Paranormal romance books are books which bring out love stories in a way that can be described as above normal or beyond normal. It is a very interesting going through some of the stories and, if you have gone through several paranormal books of romance, you will definitely find them especially intriguing. There are very many such books and, for those who love the thrill and adventure in the paranormal; you will definitely find them pretty exciting. Paranormal romance books will take you through an interesting journey that is of a beyond life experience. They are set in a back drop of love and affection, making for a perfect read that is bound to affect you in a very positive light. Most of their books will have alluring characters that will certainly draw you to the plot of the story. The romance books have a huge fan base and, this base continues to grow as more and more people seek the solace of the paranormal to provide that much need entertainment.
The following is an example of one of the leading paranormal romance books which will give you not just pleasure but, intrigue and anticipation as the story unfolds. The romance book is called ‘full moon fever’. This is a very interesting and exciting tale about a reporter investigating about werewolves for a magazine. The reporter comes face to face with a rogue wolf and, it is up to a guardian called Ray Mcshaw to shelter her from the lurking danger. The tension in the book is bound to leave you yearning for more. The guardian is torn between two things which are to fall in love with the pretty reporter or reveal the true identity of the wolf. You can get some gist from the above overview and, to enter into the world of biting werewolves, you need to get reading. This is one of the highly rated paranormal romance books that you can come across. The book is written by Sabrina Luna who has certainly outdone herself in this book.
There are so many other paranormal romance books which are bound to keep you on your toes as you read. There are people who find certain books scary and this is the essence of the paranormal. The imagination of the author goes wild and, you are bound to partake of all the new and wonderful ideas they present in their books. Thinking about the paranormal will open up your mind and make sure that you look ahead with different forms of imagination. This way, you can be in a position to appreciate the things you do not know and, also open your mind to things you do not even understand. The paranormal world is fictional and, you do not have to believe that the stuff exists. Let the books entertain you as you read from cover to cover. The Internet will provide you with lots of information about the books. You will also see what is on display and choose the best book. You can also visit your local store to see what they have for you.
Francis Githinji
It’s Maryse! I review paranormal romance and urban fantasy books. From the Twilight Saga to the Dark-Hunter series, to the Sookie Stackhouse series! I’m addicted and can’t stop reading.
An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Getting Noticed in a Noisy Marketplace
My daughter, the one I affectionately call Daughter Number 2, recently challenged herself to participate in a high school Debate Tournament, following in her mother’s footsteps. The topic? Be It Resolved that Santa Claus is a Dangerous Concept Which Should be Abolished. So, 6 AM, the morning of the debate, I’m surfing the net for stories of bank robberies and kidnappings by men in Santa suits. It didn’t take long before I got sidetracked onto something even better― a bunch of articles on The Santa Brand. (Let the kid do her own research!)
Gotta admit, it never occurred to me before, but Mr. Claus fits most of the criteria I set out in my upcoming book “Step Into The Spotlight! -’Cause ALL Business is Show Business!” (Publication Date: April 2008), criteria for developing a dynamic business persona using showbiz techniques.
In show business, actors, directors and playwrights spend a lot of time on character development. In business, we call this building a brand. A business persona, just like a character in a play, needs a unique look (white beard, rosy cheeks, an enlarged perimeter), a unique costume (Red Suit, much better for branding than Banker Blue), a unique name (Santa Claus), a clearly defined personality (Jollier than the Jolly Green Giant), a strong philosophy (You gotta be nice, not naughty) and the guy’s gotta know his lines and stick to the script (”Ho, Ho, Ho!”).
Santa does all that. And the guy’s consistent. You never see him in a blue Hawaiian shirt, even if he’s hanging out at the Honolulu Hilton in December. Try leaving your scarf or gloves or umbrella at a Chamber of Commerce Networking Breakfast. Would everyone immediately know to whom it belonged? They would if you forgot your red velvet hat with a dangling white pom-pom!
The Pillsbury Dough Boy, The Maytag Repairman and The Man from Glad also each have a consistent look and OK, the Dough Boy is irresistible. But none of these characters have the emotional connection with their audience that Santa has. And it doesn’t matter how many times you’ve seen Santa’s show, you’ll be sitting in the front row again next December. The Maytag and Glad guys stand for dependability, but Santa’s not only dependable, he stands for hope as well, ask any kid on December 24.
Speaking of kids, why is it that we let our kids sit on the laps of strange men in department stores? Why is it that year after year, chubby red suited guys get away with “naughty” deeds like robbing banks and kidnapping kids? Why? Because Santa is such a strong brand that not only kids, but adults, lower their guard and trust the guy. We even leave the guy milk and cookies by the fireplace and encourage him to break into the house when we’re all asleep. Even the Grinch Who Stole Christmas eventually succumbed to his charm as did the journalist who wrote “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus”. What does he stand for? Goodness and kindness and “pull out your wallet”.
Santa even knows how to work publicity. Many would disagree, but my philosophy has always been that it’s hard to burst onto the scene if you’ve been hanging around on stage all along! Santa doesn’t try to get ink 365 days a year. He lets Cupid have Valentine’s Day, lets the chicks and bunnies arm wrestle over Easter, leaves Thanksgiving to the turkeys and only then, bursts onto the scene after the stuffing’s been stuffed away.
But we’re talking business. You’re probably thinking, “Yeah Tsufit, but can the guy make money?” Yah Man! Actors are always asking their director “What’s my motivation?” and the classic joke answer is “To get paid”. Santa knows how to bring in the bucks as well as the next guy, better even. But there’s one question nobody seems to be asking. Who’s he making money for?
The major downside of the Santa Brand is that, unlike the Pillsbury Dough Boy or the Man from Glad or the Maytag Repairman, Santa will work for anyone. (You’d never catch the Maytag guy hawking computers on the side.)
I recently snuck out of a marketing seminar to visit the Coca Cola Museum in Atlanta and learned that although the Claus-ster’s been around for ages, Coke gave the guy his current look, Coca Cola Red suit and all, way back in the 1930’s and put him to work selling The Real Thing. But like Kleenex became just another tissue and Zipper became just another fastener, Generic Red Suit Santa started raking it in for anyone who wanted a piece of the action.
It’s nice that he lends his name to charity and stands on street corners pulling in bowls of dollars for the Salvation Army and unwrapped new toys for unfortunate kids. But that’s where I’d draw the line if he were my brand. In Showbiz, unique characters are the show’s best currency. If the character of Ugly Betty started showing up on Grey’s Anatomy and The Gilmore Girls and Desperate Housewives, it wouldn’t be long before she’d lose her draw.
The lesson here? Develop a clear living breathing persona for your business, but make sure it’s your brand, one that has a unique look, philosophy and connection with the crowd so people will pull out their wallets for you too. Before you know it, you’ll be rolling in more dough than the Doughboy!
The second most asked question of any writer after: Where do you get your ideas from? is: How do you think up your characters? The answer to the first question is that they just pop out of my diseased brain. The answer to the second is more complicated, but linked to the first.
I am a great observer of people, whether sitting in bars and cafés, or walking in the street, I am always looking at men, women and children and subconsciously making notes. I study not just what they’re wearing, but also what they’re trying to achieve. Are they being flashy or flirtatious, sober or sensible, casual or classy? I watch how they comport themselves. Are they hiding a pot belly, a bald head, a weak chin? How do others react to them? Do they turn heads? Are they an affront to other people? If someone particularly fascinates me I imagine the life they’ve lived or, more accurately, I give them a life to suit their look.
When it comes to writing I draw on these subconscious notes. They are rarely written down. The test is that if I have remembered them then they must have some importance. Quite often walk-on characters have assumed far greater roles in the story than I initially envisioned. A woman I may have seen in a cake shop and had concei Navratri – Mystery of Goddess
ved of as nouveau riche, materialistic, conservative, firmly embedded in her social class and concerned about her position in it, can be transformed by fiction. She may suddenly refuse to behave in the way in which I imagined. Once I’ve put her in a scene, say, the grieving widow being interviewed by the detective investigating her husband’s murder, she may start to fight her way out of my fictional strait jacket. This is the wonder of being a writer; when characters assume life and take on an even greater reality.
Characters, like people, do not appear out of nowhere. First they have to belong somewhere. My first stop on the way to developing a character is to have the setting in mind. In my case I had decided that Seville in Spain would make a great setting for a crime novel. But why? Seville has one of the lowest murder rates in Spain, is recognized as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, with people who are amongst the most vivacious in Europe. And it was precisely for these reasons that I decided it would be the perfect setting for mayhem and murder.
One of the fundamental themes of crime fiction is: appearance and reality. What better place to set a crime novel than in a place which appears to be beautiful and full of attractive people, but which, like all cities, has a dark underbelly of crime, vice, drugs and racial tensions?
Even at this early stage there is a recognizable process. Characters are coming into being because I’m asking myself a series of questions. Their development, and that of the plot, will come from my answers to those questions. So because of the nature of my setting I decided that my detective hero was going to appear to be one sort of person, but in reality be someone completely different.
In The Blind Man of Seville when we first come across the Spanish detective, Chief Inspector Javier Falcón he is Mr. Straight. He is perfectly groomed in a suit which he wears buttoned up, a white shirt and tie and lace-up shoes. He is contained, some might say restrained. He is not liked by his colleagues, who find him cold and uncommunicative. They have given him the nickname of The Lizard. I began by creating a hero who was not instantly likeable. But what this gave me was the opportunity, in the course of the book, to change him.
Policemen are naturally conservative people, engaged in a profession with a hierarchy. In order to be a homicide detective you have to be a senior policeman and therefore middle-aged — and middle-aged men do not change. They might tell a new joke (if you’re lucky) or give up smoking or try out all the facial hair options, but they will not, fundamentally, change. So how could I change Javier Falcón? After some thought I realized that only a major psychological trauma was going to be able to wreak havoc (and therefore change) in the mind of such a person.
Our lives are built on the foundations of belonging. We have family who give us a sense of our place in the world. Rock those foundations and our world falls apart. This was what I did to Javier Falcón. In investigating a brutal murder in Seville he finds himself digging around in his own history. In doing so he uncovers some terrible truths about his own father and the way in which his beloved mother, who had died when he was only five years old, had met her end. They are shattering revelations. They break him as a human being and leave him hanging on to his new, terrible world by the thinnest of shreds.
This is another important part of character development — the back story. Where does your character come from? Where was he born? Where did he grow up? What is his relationship to his parents, siblings, friends, colleagues and lovers? Where did he go to school? Did he go to university? What was the political climate like? Why did he choose his current profession?
The answers to these questions can help you determine a character’s development, but what are the techniques that help you show these answers to your reader? Unless back story and the book’s plot are interwoven the reader does not want to know it. The reader is only interested in what’s happening now and what is going to happen.
There’s a limit to how much you can show through action and reaction — think how little you learn about people in everyday life from what they do and say, and I don’t just mean politicians. People have a habit of being deceptive, to protect themselves from intrusion. They are not usually open, especially if they have something terrible to hide.
Opening up characters is a tricky process but I have found one of the more fascinating ways is to put them into a scene with difficult people and in trying circumstances so that they give themselves away. Conflict leads to drama, which leads to revelations.
Another way of demonstrating a character is showing him from a different point of view: A sister may see her brother as lovable. A brother sees him as dependable. A colleague values the same man because of his insight. A lover despises him for some reason. And of course, all these ancillary characters have their own personalities and our understanding of them gives us a different perception of the hero.
But how do we get into the deeply hidden stuff? I chose to put Javier Falcón on the psychologist’s couch to reveal to him, and us, the bits that our hero doesn’t know himself.
The irony of all this is that in finally understanding Javier, we see him broken and we reach another unknowable area: What does he have inside him so that he can rebuild himself? I had the advantage of rehabilitating my hero in a series of books. In The Vanished Hands he mends himself through communication with others. The gross intrusion of reality into his own life has given him a better understanding of the intrusiveness of investigative police work into other peoples’ lives. It is for this reason that the plot and all the characters’ stories come out almost entirely in dialogue. In the latest novel, The Hidden Assassins, Javier is in full command of his new talents and has become more intuitive, instinctive and human.
Perhaps, though, the ultimate secret of character development, as with the eternal fascination of lovers, is that there must always be something unfathomable, an element of mystery.
Author
Robert Wilson is the author of eight novels, including The Hidden Assassins (Published by Harcourt; November 2006;$25.00US; 0-15-101239-3) as well as A Small Death in Lisbon, which won the Gold Dagger Award as Best Crime Novel of the Year from Britain’s Crime Writers’ Association. He lives in Portugal and Oxford, England.
White House Press Briefings are conducted most weekdays from the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room in the West Wing. (public domain)
There are four phases that are absolutely essential to making your story cohesive, clear and easy to follow. The first phase involves setting and characters. Your audience needs to have some sense of where and when the story is taking place. Did this story happen in the past or is it occurring in the future? What era is it supposed to take place in? Where does the action take place? On a farm, in the workplace, on a fishing trip or at a store? Immerse your audience within your story’s context as much as possible so they can identify with it as much as possible.
Remember, you must paint the picture for them. You need to take them into your story. With effective story selling, your audience is watching your movie in their mind. Also, take the time to not only introduce your character but also to really develop them. If your audience can’t grasp who the characters are-their strengths, their faults, their dreams and what makes them unique-then they won’t be able to relate to your story. When they know the story’s characters, they will appreciate your story’s climax when it comes. That’s because they will have the necessary background information to draw from so they can connect with why the experience being conveyed would be significant to a particular character.
The second essential phase of a great story involves presenting a clear challenge or problem with which the characters must cope. Challenge generates interest and suspense. The audience is drawn in to wonder what the character is going to do about the dilemma. When presented with a challenge, it is instinctive for human beings to start guessing and projecting what they think the character will do, or better yet, what they themselves would do in the same situation. The more the challenge is a situation audience members can readily relate to, the more it will hit home.
Why is this story-selling component so crucial? If there is no obstacle to overcome, no vision to fulfill and no questions to be answered, then what’s the point of telling the story in the first place? Conflict and tension also create energy and give momentum to the story. The more engaged your audience is, the more eager they are to hear your story’s outcome. Finally, effectively setting up the story’s challenge will make the solution that much more powerful. In addition to making the story itself more powerful, the audience is able to reach a greater level of appreciation for and acceptance of your point. Create appropriate tensions when presenting the conflict so that the impact of the solution is that much more inspiring.
The third phase of an excellent story involves its climax, or turning point. The climax is the point where all the buildup has taken you. The momentum has driven you to this one peak point in the story. It is the cliffhanger! What will happen next? What is she going to do? How will he get out of this mess? By the time you arrive at your story’s climax, you want your audience to be on the edge of their seats. It is important not to confuse this story-selling strategy with the preceding step, even though the two effects overlap. The climax of a story is a distinct point rather than a chain of events. It is the pivotal, make-it-or-break-it moment; it is the height to which all the momentum and action has led up to. This step in the story-selling process helps give your story form. Without it, your story will lack direction. Your audience will feel emotionally disturbed if all the activity rambles aimlessly with no climax and resulting conclusion. The climax is part of a clear path and it feeds off the story’s preceding action. Its culmination, followed by its solution, gives your story great flow and energy.
Finally, your story must conclude with a resolution. If you’ve told an effective story, you have brought your audience through an emotional journey. They are now alert and attentive because they want to know how the characters they’ve identified so strongly with will fare after all they’ve been through. Your story’s resolution is the moment where the lesson is learned. Will your audience grasp your message, the moral of your story? Did they experience what you wanted them to experience; did they feel what you wanted them to feel?
As I’ve outlined in the preceding paragraphs, you will impart your message most strongly if a serious issue is clearly juxtaposed with a brilliant solution. Don’t skip any of these story phases. They work together synergistically to produce a story that is powerful, compelling and inspiring. Often when we hear someone speak, we remember little of the discussion, yet the stories still remain with us. For this reason, you must embed your message, your main point, into the story. Deliver your message in a way that it will ring distinctly true and make a lasting imprint on your audience’s minds.
In the Star Wars movie’s famous bar scene you knew, by appearance, what zany character was sitting beside you. Each character had a distinctive look. Yet in today’s meetings you may have no idea the constellation of characters that you’re meeting with. That’s because their normal outward appearances belie often-troublesome behavior. Use this article as your guide to the crazy cast of characters you’re likely to encounter in your meetings. Whether or not you’re armed with a light saber, you’ll nevertheless be equipped to do battle with these oft-destructive forces who subvert meetings with their bothersome behavior.
The Monopolizer: This person thinks he or she is the only one with wisdom on subjects. The monopolizer believes everyone else is there to hear him or her speak, and so they do, incessantly. They d Drawing Popular Cartoon Characters : How to Draw Naruto
on’t appreciate that meetings offer an opportunity to hear from many. They prattle on and on, arrogantly acting as though their ideas or beliefs are inherently more important than others. Sadly other people shy away from contributing, intimidated by the monopolizer’s stranglehold on the meeting. When facilitators allow this it sends a message their rudeness is sanctioned. The facilitator or even other meeting participants should indicate an interest in hearing from others in the meeting, to remind the monopolizer that others can speak as well as listen.
The Tangent Talker: This person hijacks the topic of the group by taking discussions off on tangents — topics unrelated to the issue at hand. One minute you’re on topic and the next minute you’re in “left field” as your agenda topic has been taken to a tangent. Your meeting chair’s ability to recognize and refocus is essential to a productive meeting. “Let’s remember to confine ourselves to the topic at hand” is a good way to get back on track. Alternately saying, “Let’s try to avoid tangents” also labels such behavior as contrary to the group’s aims. As well, you can “park” extraneous items in a “parking lot” list where they’re noted, if only to be addressed later.
The Devil’s Advocate: Let’s face it, there’s one in every crowd and most meetings too. This person seems to relish taking the opposite tack. Whatever the argument being put forth, this person delights in taking an opposing view. It’s sport for them, an exercise in opposition. The more unpopular the stance the more exciting their challenge. Often they begin by saying “just for the sake of argument…I believe the opposite is true….” While there’s value in looking at issues from multiple points of view and avoiding groupthink, the Devil’s Advocate applies their technique to every issue, every argument and every conversation. Hold on to your Agenda and get comfortable. This could take a while! A good chair can praise this person’s ability to do this while simultaneously indicating its inappropriateness given time parameters or previously agreed issues.
Thy Cynic: The ultimate naysayer, this person has a Masters degree in negativity. Adroit at the phrase “it won’t work” they are skilled at deflating and defeating whatever motion is in motion. “Can’t be done.” “They’ll never buy it.” “We tried it once and it was a failure.” Their motto: just say no.
Challenge these people to think like The Devil’s Advocate and suppose for that things could work. Use the common conflict resolution tool of asking them to embrace the other side’s view as if it were their own, and argue that side’s position.
The Fence Sitter: Known for their paralysis by analysis, these characters are unable to make decisions. Despite being in a deliberative body, they are conflicted by multiple arguments, and can’t “pull the trigger” when it’s time to make a decision in a meeting. They provide fodder for the Devil’s Advocate, the Cynic and other characters with their ambivalence. Whether they are afraid of being wrong, or of disagreeing with someone else, or just going on record, they are a meeting monster for their inability to move the action forward. Try to cajole them to action. Remind them they have a vote and were invited to use it. Ask them their opinions on matters to draw them out and get them on record.
The Brown Noser: There’s likely one in every meeting. The person who is so obsequious, bending over backwards to ingratiate himself or herself to the boss, the meeting leader or other power broker. They’re so busy currying favor with others they subvert whatever true feelings they have about issues to “kiss butt.” They are seen to be in the pocket of the person they’re cow-towing to. Ultimately they are seen for who they are and become predictable. Try to elicit their ideas and preferences before asking others as a way of drawing them out.
The Pandora’s Box Opener: These meeting monsters just have to tackle issues that are emotional, touchy or are “hot buttons” for others in the meeting. In every meeting there are topics sure to strike a nerve, to provoke an emotional reaction or enter the group into a quagmire. These people lead the entire meeting into areas that provoke frustration, animosities and often resentment too. Once this box is opened, it’s hard to get its issues back in the box. Discussions of salaries, promotions or personal styles often stir up issues that hijack meetings. Even worse, some culprits reopen issues from earlier in the meeting that have already been resolved. The best cure: a firm “let’s not go there’ from the meeting’s facilitator. Other phrases like “let’s cross that bridge when we get there” or “that’s a hornets nest we don’t need to disturb” labels certain subjects out of bounds.
The Attacker: As children these people were bullies. Some haven’t grown up! The attacker deftly mixes negativity with personal attacks, challenging others’ ideas with vigor. Without regard to hurting others’ feelings, the attacker uses a confrontational style to object to others’ ideas and go against the flow. Sadly, sometimes they don’t even realize they’re attacking. A good facilitator can refocus them to be positive, to remove the sting from their words and avoid an adversarial approach. All meeting participants are entitled to stop the meeting when attacked personally. Ad hominem attacks are attacks against one’s person. People can criticize your actions or beliefs, but you don’t have to tolerate attacks against who you are as a person.
The Joker: Don’t let their good nature fool you, Jokers can be meeting monsters. Their constant joking has the effect of diminishing others’ serious ideas or suggestions. Their infusion of humor can belittle others’ motions and makes it difficult for some to be taken seriously. There is a time and place for joking. While we all like a good laugh, constant joking disrupts a meeting and distracts attention from where it should be. A meeting chair can designate several minutes at the start or middle of a meeting specifically for humor. When it crops up elsewhere and is deemed disruptive, the chair can remind people the time for humor is passed or forthcoming, so as to control it.
The Robots: Yep, these meeting monsters are actually cell phones, pagers, personal digital assistants (PDA’s) and laptops. Each distracts their owner and others too as they intrude on participants’ attention spans during meetings. It’s gotten so bad now cell phones contain cameras within them…just what meetings need. A good meeting chair will create ground rules for meetings, including turning off these gadgets at their outset. It’s hard to compete with human distractions, let alone electronic ones as well.
As you can see, meetings are full of characters. You should study the behavior in meetings, including your own, to better understand your style of interaction. The character of your meetings will surely be affected by the characters in your meeting. May the force be with you.
How to Draw Video Game Characters Luigi November 22nd, 2009 This is a tutorial, showing you how to draw my most favorite video game character of all time, Luigi. The green plumber has always been my favorite over Mario, just because he’s green, has a better mustache, and he’s not fat (wait! Did I say that?!). Anyway, I hope you guys like the tutorial. You should rate the video, favorite, and comment. If you want to send me a request, I ask that you please send me a message at my channel in the following form: Subject: Request Message: Character, Media (Supplies), and any specific instructions. The one thing you probably should do is subscribe, that way you’ll be able to know when my next tutorial comes out. All original music and video. Characters belong to their respective owners.
Comic art is not only a medium to entertain the children but the same time also helpful to increase imagination power,conceptulisation for any age group and emphasise anything to be one in this competetive world.The youth can adapt this either by reading or by doing.The artists have many kind of styles to draw a comic e.g cartoon,semirealistic,realistic,carricatures,etc and makes more prominent by the didgital color effects.
To become a comic artist you should have a instict for good visualisation so you can illustrate the concept or story whichever you have in mind.First of all,for the beginers it is must to have a hold on the pencil or brush (it is your choice what media you want to apply) just practice with oval and circular shapes and with standard primitive shapes like box,sphere,cone and cylinder.To keep a fine grip on pencil most of the artists being practicing with oval and circular shapes while they are too good in drawing and popular but just for a hold.
To draw any object or character you should observe the things and living beings deeply with their nature and behaviour so that you can easily draw a consequential illustrations which is most important thing for the comic art e.g observe the rubber ball’s behaviour and it’s anticipations,when a rubber ball thrown by force than watch how many times it bounces over the ground against the gravity and also watch it’s stretching during the up-down movements. for another instance watch a an animal for their behaviour how they act,and for their anatomy and feature details.Obervations not only makes your art mature but also make realistic.when you start to draw a comic strip you should keep patience and draw the scenes or characters using their dynamic angles and perspectives like bottom view,worm eye view,top view,bird’s eye view etc.
To make more prominent to the scene,panel or character you should draw them using dynamic angles and perspectives so the reader have some fun and can read the story with enjoyment.For the beginers it is recommended that they should observe famous comic and graphic novel artists work,live sketching,images and paintings,anatomy books to be a good artist.
The Application of Gender Roles within “Much Ado About Nothing” and
“The Taming of the Shrew”
In his works William Shakespeare exploits many different themes to uncover the message of the works, impress reader and make a narration more vivid and colorful, sophisticated and interesting. The treatment of gender roles plays an important role in the plays under analysis being an integral part of plot and characters development. In Much Ado About Nothing and The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare attempts to portray a more positive and accepting view of how women should be regarded and treated.
Shakespeare constructs gender role according to characters functions in the play. “In Much Ado About Nothing”, most of the male characters is depicted as brave soldiers. Leonato, Claudio and Benedick. They are courageous and clever men. For all their concentration on mundane details, Shakespeare’s novels depicts survival, heroic adventures of social mobility in which individuals single-handedly confront and conquer a host of adverse circumstances. In “The Taming of the Shrew”, the major characters Petruccio and Lucentio are joined by friendship. Despite the apparent crudity of their narratives, Shakespeare’s novels are animated by a quality more usually identified with a more self-consciously sophisticated form of gender relations. In both plays, women characters are depicted loving and sympathetic, nevertheless very proud and ambitious.
In spite historical epoch and predetermined gender roles of woman as subordinate, Shakespeare underlines that gender role between women and men are not so important as considered to be.
“Now Kate, I am a husband for your turn,
For by this light, whereby I see thy beauty
Thy beauty that doth make me like thee well” (The Taming of the Shrew, p.272).
In contrast to men, the function of women is to be a good wife and mother. In “Much ado about nothing” he writes that: “They say the lady is fair. ‘Tis a truth, I can bear them witness. And virtuous’tis so, I cannot reprove it. And wise, but for loving me. By my troth, it is no addition to her witnor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her” (Much ado about nothing, p.204).
Gender roles are stable in the plays in spite of the changes in appearance of the characters. From the very beginning in “The Taming of the Shrew”, Shakespeare portrays changes in the statuses of the hero. Sly is dressed as a lord, and a pageboy dressed in women’s clothing: “Am I a lord and have I such a lady? Or do I dream? Or have I dreamed till now? I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak”. (The Taming of the Shrew, Induction, Scene 2, lines 28-30). In the other play, Claudio and Hero decide to play a game, and force Beatrice and Benedick to fall in love. Their changes in appearance are successful helping Beatrice and Benedick to stop arguing. In “Much ado about nothing” the main hero says “What should I do with himdress him in my apparel and make him my waiting gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him” (Much ado about nothing, p.28). Contradictions like these – and there are many other celebrated examples in the plays – have often been taken as evidence of a slap-dash approach to the gender roles. Yet the pattern of these contradictions, in which characters preach like moralists yet act like ruthless opportunists, goes to the heart of Shakespeare plays. In any case, these heroes preserve their identity as males and females. These changes in the appearance, do not influence the status of woman in the society and do not humiliate them. Judgements like these derive from the tendency to identify Shakespeare with the narrators of his plays.
Exploiting the ambiguities of female function, a subdued creature and a strong and loving person, Shakespeare portrays complex female characters from positive side. For instance, in “The Taming of the Shrew” ill-tempered Katherine is contrasted to her “lovely” and calm sister Bianca. ‘Katherine the Curst’ A title for a maid, of all titles the worst” (The Taming of the Shrew, Act 1, Sc. 2, Lines 130-131). Shakespeare portrays Bianca as: “‘Tis deeds must win the prize, and he of both hat can assure my daughter greatest dower
Shall have my Bianca’s love.” (The Taming of the Shrew, Act 2, Sc. 1, Lines 361-365).
In general, Shakespeare’s reputation contributed to the stereotype of the moral author.
Plays which conformed to social mores were more widely acceptable as serious literary plays. The strong gender roles system made a clear distinction between the aristocratic lady as a graceful accomplishment, and the woman who went against the nature of sex.
Although the terms of the relative judgement has sometimes altered, the temptation to draw comparisons between male and female. High morality of women is underlined throughout the plays. The morality of Shakespeare is based on a simple antithetical contrast; natural instinct versus social hypocrisy, goodness of heart versus cunning of head. Part of the satisfaction of the plays comes from the combination of the formal symmetry of role structure with the apparent freedom and randomness of some episodes. At the end of the play, Katherine declares, “Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, Thy head, thy sovereign, one that cares for thee, And for thy maintence commits his body To painful labor both by sea and land” (Act 5, Sc. 2, 162-180). Using this episode, Shakespeare contrasts female characters underlining that women are treated according to their behaviour and character, which has little to do with gender roles. “I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.” (Much ado about nothing, p. 224).
In both plays, women voices construct great psychological complexity. In its treatment of the contradictions between ‘virtue’ as reputation and virginity as an extension of moral integrity, Shakespeare highlights the social hypocrisies where the marriage market puts a price on maidenhood. Shakespeare urges the conventional solution of marrying the seducer, but Katherine follows the path of self-imposed martyrdom. The play depicts simplistic morality, based on eternal virtues and justice.
“I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace” (The Taming of the Shrew, Act 5, Sc. 2, Lines 361-365).
This quote provides a notable contrast to the male treatment of female characters. It was the development of the female characters. By creating an distance between the heroines and the heroes, Shakespeare uses this theme to make a social comment on women’s nobles focusing on their good and bad sides.
“Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,-
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never” Much ado about nothing, p.101).
Shakespeare uses the narrative of a woman asking readers to decide what is good and what is bad. He shows an intelligent but naive men tricked out of a woman virtue (Bianca). In drawing attention to the dangers faced by the good- natured but ill-advised heroine contributes to the social debate on the status of women, using the play as an entertaining medium of discussion. This is the way to kill a wife with kindness (The Taming of the Shrew, Act 4, Sc. 1, Lines 201).
Attempting to portray positive image of women, Shakespeare underlines that it is a man who helps women to survive. Women do not have a possibility to interfere into life of men, nevertheless they do so in the plays. Women decide what is good for them and choose the ways to “reach a man”. For instance, Bianca ask Lucentio to be her tutor. Also, Claudio impulsive vitality is made acceptable by the artful manipulations of the narrator’s tone.
Women’s life, their destiny defined and depended upon the men, and, particularly, upon the their marriage. Although men had an influence on women’s behavior and exaggerated them in many life situations: “”That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks; but that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me.” (Much ado about nothing, p. 221).
Shakespeare describes that female characters are strong, as physically so mentally, because their life status requires a masculine strength, but all female characters copes with it perfectly. Shakespeare uses mainly masculine adjectives to underline thier strength.
And do you tell me of a woman’s tongue,
That gives not half so great a blow to hear
As will a chestnut in a farmer’s fire? (The Taming of the Shrew, Act 1, Scene 2, lines 200-209).
The main characteristics outlined are not independent, separate qualities of women but are all mutually interrelated while having an inter-dependent essence in each case. They serve to summarise and unify all characteristics inherent to women. Their character features appear as a guideline or norm that helps women to judge what is or is not right or good in their life. Feeling and practicising care, seeking peace of mind, holding to truth and desiring justice are intrinsic aims. That is, the degree of realisation of positive values in thought and action depend on the nature of the accumulated tendencies of a person interacting with others.
“Such duty as the subject owes the prince,
Even such a woman oweth to her husband” (The Taming of the Shrew, Act 5, Scene 2, lines 12-13).
With the help of Hero, Shakespeare points out the readers’ attention to virtues of conciseness, strong, clear imagery, symbolism, understatement, humor, and irony. These fluctuations reflect the tragic tension within males: Claudio is at once too ambitious to allow his conscience to stop behaving his way and too conscientious to be happy with himself. At the end, Shakespeare depicts Claudio as a man whose character lacks strength, because of ambition. Women attempt to prove that their are strong enough to live in a masculine world, but they reach this through men’s love:
“O Hero! What a Hero hadst thou been
For thee I’ll lock up all the gates of love,
And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang
To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm,
And never shall it more be gracious” (Much ado about nothing, p. 271).
Even if Shakespeare portrays women from a positive side gender roles in the plays are limited. Wmen’s life and their destiny will be defined and depended upon the men, and, particularly, upon the their marriage. Although men will have an influence on women’s behavior and exaggerate them in many life situations. To look deeply into the problem it is possible to say that women have fought to be independent and be equal to men, but they have no rights. On the one hand marriage connects with ideology and sees as the state intervention in marriage and a abuse of rights. Women are treated as wives and mothers primarily.
“Lord! I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face: I hath rather lie in the woolen” (Much ado about nothing, p. 211).
In any case, woman represented in the plays of Shakespeare do not suffers because their role as wives. This a positive moments in treatment women. The old-new conservative approach to marry a prosperous person (a man or a woman) comes to nothing when the love is taken into account. In contrast to epoch represented by Shakespeare, marriage means love and happiness. Nevertheless, the existence of institution of marriage, in which men played the dominant role and wielded control, determine the gender roles, and placed women at the mercy of their male counterparts. Katherine says:
“My mind hath been as big as one of yours,
My heart as great, my reason haply more,
To bandy word for word and frown for frown;
But now I see our lances are but straws” (The Taming of the Shrew, Act 5, Scene 2, lines 140-144).
Some day women attempt to put an end to the long-established meaning of women’s roles and became feminists who were ready to fight against men. Women could move beyond the constrictions of the ideology.
It is possible to conclude that both plays embody functional division of gender roles: women are wives and men are husbands. Nevertheless, Shakespeare goes far beyond this simplistic representation of genders portraying that women can perform men’s functions successfully. This style of writing revels in its own vivacity and wit, offering its readers a rich and varied interpretation of gender roles and gender relations together with literary sophistication. Gender roles are based on moral introspection and psychological insight dramatizing the dilemmas of individual social choice. Love as care does not refer to an emotion or a state of mind so much as to a human faculty of identification with others, sympathy with all beings. Female’s sympathy seeks many and various channels of realisation. It is developed through experience and gradual self-realisation. Women’ poetic nature helps the reader to understand that female characters have a natural charm so attractive to others.
With its tone, both plays are a brilliant indictment of a society in which gender roles has abnegated the natural ties of humanity and love.
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Andrew Sandon
Learn how to give your cartoon drawing some hands with expert artist advice in this free online drawing and cartooning lesson video clip. Expert: Danny Page Bio: Danny Page is a professional cartoonist and illustrator. Filmmaker: Nathan Boehme
For many reenactors, military and civilian, one of the pleasures of a weekend spent in the field is that elusive moment when everything works. I’ve heard the sensation called “the bubble,” or simply “the magic.” There’s no way to predict exactly when it will happen. The feeling may last only seconds. But once you’ve experienced a moment that suddenly looks, smells, sounds, and feels so real that you completely forget your modern existence, you’ll be hungry for more.
I know I am. After a decade of reenacting, I’m not able to participate much any more. Instead I read, disappearing into the magic of good historical novels. And I write historical fiction as well, a hobby-turned-career that lets me spend time in imaginary scenes of my own creation. My most recent novel, Hearts of Stone, grew out of a Civil War refugee camp scenario at an event in Tennessee. And one of those “bubble” moments provided the kernel of raw inspiration.
Is there a novel in your future? If, like a number of reenactors I know, you’re interested in trying your hand at fiction, why wait until someday?
Reenactors are well poised to write historical fiction-much more so than many of the beginning writers I meet when I teach general workshops on the genre. As a serious reenactor, you’re already steeped in the history and social fabric of your chosen period. You know a lot about material culture and historical process. You’re experienced a Gettysburg Visitor Center Museum & Cyclorama HD
t traditional research, and you conduct experiential research every time you participate in a new event or try your hand at a new activity. And you probably have an innate sense of story. The things that you find most interesting about your hobby would likely make a strong foundation for a novel.
If you are ready to get to work, here are a few suggestions.
1. Develop a fresh story idea. If you want to write a children’s book about the Civil War, see how many stories about drummer boys exist before writing one of your own.
2. Once you’ve settled on your idea, focus first on writing your story, not publishing your novel. Enjoy the process. Take a class. Learn your craft. Let the marketing stuff come later.
3. Create a compelling, memorable main character. The best fiction is character-driven, so spend a lot of time thinking about the people you’ll be writing about. Develop a complete history for them. All the information won’t make it into the story, but it will help you present a complex, believable, consistent character.
4. Once you have a strong sense of your character, shape your plot. Think in terms of having your character struggle to achieve something. Short stories and books for young children may have one clear plotline. More complex novels have multiple plotlines. I like to think in terms of “outer” and “inner” struggles. In Hearts of Stone, my main character Hannah’s outer plot involves struggling to keep her family together after she and her younger siblings become orphaned and homeless during the Civil War. Her inner plot focuses on her emotional struggle to accept both her father’s decision to fight for the Union Army and her best friend’s support of the Confederacy.
5. Some writers outline their novels in advance; some don’t. Choose whatever approach works for you. I don’t outline, but I do build a graphic organizer as I go. I create a table with four headings across the top: Chapter, Date, Scenes, Historical Events. That helps me keep track of what my characters are doing, and how their actions fit into the actual timeline of events that form the backdrop for my story.
6. Research, of course, is essential and ongoing. The historical details we love can also bog down a novel’s pace. If you fall in love with some fact or process, don’t just describe it in your fiction. Use that information to help reveal something new about your character, or to advance your plot.
7. Also, decide in advance where you are going to draw the line on historical accuracy. Are you willing to fictionalize weather details, or to make up business names for the merchants in a particular town? Reenactors are often fanatical about getting the details right. At some point, you’ll have to say: Enough. I’m done.
8. Keep a journal when you are at events. With a well-chosen pencil and notebook, you can even make it part of your impression. Make a point of recording specific, sensory details. Those details will bring your fiction to life, and will signal to readers that you are a trustworthy narrator.
9. Read as many different primary accounts as possible. Becoming steeped in period literature of all kinds will help you impart the flavor of period-appropriate speech in your fiction. (Note I said “flavor.” You don’t want to overwhelm readers with period-perfect but hard-to-understand speech.)
10. Join a professional writers’ organization. Membership can be an excellent way to learn more about both writing and publishing. The groups’ informative newsletters are often worth the price of membership. Most groups also hold regular conferences, which let pre-published authors meet other writers, agents and editors. The Historical Novel Society is an umbrella group for all historical fiction writers. Genre-specific groups like the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Mystery Writers of America, and Romance Writers of America may help you find professional success.
Once your story is as good as you can make it, you have options for publishing. If your top priority is creating a book that your family and friends can enjoy, sooner than later, you may want to self-publish. If your only dream is a book contract from a major publisher, hunker down for the long haul. Learn everything you can about the industry. Read what’s being published and make note of what different presses are looking for.
Having a book published is an amazing experience. Still, if someone told me that I’d never be published again, I wouldn’t stop writing. The process of researching, imagining, and writing my stories brings its own rewards. I hope you can find that magic as well.
Lecture by Professor Jerry Cain for Programming Paradigms (CS107) in the Stanford University Computer Science department. In this lecture, Prof. Cain continues his lecture on the C programming language and generic stacks. Programming Paradigms (CS107) introduces several programming languages, including C, Assembly, C++, Concurrent Programming, Scheme, and Python. The class aims to teach students how to write code for each of these individual languages and to understand the programming …
A string is a sequence of characters. Any sequence or set of characters defined within double quotation symbols is a constant string. In c it is required to do some meaningful operations on strings they are:
Reading string displaying strings
Combining or concatenating strings
Copying one string to another.
Comparing string & checking whether they are equal
Extraction of a portion of a string
Strings are stored in memory as ASCII codes of characters that make up the string appended with ‘’(ASCII value of null). Normally each character is stored in one byte, successive characters are stored in successive bytes.
Initializing Strings
Following the discussion on characters arrays, the initialization of a string must the following form which is simpler to one dimension array.
char month1[ ]={‘j’,’a’,’n’,’u’,’a’,’r’,’y’};
Then the string month is initializing to January. This is perfectly valid but C offers a special way to initialize strings. The above string can be initialized char month1[]=”January”; The characters of the string are enclosed within a part of double quotes. The compiler takes care of string enclosed within a pair of a double quotes. The compiler takes care of storing the ASCII codes of characters of the string in the memory and also stores the null terminator in the end.
In this example string is stored in the character variable month the string is displayed in the statement.
printf(“The string entered is %s”, month”);
It is one dimension array. Each character occupies a byte. A null character () that has the ASCII value 0 terminates the string. The figure shows the storage of string January in the memory recall that specifies a single character whose ASCII value is zero.
J
A
N
U
A
R
Y
Character string terminated by a null character ‘’.
A string variable is any valid C variable name & is always declared as an array. The general form of declaration of a string variable is
Char string_name[size];
The size determines the number of characters in the string name.
Example:
char month[10]; char address[100];
The size of the array should be one byte more than the actual space occupied by the string since the complier appends a null character at the end of the string.
Reading Strings from the terminal:
The function scanf with %s format specification is needed to read the character string from the terminal.
Example:
char address[15]; scanf(“%s”,address);
Scanf statement has a draw back it just terminates the statement as soon as it finds a blank space, suppose if we type the string new york then only the string new will be read and since there is a blank space after word “new” it will terminate the string.
Note that we can use the scanf without the ampersand symbol before the variable name. In many applications it is required to process text by reading an entire line of text from the terminal.
The function getchar can be used repeatedly to read a sequence of successive single characters and store it in the array.
We cannot manipulate strings since C does not provide any operators for string. For instance we cannot assign one string to another directly.
For example:
String=”xyz”; String1=string2;
Are not valid. To copy the chars in one string to another string we may do so on a character to character basis.
Writing strings to screen:
The printf statement along with format specifier %s to print strings on to the screen. The format %s can be used to display an array of characters that is terminated by the null character for example printf(“%s”,name); can be used to display the entire contents of the array name.
Arithmetic operations on characters:
We can also manipulate the characters as we manipulate numbers in c language. When ever the system encounters the character data it is automatically converted into a integer value by the system. We can represent a character as a interface by using the following method.
X=’a’; Printf(“%dn”,x);
Will display 97 on the screen. Arithmetic operations can also be performed on characters for example x=’z’-1; is a valid statement. The ASCII value of ‘z’ is 122 the statement the therefore will assign 121 to variable x.
It is also possible to use character constants in relational expressions for example ch>’a’ && ch < = ’z’ will check whether the character stored in variable ch is a lower case letter. A character digit can also be converted into its equivalent integer value suppose un the expression a=character-‘1’; where a is defined as an integer variable & character contains value 8 then a= ASCII value of 8 ASCII value ‘1’=56-49=7.
We can also get the support of the c library function to converts a string of digits into their equivalent integer values the general format of the function in x=atoi(string) here x is an integer variable & string is a character array containing string of digits.
String operations (string.h)
C language recognizes that string is a different class of array by letting us input and output the array as a unit and are terminated by null character. C library supports a large number of string handling functions that can be used to array out many o f the string manipulations such as:
Length (number of characters in the string).
Concatentation (adding two are more strings)
Comparing two strings.
Substring (Extract substring from a given string)
Copy(copies one string over another)
To do all the operations described here it is essential to include string.h library header file in the program.
strlen() function:
This function counts and returns the number of characters in a string. The length does not include a null character.
Syntax n=strlen(string);
Where n is integer variable. Which receives the value of length of the string.
Example
length=strlen(“Hollywood”);
The function will assign number of characters 9 in the string to a integer variable length.
/*writr a c program to find the length of the string using strlen() function*/ #include < stdio.h > include < string.h > void main() { char name[100]; int length; printf(“Enter the string”); gets(name); length=strlen(name); printf(“nNumber of characters in the string is=%d”,length); }
strcat() function:
when you combine two strings, you add the characters of one string to the end of other string. This process is called concatenation. The strcat() function joins 2 strings together. It takes the following form
strcat(string1,string2)
string1 & string2 are character arrays. When the function strcat is executed string2 is appended to string1. the string at string2 remains unchanged.
From the above program segment the value of string1 becomes sribhagavan. The string at str2 remains unchanged as bhagawan.
strcmp function:
In c you cannot directly compare the value of 2 strings in a condition like if(string1==string2) Most libraries however contain the strcmp() function, which returns a zero if 2 strings are equal, or a non zero number if the strings are not the same. The syntax of strcmp() is given below:
Strcmp(string1,string2)
String1 & string2 may be string variables or string constants. String1, & string2 may be string variables or string constants some computers return a negative if the string1 is alphabetically less than the second and a positive number if the string is greater than the second.
Example:
strcmp(“Newyork”,”Newyork”) will return zero because 2 strings are equal. strcmp(“their”,”there”) will return a 9 which is the numeric difference between ASCII ‘i’ and ASCII ’r’. strcmp(“The”, “the”) will return 32 which is the numeric difference between ASCII “T” & ASCII “t”.
strcmpi() function
This function is same as strcmp() which compares 2 strings but not case sensitive.
Example
strcmpi(“THE”,”the”); will return 0.
strcpy() function:
C does not allow you to assign the characters to a string directly as in the statement name=”Robert”; Instead use the strcpy(0 function found in most compilers the syntax of the function is illustrated below.
strcpy(string1,string2);
Strcpy function assigns the contents of string2 to string1. string2 may be a character array variable or a string constant.
strcpy(Name,”Robert”);
In the above example Robert is assigned to the string called name.
strlwr () function:
This function converts all characters in a string from uppercase to lowercase.
