About

My name is Charlie. Yup. Some people call me Charles and others Charlotte, but Charlie is what sticks the most.

I’m a writer. Not a published, famous writer. But a writer who’s soul sings whenever I give in to my urges to conjure up images that dance in my head through prose.

In 2015, I reviewed my reading stats and I was shocked that I averaged only 3 books that year. I know I was in the midst of completing an MBA, but it was still quite disconcerting. So I took up the 2016 Goodreads Challenge to read 24 books in 2016. And I was hooked. I finished 50 books last year, and now I am levelling up.

I’m levelling up because a primary reason for wanting to read more books, besides proving to the world that I AM a reader, was that I wanted to improve my writing as well. So, by writing reviews, not only does it improve my writing by writing, but it also helps me reflect on the books I’ve read, what I enjoyed and where I felt improvements could have been made, and implement that feedback in my own writing.

Terminology

Rejoining the literary world on the internet, I found myself being lost in translation with the acronyms, so here’s a list that I will be using for your reference (and mine if I’m honest).

ACE asexual.

Antagonist main character who comes in conflict with the protagonist. This can also be a thing or a situation i.e. storm, monster etc.

ARC advance reader’s / reading copy.

Climax moment of greatest intensity, most exciting and important part of the story – usually occurring at or near the end. The turning point in the action.

Conflict a struggle, disagreement, or difference between opposing forces.

CP critique partner.

Dialogue a written composition in which two or more characters are represented as conversing; the conversations between characters in a literary work, typically enclosed within quotation marks.

HEA happily ever after.

Fiction a story about people and events that are not real; literature that tells a story that has been imagined by the writer.

Mood a conscious state of mind or predominant emotion.

NA new adult.

Narrative a collection of events featured in a story that are placed in a certain order and recounted to tell a story. The story may or may not be true, and the events are placed in a specific order.

OV own voices – the writer /reviewer/author has the same marginalized background as the character.

Plot a the direction of a story’s main events and incidents and how they relate to one another.

POV point of view – the angle from which a story is told or narrated. Point of view can be first person, objective, limited omniscient, or omniscient.

  • First person: the narrator is either a character in the story or an observer.
  • Objective: the narrator knows (or seems to know) no more than the reader.
  • Limited omniscient: the narrator knows some things about the characters, but not everything.
  • Omniscient: the narrator knows everything about the characters.

Protagonist the principal or main character in a literary work.

Rising Action the set of conflicts in a story that lead up to the climax.

Setting the time, place, and conditions in which the action of a story takes place and which establish its context.

SJM Sarah J Maas – famous for her marketed YA fantasy romance novels that are actually more NA.

Subject the main topic of a piece of writing; what a story is about. A subject can be found in a sentence, a paragraph, an essay, or a book.

TBR to be read pile.

Tone a particular pitch or change of pitch constituting an element in the intonation of a phrase or sentence; the style or manner of expression in speaking or writing.

Tragic Hero / Figure a protagonist whose story comes to an unhappy end due to his or her own behavior and character flaws.

WP Wattpad – fanfiction / serial fiction site OR WordPress.

YA young adult – novels that are not explicit in their descriptions of sex or violence.

 

The terminology and definitions are thanks to Scribendi and Vicky Who Reads

Types of Books and Genres

Types

  1. Fiction
  2. Non-fiction

 

Genres

Fiction

  1. Action and Adventure
  2. Anthology
  3. Classic
  4. Comic and Graphic Novel
  5. Crime and Detective
  6. Drama
  7. Fable
  8. Fairy Tale
  9. Fan-Fiction
  10. Fantasy
  11. Historical Fiction
  12. Horror
  13. Humor
  14. Legend
  15. Magical Realism
  16. Mystery
  17. Mythology
  18. Realistic Fiction
  19. Romance
  20. Satire
  21. Science Fiction (Sci-Fi)
  22. Short Story
  23. Suspense/Thriller

Non-fiction

  1. Biography/Autobiography
  2. Essay
  3. Memoir
  4. Narrative Nonfiction
  5. Periodicals
  6. Reference Books
  7. Self-help Book
  8. Speech
  9. Textbook
  10. Poetry (Can be both Fiction or Nonfiction)

 

Types and genres are from Gladreaders

 

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