Weekend Review: Mortal Kombat X

I know that I'm probably a little behind with this review, but I wanted to test everything out before posting a review. Mortal Kombat has always been one of my favorite games. I remember going to a place called Mo's Pizza(where they served amazing pizza) and playing Mortal Kombat on the arcade machine while I waited for my dad to get the pizza. I've managed to play almost all of the Mortal Kombat games, including the Special Ops one with Jax that was probably one of the worst games that I've ever played. When Mortal Kombat X was announced my boyfriend preordered it and we even went to the release event at GameStop. The ac was broken, but we ended up staying for hours to get the game. Upon playing it I realized that I liked the graphics of the game more than any of the previous games. I liked seeing some familiar faces back to fight again, but I couldn't care less about the new people. Not even Cassie Cage, the daughter of Sonya and Johnny Cage. The normal combat mode was great, but I had problems with the story. I think the story should have started earlier, like five years earlier when Shau Khan was replaced with Kotal Khan (who is probably my least favorite character to fight with). I pretty much sat there with my mouth hanging open at the end of story mode. Nothing was resolved, and the final match was too easy. The difficulty on this game is too easy. If you play the game on medium it feels a bit like you're playing on easy. The story was lacking, but the visuals, fighting, and special moves make up for that.



Three Out Of Five Stars

Tv adaptions that don't follow the book

This morning I turned on the tv to find that the season premiere of Bitten was on. I've talked about Bitten before, and I honestly do not like the series. I did watch a little of it, since I had read the second book and wondered if the second season would follow that story line. It didn't appear to, and that got me thinking about tv and movie adaptions that don't follow the story line that unfolds in the book. I don't really mind if the story in the book and the story that unfold on tv or a movie are the same as long as they don't change it up too much. I still want to know that what I'm watching is something from the same vein as what had been written. I want it to be similar enough to know that what I'm watching was inspired by the book or graphic novel of the same name. I think if it was my work being adapted I would enjoy seeing where others went with my work. There wouldn't be much point to watching a tv show or movie if you already knew what was going to happen, but there has to be a balance. It still has to resemble the original work enough for the fans, but be different enough to keep people interested.

Writing weaknesses

When I was in elementary school I remember one of my teachers telling us the importance of adding weakness to our characters. She said that readers don't like to read about a character who isn't flawed and doesn't have some type of weakness. I found myself thinking about that a lot lately. I'm currently writing about a character who is almost human, she just has one thing that makes her stand out. I think that makes her more complex, a little harder to write but more entertaining. No one wants to read about a character who can get through anything thrown at them.

When should you promote your books?

Today I came across a post on twitter saying that you shouldn't promote your first book until you have three or four released. I always thought that you were supposed to promote before you released anything, which is part of the reason that I started this blog. I was told that a good way to promote was to give reviewers free copies of my book and let them review it early, but the post that I read today said that you can waste time and money if you don't have multiple titles out. Both options make sense, but I'm not sure which will work better. Free feel to let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Free Kindle Books

I recently downloaded a bunch of free kindle books. Kindle books are usually given away free when an author wants to expand their audience, or when they just want to get their work out there. I think giving away kindle books for free is a good way to get reviews and get more people to check out a book, but how do I feel about this as a reader as opposed to a writer? I haven't read a single one of the kindle books that I've downloaded yet. All of them are just sitting there on my kindle app, waiting to be read or at least cracked open. I guess I just feel more willing to read a book that I was willing to pay money for. Not saying that the free books aren't great, a lot of them are, but I feel like if I'm willing to spend money on something I better read it.

Weekend Review: To Hell and Back

I decided to do two reviews this week, one on Daredevil and one on To Hell and Back by H.P. Mallory. H.P. Mallory is an author that I really admire because she started out as self published and still publishes some of her stuff like that. After reading the other two Lily Harper books, I could barely wait for this one to come out, but now I wish I hadn't picked it up. The idea that the female heroine of this story could be attacked and still like her attacker is promoting unhealthy relationships. I just couldn't get past that. I didn't enjoy this entry, but I will give the next one a try. Hopefully Lily gets more character in the next one.

Weekend Review: Daredevil

Anyone who knows we knows that I love Marvel superheroes. Daredevil is one of my favorites, and when I heard that he was getting a show on Netflix I couldn't wait to check it out. I watched every trailer I could find and got excited when someone posted a link to the suit. When the actual show was released to Netflix I stayed up late to watch all the episodes. I loved the show, but I did have a few problems. I think the guy who was cast as Wilson Fisk was wrong for the role. His acting took away from the story, and I just wasn't interested in his story. He wasn't big enough to play Wilson Fisk and did not strike me as scary enough to be a kingpin of crime. Whenever his face was on the screen I found myself looking at my phone, or talking to my boyfriend about how much Wilson Fisk annoyed me. Another thing that I didn't care for was that I had to explain certain things to my boyfriend, who is a non comic book reader, because they weren't presented clearly on the show. I think that a lot of people may have had trouble with that. I also didn't like the costume, and I didn't like that it took so long to be revealed after the image of Daredevil in full costume was revealed. I just felt like it was underwhelming. Now, let's get to the good part, I enjoyed the darkness of the show, the black suit, the acting(for everyone but Fisk). The story was great, Matt and Foggy had a friendship that made me jealous. I would love to have a best friend like that. I also liked that they put a mention of Elektra in there. I hope she's in the next season.

Casual Friday: Tv shows

I'm trying to share more about myself, since I want to build a relationship with those who may be interested in reading my work. I'm still not really sure where to start, so I will start with my favorite tv shows. 

The Walking Dead: I, like most others, seem to find myself watching whenever a new episode is on. The last season dragged, and there really was no big bad, but I think I'll tune in next season and to the spin off!

Supernatural: Another show that's starting to drag for me, but I can't stop watching because I want to see where it goes. 

American Horror Story: I almost gave up on this show last season, but I want to see how the seasons are connected. 

IZombie: A fairly new tv show. I loved Veronica Mars, and I'm starting to love this. 

Awkward., Catfish, and Finding Carter: This mtv trio is the perfect boredom killer. 

Abuse in books

I never thought that I would make a blog post about this. I don't usually read books that feature abuse, sexual or otherwise, but a few days ago I was reading To Hell And Back by H.P. Mallory. I loved the first two books in the series, and I expected to like this one, but a few pages in the main character gets attacked. The abuse itself wasn't what bothered me about the book, but the main character's reaction to it. The main character's love interest shares a body with the soul of a warrior, the warrior takes over and attacks the main character. The main character manages to fight him off, but she's still attracted to her love interest. I think most normal people would at least freak out, not suggest starting a relationship with the person who attacked them. He wasn't in his right state of mind, but that doesn't excuse the writing in this book. How could a woman just forgive and forget and be ready to start a relationship with her attacker, or someone who looks like their attacker. How is this ok? Why would H.P. Mallory write a scene like this? I guess I will never understand the trend with abuse in books.

What do I see in my old writing?

I recently came across some things that I had written when I was younger. I was probably in my late teens or early twenties when I wrote them, and I couldn't help seeing how much I'd grown as a writer. I notice the early flaws that I made, for example, I never thought my plot through, and there were often grammar and spelling errors throughout, but my characters were well thought out. The story line that was there could be usable in future works.

Does life experince equal writing experience?

Today I am tasked with applying for jobs online. I have recently gone through some major changes, and I can't help but wonder how they are affecting my writing. One of the characters in a story that I am currently working on works in a shoe store. I used to work in a shoe store. I was the manager of said shoe store, so do I find myself drawing from my own experiences? Yes, I do. That doesn't mean that I think you have to work in a shoe store to write about working in a shoe store. I do think there are some things you need to experience for yourself before writing about. I would feel uncomfortable writing about an emotion if I had never experienced it for myself. I'm not sure if I would have given this character a job working in a shoe store if I had not had the job working in a shoe store myself. With other characters, other professions make sense. I find myself having to use google a lot. I would actually like to find people in a few of those professions and ask them for more details about their jobs. There are some things you won't know unless you've been in their position. I find that it is easier to write things that I know, but I also love learning about new things and writing what I've learned. 

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter. I'm currently adjusting to something new, so I haven't been able to blog much. Hopefully I will be able to soon.