it

The word count for each beat

What’s not-so-awesome

It’s daunting, especially when your manuscript is half-written
No capacity to outline subplots

The awesome

When I first came across Blake Synder’s Beat Sheet (BS2), I was half-way through the manuscript for Hero and the word count for each beat made me to blanch. The idea of trying to shoehorn my (at that point in time) pantsed story into all of those little boxes (opening image, catalyst, black moment) with their prescribed word counts, was more than my brain could take, but when I went back to the BS2, a new story in mind, they appeared as godsends.

First Draft in 30 Days – The Wiesner method

October 11, 2017August 24, 2013 by Belinda Crawford

The cover of First Draft in 30 Days by Karen Wiesner — That’s one seductive title.

When a book has a title like First Draft in 30 Days, it can be hard to pass up. If it’s sitting on the shelf at your local library, passing it up is practically impossible, which is why I picked Karen Wiesner’s book.

The idea that I could write a first draft, or in Wiesner’s case, an incredibly detailed outline (which she equates to a first draft), is seductive. So far, it hasn’t happened yet (mostly, because I’m currently writing the second draft of another work) but the dream remains.

Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce

August 31, 2012 by Belinda Crawford

Bloodhound is the second book in the Beka Cooper series by Tamora Pierce. The story follows Beka, now a first-year Dog (aka police officer), as she and her partner Goodwin track down a group of colemongers (aka counterfeiters). Along the way she picks up a scent hound named Achoo, falls in love and saves the day.

What I liked and didn’t like

Bloodhound is written in a journal style. I haven’t read many books in this style but I find it very difficult to believe that someone could recount their day with as much detail as Beka does. Perhaps Pierce should have ditched the journal idea and just made it first person?

Beka is the many times great grandmother of George Cooper, a prominent character from The Song of the Lioness series. Generally these types of books, in which characters from previous novels make cameo appearances, drive me batty, but given that there’s a few hundred years between this book and the Alanna series, there wasn’t much chance of that happening.

Drink, Slay, Love by Sarah Beth Durst

March 7, 2012 by Belinda Crawford

Pearl is a sixteen-year-old vampire… fond of blood, allergic to sunlight, and mostly evil… until the night a sparkly unicorn stabs her through the heart with his horn. Oops.

'Drink, Slay, Love' by Sarah Beth Durst — The ebook version of the cover.

If you like your vampires dark, Goth, not quite soulless and with just the tiniest hint of My Little Pony, then Drink, Slay, Love could be for you. It’s the third work from author Sarah Beth Durst and reads like the opening of a series (although I could find no news of a sequel).

What I liked and didn’t like

Pearl was the best part of the book, confident, arrogant, viewed humans as cattle yet remained vulnerable under all her bluster. It was almost a shame that she grew a conscience because it dulled her superior attitude, which was a lot of fun.

The development of her character was a strong yet subtle thread that ran through the book with none of the long, blah, blah, blah blocks of inner monologue that can pass for character development.

While the first two-thirds of the book were good, maybe even great, the final third did its best to fall in a heap.