The Fellowship of the Ring Review

As I said in my review of The Hobbit, during this reread I was surprised by how light that novel is; I suspect that my memory of its tone from my last reading was affected by my intermediate viewing of the movies. Or, perhaps I was merely linking it with the core Lord of the Rings books, which very quickly take on a markedly different tone from their prequel (and yes, I know that technically there is just one "book," which was split into three parts for the convenience of readers and publishers). The implications of a darker turn are heavy throughout even the early chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring, but are pivotally confirmed with the events of the chapter A Knife in the Dark.

Blood Magic S1:E3: Thicker Than Blood Re-Release

Going back and re-reading these early episodes has really made me recognize just how much my writing has improved (in my opinion, anyway) in the less-than-a-year since I started releasing Blood Magic here on the site. The beginning of this episode, much like episode two, was told in a weird, semi-omniscient viewpoint, before reverting to the third person limited that is characteristic of most of the series. I think this was probably me trying to do a sort of "establishing shot," like would be done in a television show, but that technique really doesn't work for writing. It makes me wonder if I even recognized how jarring the viewpoint switches would be, or if I even knew I was doing it.

A Certain Point of View

It's been awhile since we've posted a writing technique post, so coming off of reading Steering the Craft, it seemed like a good idea to share a little more of my continuing efforts to improve my writing. Specifically, I'd like to talk about points of view, because I realized as I was reading Steering the Craft that I might have been thinking about my POVs incorrectly for years. For those who aren't familiar, POV (point of view) is the literary term for the perspective from which a piece is written.