Eight Plot/Character Devices I'm A Sucker For.

1. Time Travel: As contrived and cliched as it's come to be these days, I can never get enough of time travel. Not in the most classical "let's go back to ancient Egypt and learn how they lived!" sense but in dealing with things like the butterfly effect. I'm intrigued by the idea making small changes and creating large ramifications in the future. Good stuff.

2. Flashbacks: I loooove flashbacks. Learning about someone's past and why they're the way they are today is fascinating to me. It's a cool way to introduce psychology to writing, as well as creating climactic reveals and plot twists.

3. Bad Guy Turns Good: Yeah, this one is pretty awful originality-wise, but I still love it for some reason. Getting to see an "evil" character from a new perspective creates a fresh feel to a narrative. Seeing how they develope under new circumstances creates cool situations

4. Good Guy Turns Bad: I almost like this one even more. Seeing a character kicked around so much that they turn immoral actions is very entertaining to me. Another psychological aspect of writing that's intriguing.

5. Snowball Effect: I really like when a narrative begins in a very simple setting, with a simple character in simple circumstances; however, one particular event changes all of this and creates a story of epic porportions. Small scale instantly ramps up to large scale with little oppurtunity to look back.

6: Puppet Master: Even though I always see this one coming, it almost always satisfies me as well. Finding out the coniving master mind that's been pestering the protaganist for some time is only a tool for a much more powerful entity is really cool. Turning what was once an unstoppable villain into an insubstantial rag doll can be a really cool twist, when used correctly. However, this is an awful idea when thrown into at the end just to extend a plot line. If it all makes sense in retrospect, it can work great.

7. Substantial Time-Lapse: Having a substantial time lapse part way through a story is very refreshing to me. This device is actually pretty rare compared to the previous ones. Having a good chunk of a story involve the childhood events of a character, then the entire second half involving it's adulthood can create some really cool progression that would otherwise be lost in a plot that progresses on a day to day basis.

8. Multiple Perspectives/Crossover: Seeing events from multiple prespectives always excites me. It really helps get a full view of what happend. Even little nods here and there to other things that were going on at the same time as a particular event really flesches out a story.

"Times have changed for student protesters"

My theory as to why students are more apathetic towards political causes these days is that it's the current nature of our country. I feel the goverment and (some) media alike have kind of chipped away at our spirit, and have replaced this spirit with a false sense of security in our governments actions. Though usually not completely frowned upon, political protests aren't exactly portrayed in the most positive light by our media and education. Seldom were we ever encouraged growing up to stand up to the government when what you see is wrong. Not to mention the fact that these important events are usually glossed over by the government. You need to be in a progressive and intelligent educational system to get a good idea of what went on during a particular protest.

Now the majority of us don't feel we can make a difference, we feel the government is an unstoppable juggernaut that won't give pause to our actions, great or small. Can I blame us? In recent history large movements such as gay rights and the legalization of marijauna have show little avail on a national scale, so maybe the government is impenetrable these days. Now I'm pissed off and depressed. Bah.

My New Addiction

Recently I've been spending most my freetime on a little website called tvtropes.org. As a pop-culture enthusiast and a writer; I find reading about the literary techniques I've been exposed to as long as I've been able to expose media extremely interesting. The pages are written with readability in mind, and often have a sense of humor to their tone. My favorite part is that you can search up a peice of fiction and it'll list off all of the tropes it exhibits, even hyperlinking to definitions pages if you don't understand what a Thanatos Gambit is. I suggest you check it out if you're a fan of plot techniques and pop-culture.