Websites that help you write better - internet is not always procrastination

As "unknown" once said: "Being a good writer is 3% talent and 97% not being distracted by the internet". 

Though I am not one to argue with internet wisdom, I have to disagree with this quote. I started writing a story yesterday and found out that the internet can be distracting in the best possible way.

No, I'm not talking about Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest. I'm talking about real websites that motivate and inspire writers - oh and they can help you jump some of the most annoying creative-process-hurdles. 

Character name generator for fun

If you're anything like me, you can struggle with finding the appropriate name for this very specific person you have in mind. Sometimes, a name just pops up. Usually, it doesn't. Instead of looking at baby name sites -confess, we all did it -  I found a better solution.

Ok, so "character.namegeneratorforfun" doesn't sound so professional, but this is by far the coolest name generator I have seen. You can select gender, heritage and country of residence and you get a name (first AND last name) to match all of those. Even better? You get an explanation of what kind of person your character would be with that name: characteristics, jobs, partners,... It's all there to inspire you. 

Synonym finder

All writes struggle with using the same words too much - when I was in Journalism school, my tutor would always circle the words I repeated over and over in my reviews and trust me, sometimes my paper was just one big circle. How to avoid this? Train yourself with a website like synonym finder.

It's easy to use - when editing your own story, you will notice those damn repetitive words, the ones that you just can't find a synonym for. Go online, type it in and find the synonyms and hypernyms (though I'm not sure why you would need that, but ok). It's a quick way to help you edit your story and to avoid sounding boring for your readers.

Word of the Day

Connected to the previous point, there is the problem you can have when wanting to describe something, but not being sure what word to use. You know you're character is loud and obnoxious, but those words just have the wrong connotation. So what is it? How about raucous - the word you just learned as your word of the day.

Dailywritingtips.com is filled with amazing tips for writing, but this one has to be my favourite. There is something excited about learning a new word and then being able to incorporate it in a story. Or if you're looking for writing inspiration - write a story revolving the word of the day. Both options will help you become a better writer.

31 ways to find inspiration for your writing

And finally, maybe the most tricky part of all - where do you find your inspiration on days when stories just can't seem to come to you?

On awesome lists like on writetodone. 31 easy ways in which to find inspiration, it's a list I look at at least once a month. It's a nice little boost to start writing again and to turn that laptop off!

And so many more...

These are just four of the writing sites I use most, but there are so many more out there. Tumblr is filled with writing tips and tricks and google "writing help" and you'll get million of hits. The internet really isn't all just distraction - it can also help you. (Just like this blog is helping me reach my nano camp word limit!)

Jane Eyre is cursed.

If I ever doubted the fact that my relationship with English classics was not good - it is officially confirmed now.

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When I finished writing my last blog post, I shut down my computer and my body shut me down. I woke up with a head full of pain and the worst cold. There was no room in my body left for anything besides gross snot -especially not for the ups and downs of Miss Eyre’s life.

I tried to find out if it was really impossible to read with a cold, or whether or not this is my phobia taking over, but Google proved useless on this point. All it told me was that cold reading is a special kind of methods used to ace (or mess up) auditions - good to know if I ever want to become an actor I guess.

Going further down my delusion path, I looked up whether a book can make me sick - maybe this whole project was cursed from the beginning. But alas, a “can a book make you sick?”-search only leaves you with suggestions on how to unclutter your bookshelves. 

So I guess there really is no correlation between Jane Eyre and my sudden, very brutal, cold. 

Thankfully, there is a correlation between the demise of my cold and the increase of the pages read in my Jane Eyre book. Today was the day that I really started this challenge and I’m about 100 pages in. 

I don’t want to say too much about my thoughts on the book, because that’s definitely review material. However, I am pleasantly surprised and hopeful that I’ll finish before Nano camp begins - I’m not sure I can handle 50,000 words and an English classic.

Oh and as you can see on the side - I got an Instagram account! @Thebeautyofliterature is my username and it can also be found at the bottom of every page - just like my twitter feed!

Love Triangles in Literature - a dream come true?


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Rebel Belle features Harper who has a perfect boyfriend to start the book off with, but who falls in love with the complete-opposite-omg-I-thought-he-was-awful newspaper editor. Tease is about Sarah, who was dating Dylan, the perfect highschool football player. They semi-break up (this is a complicated one and will be explained in a review tomorrow) and she falls for a guy she always thought was a loser. In Vanity Fair, a true British classic, Rebecca has a love triangle with.. everyone? Everyone loves her and she loves everyone’s money. And then The Hunger Games - I just assume everyone knows Katniss’ problems with the two boys in her life or Twilight (ugh did I just mention this book on my website?) - everyone is Team Jacob or Team Edward.

Love triangles in literature are all the rage and due to most popular books becoming a movie nowadays, this trend is spreading from literature to the general media.

Is there anything wrong with this? Nah. However, as a critical reader - with a background in gender studies - I question what these love triangles do for our perception of the female lead characters in these books.

Instead of talking about Katniss and Bella, who both have had way too many feministic (justified or not) rants aimed at them already, I want to talk about Harper - a less known female characters who is well on her way to becoming the new Katniss and Bella.

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Rebel Belle

Harper starts off as an innocent, rather shallow, teenager who only worries about whether she will be prom queen. When she’s thrown a loophole, she just worries about losing her boyfriend, Ryan. Then boy number 2 - David - is thrown in the mix as a boy she has to defend to death (supernatural powers and ancient rituals come into play here). So Harper’s story is one of protecting her boyfriend from the truth and the other guy from death. 

This is a simplified version, because Harper definitely also worries about her best friend and her grades - she’s top of the class at this point. However, simplified as it may be, it does indicate one truth very clearly: all of Harper’s development is only led through the boys. 

Is this Harper’s fault? Definitely not - she’s destined for a lifetime of protecting a boy. But what about the author? What would have happened if Harper had to defend a girl from her high school, spending all her time with this girl and thus not causing her boyfriend any reason to be jealous.

What the current plot causes though, is that the reader defines and judges Harper in relation to her relationship to boys and that’s something I don’t like. I like to get the know my characters in multiple ways - not just in a relationship way. Somehow, her solution to the love triangle becomes the thing we will judge her character on (due to the love triangle’s involvement in her new supernatural powers) and that just left a sore taste in my mouth after reading.

Is a love triangle in a book a dream come true for me? No. I would have loved to seen Harper defend her best friend or any other girl - more focus on the action and less on the very predictable outcome of the love triangle. But then again, I would be annoyed too if any male character was purely described in a love triangle way.


What about all you other readers? Am I being too critical here and should I just enjoy the love triangle?