This is poetry of sorts, I guess. For a high school class, I had to imitate the lyrics of a song and so I chose to imitate “The Saltwater Room” by Owl City. It is a lot better if you read the lyrics while listening to the song. Enjoy!
creativity
All posts tagged creativity
Last year, I read Jack’s Life by Douglas H. Gresham. It was an excellent biography about the life of C. S. Lewis. At one point, it talks about how C.S. Lewis was a part of a scholarly group, called the Inklings, that included J.R.R. Tolkein. This scholarly group brought in work to be critiqued and improved and among those brought forward to the group was The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Tolkein told C.S. Lewis that no one would buy the book and that the book didn’t hold true to fantasy creatures and such. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe of course went on to sell countless copies and be adapted into a movie several times (Wonderworks, Buena Vista, and a cartoon adaption).
We shouldn’t be afraid to “break” the rules of literature, namely fantasy. Obviously, there are certain rules that we should obey, such as grammar, punctuation, etc. Writing is an art and can and should be expressed how we desire. For example, I’ve always hated how elves are portrayed as snobby and self-righteous. Although I have one race of elves in my book that is like that, but for the majority, they aren’t. The main character is an elf who sits in a tavern with humans, elves, and half-elves and drinks alcohol just like the rest of the races.
We shouldn’t be afraid to create our own races. Why not have a creature with crab arms, the head of a goat, and the body of a fish? The possibilities in fantasy are endless because it is fiction and comes from our imagination.
Be bold and break the mold: do what you want in your books.