Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

Book 2 in The Lunar Chronicles

By Marissa Meyer

Genre: sci-fi, steampunk, fantasy, fairy tale retelling

My rating: 4 stars

Summary, taken from goodreads.com: "Cinder, the cyborg mechanic, returns in the second thrilling installment of the bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She's trying to break out of prison—even though if she succeeds, she'll be the Commonwealth's most wanted fugitive.

Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit's grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn't know about her grandmother or the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother's whereabouts, she is loath to trust this stranger, but is inexplicably drawn to him, and he to her. As Scarlet and Wolf unravel one mystery, they encounter another when they meet Cinder. Now, all of them must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen Levana, who will do anything for the handsome Prince Kai to become her husband, her king, her prisoner."


If you haven't read Cinder, you should most def read that before reading this review.  Cinder was mind-blowingly awesome.  You can read my review of it here.

But anyway:

Giving Characters Personality

I must admit, I love psychology.  I minored in it in college, my all-time favorite psychology class being Personality and the Mind.  We learned about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicators, which is a "questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences and how people perceive the world and make decisions".  I love taking those Myers-Briggs Personality Tests and learning which personality type I am.  (Just in case you're interested, I'm an INFP, meaning I'm Introverted, I perceive the world with my iNtuition, and I make decisions based on my Feelings and Perceptions)  If you've never taken it and would like to learn your personality type, check out this online questionnaire!

The hubster and I had an argument the other day and when it came time to resolve it, we realized the reason for our miscommunication and hurt feelings is because I was relying on the "FP" part of my personality (feeling and perceiving) and the hubster on his "TJ" (or thinking and judging).

That got me thinking about my own characters.  I know they have conflict, but does their conflict stem from their personalities and the personalities of the other characters?  Or is it just random conflict?

I decided to give my main characters the Myers Briggs test.  I found this website had a much more helpful list of questions to help me figure out my characters' personality types than just a long list of questions.  Figuring out each main character's personality type was such a cool experience, because I learned things about my characters along the way as I tried to figure out how they would answer the questions.  I then recorded my results. It helped me flesh out my characters a little more and add some realistic elements to the conflict between my characters.

Why didn't I think of this before?!?

Anyone else wanna share their Myers-Briggs type?  Or wanna use this tool to understand their characters a little more?  I'd love to hear about it!

Building a Page Turner

I'm still in those revising stages.  And I must admit, I used to hate revising.  It used to be a necessary evil.  But now, I'm enjoying the process.  It's like my manuscript is a little piece of dirt in a shell and every time I cut and change entire scenes I'm adding a layer of polish and shine.  And each revision is leading me closer and closer to that finished pearl.  Yes, sometimes it's dull, but sometimes it's very exciting to see the story get molded into a better, shinier, more intriguing story.

I've learned a lot about the craft of storytelling through the revision process.  I've got to raise the stakes, make the story more intriguing.  Here's what I've learned:

1. Build up the conflict.  There should be conflict in every chapter.  It could be teeny tiny, like a moment of self doubt within the hero.  Or ginormo, like when the hero finally confronts the villain.  But there must be continual conflict to keep the story going.  My rough draft only had a few conflicts.  With the climax being the biggest one and boy was it lame.  Up the stakes, Jenn!  Up the stakes!
2. Build up the character.  Who wants to read a story if they don't like a character?  I've realized I didn't fully understand a character's motivation in my first draft.  But by understanding where they're coming from and making that clear, wow does that change the story!  And this part is hard, but I've had to build up my characters by not being so nice to them.  I mean, I love these characters, I created them.  But if nothing bad happens to them, they don't grow and change and it's rather boring.  So I had to consider, what is my character's worst fear?  And then BAM!  I have to make it happen.  Or at least the threat of it happen.  Hard to do but so worth it for the story's sake.  And the characters. ;)
3. Build up the pacing.  And I do that through building up the conflict and building up the character and balancing that with describing everything.  It's all about balance while moving forward.  Hard to explain but super important if you want a compelling story.  Which is what I'm trying to write.  

Sometimes I feel like I'll be writing this story forever.  That it'll be months before it's completely done.  But I'm learning so much in the process and trying to soak in the journey as I go.  My goal of being done with revisions by September doesn't seem likely, but I have no problem changing it.  Because I'm working toward my final goal, which is a completed, compelling story.

So my measurable goal for the remainder of August?  To revise at least 20 minutes a day.  And to enjoy the revising journey.  :)