Hard to believe May’s already over, isn’t it? Well, technically there’s still almost a full week left, Nicole.

This is my first ever monthly wrap-up post, so you get to see me fumble around, not knowing what I’m doing!

It’ll be fun.

School is finished! Somehow I managed to pass all my exams (thank you, God!) For some reason I’m always torn about school ending. I want it to be over quickly, but then I can’t see my friends until August.

*thinks desperately*

What else happened this month? Besides school ending and a couple of school concerts, nothing happened, really. Weird.

Except, you know, still recovering from that Infinity War ending. (I will never be okay.) My friend sent me these texts:


*starts crying again*
Considering I had exams this month, I really didn’t do that badly on reading. Here are some of the books I read this month:


Assassin’s Apprentice (Oathbreaker, #1): 3.5/5 - fantasy elements were confusing, but great characters and I LOVE NIC, OKAY.
A Prince Among Killers (Oathbreaker, #2): 3.5/5 - picked up the pace, but some not-appropriate mentions. Also the plot twists were great. Prepare yourself for tears.
Every Soul a Star: 4/5 - character based, so the characters were AMAZING. I’m a fantasy lover, and this was contemporary, and I loved this book.
Keeper of the Lost Cities (#1): a reread, but still as amazing as ever. Plot! Characters! Humor! Elves!

Okay, who am I kidding? I only read four books. That is disappointing.
Writing . . . where to begin?

I worked on my WIP (which is still from April NaNo!). At some point I’ll make a WIP page and you can all read about my so-far-terrible first draft!

Also, I’m doing the 100-for-100 challenge at Go Teen Writers! Apparently there are 275 people participating this time around. Wow!

Other than that . . . not much writing. :(

Here are the posts I did this month:



Heh, heh *laughs nervously*. Wow.

Happy Sunday, guys!

My mind has been on a Marvel kick lately (side note: did you know that people in New York did a 31-hour Marvel movie marathon? #mindblown).

Anyways, there’s usually one constant thing connecting all of these movies:

Resurrections.

No matter which Marvel movie series you watch, there’s always someone that seems to be dead, but comes back to life. And although it can make us feel better, I keep wondering, is it a good idea to resurrect your characters in writing?

So, we're going to go through this pros/cons style. Here we go:

Pros:

It makes your readers feel. Obviously, if you kill off a beloved character, there will be tears. There will be heartbreak. There will be shouts of "WHY, CRUEL AUTHOR??" as the author laughs. But if you bring that character back, there will be joy in the hearts of your readers. I mean, who doesn’t wish that their favorite character was still alive?

The backstory for what they've done since they "died" can get interesting. What did they do while your main character thought they were dead? Were they leading a revolution? Or wait, what if they joined the bad guys? What would happen then? Your plot could suddenly get a whole lot more interesting.

Probably one of the best resurrection plots out there

It's just plain fun. Let’s be honest here: it’s fun to mess with your readers.

Cons:

It makes them question that entire scene. Remember how I said that it’s fun to mess with your readers? Well, sometimes it’s really not a good time to make them doubt things. For instance, whenever I watch The Dark World, I get really distracted by thinking of how Loki could have possibly lived. Every time the movie switches back to Asgard after his "death" scene, I’m not thinking about the main save-the-world plot anymore - I’m thinking, okay, how did he survive?

(I just realized that this could also be a good thing. It’s really up to you to decide whether this would be good for your story or not.)

If you do it too often, they never believe that your characters are dead. This has happened to me waaayyy too many times. I’ll read a book, someone will die, and I’ll be like, oh, they’re coming back.

AND THEN THEY DON'T.

This is a very painful thing to experience. Right now, (Infinity War excepted) anyone that Marvel kills off is still alive in my mind - just because most "dead" people come back.

So yes, I don’t accept that Tadashi is dead.

Sometimes it’s just not possible. If you have your character, say, shot about sixteen times, they’re probably not coming back. (Unless there is magic or a Time Stone involved....). If you bring them back, there had better be a really good explanation as to why. If not, your readers will lose trust in you.


So, should you resurrect your characters? There’s really no right or wrong answer here. Just make sure it could actually happen and that you don’t do it too much.

-Nicole