After stage managing this show this past weekend, I’m still thinking about how the musical uses different modes of storytelling for some characters and how they all fit into each other.

Every character speaks different, not just vocally but physically, morally, and spiritually as they move through this musical. One of the beauties of this show is watching all of these characters overlap. clash, and ultimately reshape one another. I watched their bodies tell stories to call the show at just the right moment to made the story come through the audience.

As the musical opens, the audience finds itself in Notre Dame Cathedral, where the choir’s voices weave the story as narrators. We meet Quasimodo, the hunchback who has lived his entire life hidden away in the towers. Raised by Claude Frollo, the archdeacon, Quasimodo has been taught that the world outside is dangerous and that he must remain unseen. Quasimodo is the son of Frollo’s brother who died when Quasimodo was only six weeks old, so Frollo promises to teach Frollo to be just like him and not like his father who wanted to party with gypsies. So from the first song, we realize Frollo’s hate for gypsies comes from his father and the thought that being with a gypsy killed his brother.

Yet Quasimodo longs for connection. When the annual Feast of Fools erupts in the streets below, he sneaks out to experience life beyond the bells. At the festival, Quasimodo is crowned “King of Fools” because of his appearance. It’s a really dark scene where the whole crowd seemed to turn into a mob, throwing insults and food at him as they laugh. What begins as celebration quickly turns into humiliation as the crowd mocks him. He’s rescued by Esmeralda, a gypsy/dancer who sees his humanity when no one else does. At this festival, Frollo also becomes obsessed with Esmeralda.

His obsession is broken down in a huge musical number called Hell Fire where he realized that his desire for Esmeralda is consuming him. Frollo as a character really brings together the theme what makes a monster and what makes a man.

Esmeralda becomes the center of a dangerous triangle. Quasimodo loves her with pure devotion. Phoebus, the captain of the guard, loves her with sincerity and growing courage. Frollo desires her with obsessive, destructive intensity.

Frollo’s desire for Esmeralda clashes with his rigid moral worldview. He convinces himself that she is a temptation sent to destroy him—and that destroying her is the only way to save his soul. When Esmeralda refuses him, he unleashes the full power of the church and the city against the Romani people, leading to raids, arrests, and escalating brutality.

Esmeralda brings Phoebus and Quasimodo to the Court of Miracles, the underground refuge of her people. But danger follows them. Frollo discovers the location, burns it, and captures Esmeralda.

Esmeralda is sentenced to death. Quasimodo rescues her and carries her into the cathedral, invoking the ancient right of sanctuary. But Frollo refuses to let her live. He storms the cathedral, leading to a final confrontation between him and Quasimodo. The ending is darker than I remembered because Esmeralda dies, and Quasimodo—heartbroken and furious—kills Frollo. The choir closes the story with a reminder that humanity is defined not by appearance, but by compassion. It’s a story where music, movement, and choral storytelling weave together to show how one woman’s kindness changes the lives of everyone she touches—and how one man’s obsession destroys everything he claims to protect.

Let’s breakdown four main characters: Quasimodo, Esmeralda, Frollo, and Phoebus.

Quasimodo doesn’t narrate with ease or eloquence. He narrates with embodiment. His storytelling is physical first, with hunched shoulders, guarded steps, hands that know the weight of bells better than human touch. He is a figure carved out of folklore, a creature who exists at the intersection of fear and tenderness. When he signs or gestures, or simply stands in silence, the audience learns more about him than any monologue could offer. His story is told through constraint and the moments when he breaks free of it.

Esmeralda’s moves like someone who refuses to be contained, even when the world tries to cage her. Her dancing, her sharp turns, her grounded stance. They’re all declarations. She tells her story through motion, through the refusal to be still in a world that wants her subdued. Her songs are prayers and protests. She is the musical’s heartbeat, the one character whose storytelling is rooted in community rather than isolation. She sings for herself, yes, but also for the oppressed, the forgotten, the displaced. Her narrative is activism set to rhythm.

Frollo’s storytelling is intellectual, rigid, and deeply dangerous. He narrates through doctrine—through the belief that words, when wielded with enough conviction, can become law. His songs are structured like sermons, full of moral certainty and rhetorical flourish. His Sermons are almost a weapon. But what makes his storytelling so chilling is how it fractures. His language becomes a battlefield between desire and belief. He tries to narrate himself as righteous, but the cracks in his story reveal the truth: he is rewriting the world to justify his own hunger.

Phoebus tells his story through transformation. He begins in the tradition of the heroic soldier with clean lines, upright posture, a voice that carries authority. But as he encounters Esmeralda and the people of the Court of Miracles, his storytelling shifts. He becomes a witness, then an ally, then someone willing to risk his own narrative for the sake of another’s. His arc is one of unlearning. His story is about choosing compassion over command.

Stage managing this show felt like conducting a symphony of different storytelling traditions. Calling the show meant listening for the moment when Quasimodo’s silence needed to give way to Esmeralda’s fire, or when Frollo’s rigidity needed to be interrupted by the choir’s omniscient swell. It meant watching bodies tell stories even when they weren’t speaking.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame endures because it understands that storytelling is not one thing. It is voice and movement, belief and rebellion, silence and song. It is the way a character stands, the way they breathe, the way they break. It is the way we carry them after the curtain falls.

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I’ve been thinking about how much of writing happens when we’re not writing. Not the drafting, not the revising, not the part where we stare at the cursor and will it to move — but moments around us that makes our brains think about our story. I’ve gotten two great moments I want to add to my WIP just yesterday. I wrote them in the notes app on my phone until I can add them in later but I got them by just going through my life. It happens all the time.

It’s the overheard conversation at the grocery store, where two teenagers argue about whether a hot dog counts as a sandwich.

“Its not a sandwich or is it?”

It’s the way someone laughs from their belly, unselfconscious and bright. It’s the smell of rain on hot pavement or the moment before it storms, that shift in the air that feels like a memory even if you can’t place it. It’s the ache of missing someone you haven’t seen in years, the way that ache teaches you something about longing you’ll use later without realizing it.

These tiny moments are important for a writer’s life. They layer slowly, almost invisibly, until one day you’re drafting a scene and realize the rhythm of a stranger’s voice has become the cadence of your character. Or the way the light fell across your kitchen table last Tuesday has become the emotional tone of a chapter. Or the offhand comment someone made in passing has become the thematic spine of an entire short story. Inspiration is all around us.

We talk a lot about discipline — about showing up, about finishing drafts, about pushing through resistance. And yes, that matters. But I think we forget that part of the work is simply living with our eyes open. Letting the world brush against us. Letting ourselves be open enough that something small can slip in and stay. Something that we can use in our work later even if it doesn’t seem so important at that moment.

So if you haven’t written much this week, maybe you’ve still been gathering. Maybe you’ve been paying attention in the way only writers do — half in the moment, half in the future story that moment might someday become. Or maybe I’m writing an article about this to feel less guilty about the words I didn’t get down this week. But it still matters.

Writers aren’t built only at the desk. We’re built in the noticing. In the tiny, ordinary, miraculous details that remind us the world is always offering material if we’re willing to receive it.

And maybe that’s enough for this week: to trust that the story is growing quietly, even when your hands are still and you are not able to put words on the page.

This past weekend, I escaped into the darkened theater to witness two of the most anticipated summer films of 2026: Christopher Nolan’s reimagining of the Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day. A curious casting coincidence links “The Odyssey” and “Spiderman,” as Tom Holland stars as Telemachus and Peter Parker, Zendaya plays Athena and MJ, and Jon Bernthal appears as Menelaus and The Punisher.

While I found enjoyment in the movies, they prompted a profound reflection on the art of narrative and how stories have been conveyed throughout the ages.

Each generation receives its own collection of tales and legends. Some are carved into stone, passed down through thousands of years of history. For generations, tales were shared through spoken word rather than written text. Still, some arrive on a web, cracking jokes and avoiding obstacles, reassuring us as we discover a new hero to admire. When we look closely, the distance between Homer’s Odyssey and Spider‑Man: Brand New Day isn’t as wide as it seems.

Both stories ask the same ancient questions: How do we find our way home? What does it cost to be responsible for others? Who are we when the world keeps changing faster than we can?

The format, tone, and cultural moment might be different but humans need to make meaning through narrative. We need stories.

Homer’s Odyssey is one of the oldest surviving works of Western literature, but it’s also one of the most flexible. It’s a story of wandering, longing, danger, and identity. Odysseus is a hero defined not by brute strength but by cleverness, endurance, and the stubborn desire to return home as he is tested through a series of trails.

Epic elements like gods, monsters, storms, islands, and temptations are hallmarks of a traditional Odyssey narrative. A hero is tested by the world, and each test will reveal the character in some way. The extended timeframe is because the journey is as significant as the destination.

The Odyssey is storytelling as architecture — built to be recited aloud, remembered, and passed down. It’s a map of human struggle rendered in mythic proportions. Zeus’s law dictates that you should treat every person as if they could be divine. That message is repeated throughout this movie.

Brand New Day is a different kind of epic. It’s fast, funny, contemporary, and emotionally intimate. Instead of battling mythical beings, Peter Parker grapples with the chilling reality of being forgotten, navigates complex moral choices, and confronts “bad guys” that mirror his deepest fears. The stakes are personal, even when the city is at risk.

Some features of this hero storytelling are relatability: Peter’s problems feel like our problems. He has torn between his morals of responsibility vs. desire or identity vs. anonymity. This structure is normally told in arcs as the story unfolds instead of it being a single journey. Peter Parker is a superhero with extraordinary powers but he has ordinary emotions. Spider-man is an ongoing narrative, always changing, never finished.

Where Homer uses myth to explore humanity, Brand New Day uses humanity to explore myth. Peter’s struggles echo Odysseus’s — but filtered through the lens of modern life, modern pressure, and modern loneliness. Both of these stories are important for us to experience as human beings.

The reason these two narratives resonate — separated by millennia, genres, and cultural expectations — is simple: humans need stories. We need them to understand ourselves, to imagine possibilities, to process grief, to celebrate joy, to feel less alone.

Storytelling is how we survive change.
Storytelling is how we pass down wisdom.
Storytelling is how we make chaos feel coherent.

And most importantly is storytelling is how we make life worth living.

Sorry, if that’s dramatic but that’s the writer in me. Haha.

Homer gave his listeners a map for navigating a dangerous world. Spider‑Man gives us a map for navigating a complicated one. Both remind us that heroism isn’t perfection — it’s persistence. To quote Hannah Montana “Nobody’s perfect.”

No one knows who created the art of storytelling. It’s really just human nature to tell stories.

When Homer composed The Odyssey, he wasn’t writing “literature.” He was shaping memory. He was giving his community a way to understand wandering, longing, danger, and homecoming. His story was a vessel — one that could be carried across centuries, languages, and cultures.

And today, improbably, that vessel shows up again in a red-and-blue suit, swinging between skyscrapers.

Comics, especially superhero narratives like Spider‑Man: Brand New Day, inherit more from ancient storytelling than we often admit. They are our modern epics: serialized, moral, character-driven, and deeply concerned with what it means to be human in a world that keeps testing us.

Comics are episodic by nature. They unfold over months, years, decades. They accumulate meaning through repetition and variation — just like oral epics did.

Odysseus carries the burden of fate.
Peter Parker carries the burden of responsibility.

Both are heroes defined not by perfection but by persistence. Both are flawed, stubborn, clever, and deeply human. Both are trying to return to something — a home, a sense of self, a life that feels whole.

When Peter Parker swings across the page, he carries a lineage older than any comic book. When Odysseus sails toward Ithaca, he carries the same emotional weight we feel when Peter tries to repair his life after everything falls apart.

Different eras. Different mediums. Different audiences.
Same impulse: tell a story that helps us understand what it means to be human.

That’s why storytelling matters.
That’s why it lasts.
And that’s why, whether we’re reading about a wandering Greek hero or a web‑slinging kid from Queens, we’re participating in the same ancient tradition — one that keeps evolving, keeps adapting, and keeps reminding us who we are.

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Tell a story that helps us understand what it means to be human. To be alive. To be a storyteller.

How do I start unpacking all the layers this character, JJ, has? Even since I watched Outer Banks in 2020, I’ve had a soft spot for this character. He was written as a reckless and impulsive but all of that hides a boy full of a longing to belong and be loved. Trauma and a sense of loyalty molded his identity, along with the conviction that he was disposable. Characters with tragic backstories are often the easiest to fall in love with. The series reveals him to be a wounded protector, but no one can protect him. So much that I have still refused to watch Season 4 Part 2… Netflix knows what they did…

But there is hope that this character could rise from his grave, if his friends use the crown on him. Yet nothing every goes to plan with this show so I have a feeling they are just making us think they are going to bring him back. I have low expectations like right now I don’t plan to watch it unless I see a spoiler his character comes back.

JJ was the emotional powder keg of the Pogues. The one who feels everything too deeply and hides it behind his humor and bravado. But at his core, he is a survivor of chronic abuse. Every single person in his family was bad for him. He was a kid who grew up without safety. Someone who believes they are unworthy of love, a boy who wants softness but doesn’t know how to accept it. Kiera was a softness for him.

His trauma became his operating system on how his character lived. He thought that he was the problem and that asking for help was dangerous. He became hyper-independent, and he never expected anyone to show up for him. So he becomes the guy to take the fall, laughs off pain, and throws himself in danger to make the sacrifice. It’s not bravery. It’s survival.

JJ shows his love to his friends by protecting, defending them, and giving everything he has even when he has nothing. He has let two people in John B and Kie, which is why I think those moments shine through because they are the only people he lets close enough to see the cracks.

John B might be JJ’s anchor, and there are rumors that John B is telling the story of JJ to his future children. John B showed JJ that people can stay and what family can be. When John B is in danger, JJ unravels because losing him would mean losing one of the only unconditional love he’d ever known.

I honestly thought that JJ and Kiara was endgame.

She was the first person who sees JJ’s pain and doesn’t flinch. She challenges him, comforts him, and treats him like he’s worth saving. Because he is. Kie became the emotional mirror JJ had avoided his whole life.

JJ loved Kiara so long before he admits it because wanting her felt dangerous. Wanting anything felt dangerous. He was terrified of ruining what they have but she unlocked a part of him that still believed in hope.

I’m interested to see how Kiara will play her character in season 5 without JJ because he became such a core part of their story. It’s like she lose the love of her life and now she only wants revenge.

The Pogues aren’t just JJ’s friends—they’re his chosen family. His devotion to John B borders on mythic; it’s the kind of loyalty forged in shared trauma and late-night promises. JJ’s relationship with Kiara is equally rich, a slow-burning tenderness that emerges from mutual care rather than romantic fantasy. Even his dynamic with Pope—often the most stable Pogue—reveals JJ’s yearning to be understood, to be forgiven, to be held to a standard he believes he can’t meet.

JJ’s arc is, at its core, a study in how friendship can become a form of salvation. He is the character who most clearly demonstrates that the Pogues aren’t just chasing treasure—they’re chasing belonging.

He is the emotional heartbeat of Outer Banks because he represents the stakes beyond gold and adventure. His arc asks the real questions:

What does it mean to grow up without safety?
How do you build trust when trust has always been weaponized?
What does found family look like when you’ve never had a real one?

JJ’s story is a reminder that resilience isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s a kid choosing to stay kind in a world that hasn’t been kind to him.

Do you think JJ will return in Season 5 of Outer Banks? Or will Netflix stick to one of the worst character deaths I’ve seen of their streaming services?

Only time will tell when the fifth and final season drops on Netflix on August 20th, 2026

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“All the things she said, running through my head…”

Prompt: Write a scene where a character is overwhelmed by intrusive thoughts about someone they can’t stop thinking about. How do those thoughts affect their actions in the moment—do they freeze, lash out, confess, or retreat?

“I’m in serious shit, I feel totally lost…”

Prompt: Imagine a character caught between duty and desire. They’ve made a choice that jeopardizes their reputation, family, or career. Explore the moment they realize the weight of that decision.

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“Too much love will kill you…”

Prompt: Craft a dialogue-heavy scene where two characters argue about whether their relationship is destructive or worth the risk. Let the tension rise until one of them blurts out something they can’t take back. Whoops…

“Mother looking at me, tell me what do you see?”

Prompt: Write a confrontation between a character and a parental figure. The parent sees their child’s choices as rebellion, but the child sees them as survival. Push the emotional stakes until both sides reveal hidden fears.

“I’m about to lose my mind…”

Prompt: Explore a moment of near-breakdown. A character is on the edge of confessing a secret or making a reckless move. Use sensory detail to show how their body betrays their inner turmoil.

For so long, movies and TV taught us to see women the way men supposedly see women: as spectacle or property, as reward, as something to be looked at rather than someone who looks back. The male gaze wasn’t just a camera angle, it was a worldview. No one ever batted an eye at it or even really questioned it. If you think to hard about this as a woman, it can make you feel angry. I’ve been back and forth with my anger lately but I am happy to see shows being made for the female gaze now. Shows like Off Campus, Heated Rivalry, etc…

But in the 1970’s, it shaped how female characters moved through stories, how they were lit, how they were framed, how they were allowed to feel. It told us that women existed to be witnessed, not to witness.

But something has shifted. Not suddenly more like a tide that’s been pulling at the shoreline for years. And now the female gaze is not only visible, it’s popular. Let’s think about some of the popular shows lately or at least that I’ve seen. Heated Rivalry, Off Campus, Love Island, and almost any book to movie adaptation I’ve seen in the last few years, has all been made for the female gaze. And It’s bankable. It’s shaping the aesthetics of mainstream film and television in ways that feel both overdue and startlingly new. Being a fangirl and a fan of things have kept the money flowing in the economy. I don’t have any proof but it feels like that’s true. Being a fan of something is so special to me. It makes me so happy.

The female gaze isn’t just “women looking at men.” It’s not a gender swap. It’s a reorientation of attention. It’s a camera that lingers on emotional texture rather than surfaces. It’s desire expressed through curiosity rather than conquest. It’s bodies filmed with an awareness of how they feel from the inside. It’s the difference between being posed and being perceived. The female gaze uses the internal and external to make us feel like he are being understood.

For decades, the male gaze was treated as neutral, as if it were simply “how movies are made.” The male gaze was the default setting. Think of the way female characters were introduced: legs first, hair first, cleavage first. It’s like you could only have a female character if people thought her body was something to be admired. Think of the way sex scenes were choreographed: her pleasure as performance, his pleasure as plot. Think of the way female pain was aestheticized, stylized, eroticized.

Even when women were protagonists, they were often filmed as if they were being watched by an invisible man. The camera became a chaperone, a judge, a voyeur. And audiences learned to see women through that lens, even when we didn’t want to. The female gaze isn’t a single aesthetic — it’s a collection of sensibilities that share a common root: interiority. We all want to be seen, and not as an object.

You see it in Yellowjackets, where teenage girls are allowed to be feral, hungry, violent, and terrifying without being fetishized. Yellowjackets is more than a scary show to pop in your head when you are flying. This show has many different layers.

The female gaze is different for a couple reasons. What it feels like, not what it looks like. How desire moves, not just who is desired. Bodies as lived experiences and not just decorative objects. It’s not about making women “empowered” in a glossy, marketable way. It’s about making them real. Because women are real.

Part of this shift comes from who’s behind the camera. More women directing, writing, producing. More queer creators. More people who understand that desire is not a straight line but a constellation. We need more of this in the film industry. We need more all the different experiences to make different movies.

But part of it comes from audiences. We’re tired of watching women flattened into tropes. We’re tired of stories where female characters exist only to motivate male ones. We’re tired of sex scenes that feel like they were choreographed by someone who has never asked a woman what she wants. It’s unrealistic.

The female gaze offers something different: a sense of recognition. A sense of being seen not as an idea but as a person.

One of the biggest misconceptions is that the female gaze is gentle, pastel, romantic. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it’s uncomfortable. It’s intimate in ways that feel almost invasive because it’s looking at women from the inside out. Finding ways to connect with an audience.

It’s the female gaze that notices, the tremor in a hand, the breath before a confession, the way a character’s posture collapses when she’s finally alone and the hunger that isn’t allowed to be spoken. It’s not about beautifying women. It’s about witnessing them. And truly seeing them from the inside and the outside.

The rise of the female gaze doesn’t mean the male gaze disappears. It means we finally have alternatives. It means the camera is no longer locked in one position. It means desire can be plural. It means women can be subjects, not just objects. It opens up the door to film in multiple different ways now.

And it means that when we watch movies and TV now, we’re not just consuming stories — we’re learning new ways of seeing.

Not “women as men see them.” or “women as women see men.”
But “women as they see themselves.”

That’s the revolution.

And I’m excited to see what will come from this in the next few years.

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I wake with sentences already crowding,
characters tapping their feet,
asking why I haven’t solved their lives yet.

How can I solve my characters problems,

if I can’t solve my own?

Coffee becomes a kind of prayer.

I lost count of how many energy drinks I’ve had this week…

Deadlines bloom like invasive species.
I hit one deadline, only for another deadline to pop up.

I tell myself this is the life I wanted—
to sit in rooms where language hums,
to chase the shimmer of a better line—
but some nights the shimmer feels
like a train light coming too fast.

I just have to keep reminding myself.

I wanted this.

This is…. fine.

Still, the distinction matters. Not because one is “better” than the other (literally they both need to exist), but because each type of fiction carries its own promises, expectations, and artistic ambitions. Understanding those differences can help us read more generously and write more intentionally.

What Genre Fiction Promises

Genre fiction is built on recognizable narrative engines—structures that create momentum, expectation, and pleasure. Mystery, romance, fantasy, horror, sci‑fi, thriller: each genre has a core question or tension that drives the story forward. I think its fun as a reader to pick up a book and know that there is patterns the author is going to follow. I find a lot of comfort in Genre Fiction, it’s probably the most type of books I check out from the library.

• Mystery: What happened, and why?

• Romance: Will they end up together?

• Fantasy: How does magic reshape the world—and the people in it?

• Horror: What is the nature of the threat, and how do we survive it?

These engines aren’t constraints; they’re contracts. A reader picks up a romance because they want the emotional architecture of yearning, conflict, and resolution. I want to see the Meet-cute. I need it. I could do without the third act breakup but I get it. A reader picks up a mystery because they want the puzzle. Who doesn’t want to guess who did it before the big reveal. Genre fiction is, at its heart, story-forward. It prioritizes plot, momentum, and the satisfaction of watching a narrative machine click into place.

This doesn’t mean genre fiction lacks depth. Some of the most psychologically rich, funny and emotionally devastating books I’ve read live squarely in genre. I love when a book fits into a genre because it makes me feel safe as a reader. But the primary promise is propulsion: the story moves and there are moments that every story will hit.

What Literary Fiction Promises

Literary fiction, by contrast, is less concerned with narrative engines and more concerned with interiority, language, and the texture of consciousness. It asks different questions:

• What does it feel like to be this person?

• How does time move inside a life?

• What does attention reveal?

• What is the emotional or philosophical consequence of this moment?

If genre fiction is story-forward, literary fiction is character-forward or language-forward. It privileges ambiguity, psychological nuance, and the elasticity of form. The plot may be minimal, or it may exist primarily as a scaffold for exploring deeper thematic terrain. As a literary fiction author, you can focus on prose and descriptions for pages without worrying about if the pacing is off. It’s great to use Literary fiction to study the art of writing because you really can break down the sentences. I’ve been reading a lot of literary fiction for grad school.

Literary fiction often resists the tidy satisfactions of genre. Endings may be unresolved. Conflicts may be internal. It literally gives me anxiety to not know what’s going to happen with literary fiction novel. The pleasure comes not from the answer to a question but from the experience of inhabiting a mind, a voice, a world.

So Why Not Both Types?

The problem, of course, is that the terms “genre” and “literary” have been historically weaponized. Literary fiction has long been positioned as “serious,” “high art,” “for adults,” while genre fiction has been dismissed as “commercial,” “formulaic,” or “merely entertaining.” Why are we so focused on tearing down books, when the important thing is that people are reading books? That’s all that matter.

Genre fiction can be formally inventive, linguistically stunning, and thematically profound. Literary fiction can be propulsive, tightly plotted, and emotionally accessible. The best writers in either tradition borrow from the other constantly. I think it’s important as a writer to study both of these type of books as I write my own.

We don’t live our lives in tidy categories; why should our stories?

If we strip away the hierarchy and look at the traditions with curiosity rather than judgment, the difference becomes clearer:

Genre fiction is defined by its narrative engine.

The story must move. The reader must want to know what happens next. A reader will put the book down if it doesn’t reach out and grab them.

Literary fiction is defined by its aesthetic and psychological ambition.

The story must reveal something about consciousness, language, or the human condition. It’s used a lot of times in a school and learning setting. I will say that sometimes I find literary fiction to be confusing. The amount of types I’ve had a literary fiction book make me feel stupid is an embarrassing amount of times but I still think it’s important to have these books about human connections.

Both can be art. Both can be profound. Both can be forgettable. Both can be life-changing.

The divide isn’t about quality—it’s about intention.

Why This Matters for Writers

If you’re writing, understanding the distinction helps you make deliberate choices:

• Do you want your reader to turn pages breathlessly?

• Do you want them to linger in the sentences?

• Do you want the plot to carry the emotional weight?

• Or do you want the interiority to shape the plot?

You can blend traditions—many of the most exciting contemporary books do. But knowing the promises you’re making helps you fulfill them.

Readers don’t care about labels. They care about being moved. A reader who picks up a book doesn’t really care what type of fiction they are reading, they just want to read an interesting story.

The difference between genre fiction and literary fiction is real, but it’s not moral, hierarchical, or fixed. If you are reading any book, you are a reader. Period. Don’t even get me started on audiobooks, it counts!

It’s simply a matter of what the story is trying to do.

Genre fiction says: Let me tell you a story.
Literary fiction says: Let me show you a life.

Most of us, as readers and writers, want both. I want both! We can learn things from both.

So what do you think? Will you only read genre books or do you believe we need both?

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Onstage, the kids’ ensemble was mid‑number,
their sneakers thumping like a herd of caffeinated deer. Each stomp sending a
tremor through the floorboards that traveled up Lydia’s legs and made her feel like
a part of the choreography even though she was just standing there sweating.

The cicadas outside were louder than the sound system, which felt insulting.

Miles barreled into the wing, costume
half‑askew, looking like someone who had just sprinted through a sauna. His
forehead was damp beneath plastered hair, and his collar was drenched. He
grabbed a towel and immediately dropped it, recoiling as though it had bitten
him.

“It’s wet.”

“It’s a towel,” Lydia said. “They do
that.”

Miles glared at it like it had betrayed
him. “They added an extra eight counts. I almost died. I saw my ancestors.”

“You don’t have ancestors,” Lydia said.
“You have a long line of people who also complained about the choreography.”

He peeked at her over the towel he’d
reluctantly picked back up. “Your meaner during matinees.”

“And you’re sweatier.”

A cue light blinked amber. Two minutes.

The stage manager hustled past, headset
crooked, sunscreen streaked across her forehead like war paint. “Props ready?
Miles, your mic is hot—stop whispering your tragic backstory.”

Miles grinned. Lydia pretended her
stomach didn’t flip like a badly executed pirouette.

The kids came flooding offstage, leaving
glitter, grass clippings, and one inexplicable flip-flop behind. The air
shifted—the fragile hush before a scene, the moment where everyone collectively
realized they had forgotten something important.

Miles bumped her shoulder. “Hey.”

She looked up, already suspicious.

“After this,” he said, voice low, “want
to sit in the loading dock? It’s shady. We can cool off. Maybe complain about
the towel together.”

Lydia snorted. “Wow. A romantic
invitation to the loading dock. Truly, you know how to sweep a girl off her
feet.”

“It’s got a breeze,” he said defensively.
“A breeze, Lydia.”

The cue light flashed green.

She swallowed, heat blooming everywhere.
“Fine. But if a raccoon shows up, you’re handling it.”

“Obviously,” he said. “I’m the sweaty
one. They’ll think I’m one of them.”

She laughed as they stepped into the
wings’ narrow darkness together, waiting for their cue, listening for their
line, the summer afternoon pressing close around them.

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, feeling the faint tremor in his shell. A warning. A prophecy. A dare. The wind pressed against him like a hand between his shoulder blades, too intimate to ignore. If they’d gasp. If they’d run. If they’d pretend they hadn’t been waiting for it.

Because that’s the thing no one tells you
about being breakable: people watch you differently. They track every wobble.
They whisper predictions. They love you most right before the shattering.

Humpty inhaled, slow and steady, the way
someone does before stepping into a role they didn’t audition for. Below, a
child finally looked up, pointed, and shouted something he couldn’t hear. The
moment tightened around him like a knot.

He smiled.

And then he tipped.

Bicks spends a year studying Stephen King’s monsters while navigating her own life’s upheavals. What she discovers, and what she tell us is a way of approaching writing that is rigorous, playful, psychologically honest, and deeply humane. I’m not sure if she meant this book to turn into a craft book but I found it super helpful as a writer.

One of Bicks’s core moves is refusing to turn away from what scares her. Instead, she treats fear like a research question. She follows it. She interrogates it. She lets it lead her deeper into the material.

For writers, this is gold.

The scenes we avoid, the characters we resist, the topics that make us squirm. Those are often the places where the story is alive. Bicks shows that fear isn’t a sign to stop writing. It’s a sign you’ve found the pulse.

Craft takeaway:
When something in your draft scares you, don’t sidestep it. Study it. Ask what it’s trying to reveal.

Bicks moves between King’s novels, historical documents, cultural artifacts, and her own memories with the curiosity of an archivist. She doesn’t assume meaning but she uncovers it.

This is a powerful writing strategy.

Instead of forcing a theme or message, she lets the material speak. She looks for patterns, contradictions, echoes. She reads her own life the way she reads King’s monsters: as evidence.

Craft takeaway:
Your drafts are an archive. Instead of trying to control them, examine them. What patterns repeat? What emotional residue keeps showing up? What are the artifacts of your own obsessions?

Bicks’s insight is that King’s monsters aren’t just creatures; they’re reflections. They expose cultural anxieties, personal fears, and the stories we inherit without noticing. Maybe they have some of the same traumas as Shakespeare Characters as well.

Writers can use this too.

Whether you’re writing literal monsters or metaphorical ones (grief, shame, longing, ambition) can be the “creature” in your story that is always pointing to something deeper. Bicks shows how to read that reflection without flinching.

Craft takeaway:
Ask what your story’s “monster” is mirroring. What truth is it trying to make visible?

By the end of her year, Bicks hasn’t conquered fear. She’s learned to live with it — to recognize it, name it, and understand what it preserves.

This is the most profound craft lesson of all.

Writing isn’t about mastery. It’s about returning to the archive — your memories, your obsessions, your fears, your questions — and seeing what new meaning emerges each time.

Craft takeaway:
Your writing is a living archive. Let it evolve. Let it contradict itself. Let it surprise you.

Bicks’s book demonstrates that the most productive writing emerges not from certainty but from curiosity, from the willingness to dwell in the unsettling, the unresolved, and the monstrous. Put the pen to paper and be scared about what comes out. If it’s too much you can always edit it later.

If you have any interested in writing horror books or any type of fiction writing, you should add this book to your tbr.

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At its best, sports romance isn’t just about athletes falling in love. It’s about pressure. Performance. Public image. The body pushed to its limits, and the heart pushed even further.

The Appeal of Sports Romance is more than Sweat and Stadium Lights. Sports romance thrives on built‑in tension.

You get:

• High stakes: Careers, reputations, and lifelong dreams are always on the line.

• Forced proximity: Teammates, rivals, coaches, and training partners can’t exactly avoid each other.

• Physicality: The genre leans into bodies in motion—strength, vulnerability, exhaustion, triumph.

• Identity and image: Athletes often live under public scrutiny, which adds layers of conflict to any relationship.

• Found family: Teams create natural communities, which can support or complicate the romance.

But the real magic comes from the emotional contradictions: athletes who seem invincible on the ice, field, or court often turn out to be the softest, most yearning characters once the gear comes off.

If you’re looking for a place where competition meets confession, where rivals become lovers, and where the hardest-won victories happen off the ice, sports romance is waiting for you.

The current heaves me under as the air flows from my lungs.

The fight in me is thru as my limbs cease to move.

I’m just going to float.

Drift away with the tide, absorbed into the blackness.

I can scarcely tell the difference among the darkness of the ocean and what’s inside my head?

What they don’t tell you about drowning…

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Those who pretend they’re above Love Island or those who know the truth which is that sometimes the only thing holding your summer together is watching beautiful people dramatically whisper “Can I pull you for a chat?”

I’ve watched every season of Love Island USA and a few seasons of the other countries seasons as well. I used to watch it on Youtube the day after it aired back in 2018/2019 when I was living in nyc but now I can just turn on peacock and watch it in real time.

So imagine my delight when Love Island Season 8 strutted back onto TV like an ex who suddenly got hotter and more emotionally available. I didn’t realize how much I missed the villa until the theme music hit and my brain went, Ah yes. My Roman Empire. I literally did a happy dance.

The friendships. The chaos. The slow‑burn romances. The unhinged recouplings. The way half the cast seemed allergic to accountability. The twists. And hopefully we get a movie night this season. It’s comfort TV, and everyone needs to have a comfort show.

And watching it again in 2026 hits the exact same way. In the first episode last night, they used a One Direction show, What Makes You Beautiful, and I jumped off my couch in glee. I was so happy. It’s like they were saying, we know you have been waiting for this show and this song is just for you. Yes, I know thats dramatic and fangirling but that’s who I am so might as well just accept it.

Maybe it’s because the world feels loud and complicated, and there’s something soothing about a show where the stakes are simultaneously low and also the most important thing that has ever happened to these people. Maybe it’s because I love a good narrative arc that we see over the six weeks as they show airs.

Or maybe it’s because summer is here, and Love Island is basically the unofficial soundtrack of June. The villa sunsets. The neon bikinis. The dramatic voiceovers like Tomorrow Night. The way everyone acts like they’re in a Shakespearean tragedy when really they’ve known each other for six days. And six days is a stretch, I swear sometimes it’s like hours before a person loses it over another person having a chat.

Tuning in to watch Season 8 feels like revisiting a friend group you once spent every night with. I’m Older. Wiser. More hydrated.
Yet still deeply invested in strangers flirting in a villa.

So yes, I will be spending June living the drama, the romance, the questionable decisions, and the absolute poetry of someone saying “I’ve got the ick” or “I’m not really connecting with this person.”

So for the next six weeks… If you need me, I’ll be on my couch, iced drink in hand, ready to shout “OPEN YOUR EYES, BABE” at people who cannot hear me.

Summer has officially begun.

xoxo

I desire for Venom to seep from my pores.

Searing his skin as I wrestled to shove him away,

Poisoning him so he experienced an ounce of my distress.

Wounding him the way he wounded me.

Scrubbing my skin raw as it replays on a loop in my mind.

My mouth feels like sandpaper from the mouthwash I’ve consumed,

Trying to drench the…

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Spoilers Below!!!!

A Fresh Spin on a Beloved Book Series

Season 1 adapts The Deal, the first book in Kennedy’s wildly popular series. At its heart is the “opposites attract” chemistry between: Hannah Wells (Ella Bright), a sharp, music‑obsessed songwriter and Garrett Graham (Belmont Cameli), Briar University’s star hockey captain with a reputation he can’t quite shake. His reputation comes from the pressure of his father being a popular NFL player in his prime. So he has daddy issues.

Garrett needs a tutor and Hannah needs a fake boyfriend so they decided to strike a deal to fake date.

The ensemble cast also brings Briar University to life, including:

• Mika Abdalla as Allie Hayes

• Antonio Cipriano as John Logan

• Jalen Thomas Brooks as John Tucker

• Stephen Kalyn as Dean Di Laurentis

• Josh Heuston as Justin Kohl

What’s New in the Adaptation?

Book fans will immediately notice some bold changes:

• Justin, Hannah’s crush, is no longer a football player—he’s now a British musician and lead singer at a local bar.

• Key romantic beats have been shifted or reimagined to deepen character arcs and set up future seasons.

• New dynamics—like expanded roles for side characters—lay groundwork for later books in the series.

• Hannah’s Creative Arc Is Completely Rewritten

  Book: Hannah is a singer‑songwriter entering a pop showcase mostly for extra cash.
  Show: She’s a film composition student whose scholarship depends on writing a pop song.

• Garrett’s Family Conflict Is Significantly Softened

  Book: Garrett’s father financially controls him, and this manipulation directly causes the breakup.
  Show: NIL laws (name‑image‑likeness) make that plotline outdated, so the financial angle is removed.

• Hannah’s Jobs & Daily Life Are Different

  Book: She works at a ’50s diner called Della’s.
  Show: She works at the hockey rink and at Malone’s (now a restaurant, not just a bar).

• Logan’s Entire Family Dynamic Is Rewritten

  Book: Logan has an older brother and a father with alcoholism.
  Show: Logan has a younger sibling, Jules, who runs a Briar gossip blog (The Fifth Line), and an alcoholic mother in rehab.

I remember reading the first book of this series a few years ago but I need to reread it now that I have characters I can picture in my head from the show. The show has already been picked up for season 2 so we will be seeing more of this story and the characters.

To love Noah was like sitting on the beach as the tide rolled in.

You lived with the constant, unknown threat of painful, crashing waves.

You were watching the wave coming at you, but knowing it’s coming doesn’t mean you’re ready.

Salt splattered in your face, making you squint.

Salty wave after salty wave, you keep swallowing and spitting, never budging.

The sand gives way beneath you, as if the tide is dragging you into the sea.

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I’ve always been obsessed with them. It probably started with Draco Malfoy and has grown since then.
The rivals.
The almost‑enemies.
The ones who pretend they’re annoyed when really they’re interested.

The one who is damaged. I love it.

There’s something delicious about two characters who can’t stop orbiting each other even when they swear they’re on opposite sides. It always just draws me in. The will they or won’t they? Rivalry is desire wearing armor. It’s longing with its fists up. It’s the emotional equivalent of leaning in so close you can feel someone’s breath but insisting you’re only doing it to win.

And the best part? Rivalry reveals who a character really is.

Rivalry strips away the performance but it adds some much to the story!

Most characters walk around with a curated self, the version they want the world to see. But a rival? A rival sees the cracks. A rival knows exactly where to press. It’s so annoying when the person who truly sees you is actually a rival.

Rivalry forces characters to:

• drop their masks

• show their ambition

• reveal their insecurities

• admit what they want (even if they won’t say it out loud)

It’s why the tension feels so electric. You’re watching two people accidentally tell the truth and most the time they don’t want to actually tell the truth.

Enemies avoid each other.
Rivals hover.

They share space. They share goals. They share the same stage, the same spotlight, the same dream. Or in the book I’m currently working on, the same court. They’re constantly thrown together because the story demands it, and because neither one can walk away without losing something vital.

Proximity is the oxygen of chemistry. Rivalry is the spark. Now they have to be roommates. I love it. Put them together and you get fire.

Rivalry is intimacy disguised as conflict

This is the part I love the most.

Rivalry is a relationship where both characters are paying extremely close attention. They track each other’s moves. They anticipate reactions. They know each other’s strengths and weaknesses with almost embarrassing accuracy.

That’s intimacy. They really know each other and it drives each other mad.

Even if they’d rather swallow a cactus than admit it.

If you are writing your own rival story, here are a few things I’ve learned from studying rival stories:

• A shared desire — They want the same thing, and wanting it puts them in each other’s way.

• A mirrored flaw — They’re different, but their wounds rhyme.

• A moment of accidental softness — A slip. A reveal. A crack in the armor. A conversation in the middle of the night.

• A line they won’t cross — Rivalry isn’t cruelty; it’s tension with boundaries.

• A shift — The moment one of them realizes the other is not the enemy… just inconveniently magnetic.

Rivalry works because it’s a slow, reluctant, deeply human unraveling.

Why we love it (and why I keep writing it)

We love rivalry because it feels like being seen… fully, sharply, inconveniently. A rival notices the things you try to hide. A rival challenges you to grow. A rival forces you to confront the parts of yourself you’d rather ignore.

And when that tension finally softens?
When the armor drops?
When the characters realize the person they’ve been fighting is the one who understands them best?

That’s the moment that makes readers gasp.

Rivalry is not about conflict.
It’s about recognition.

And honestly? I think that’s why these characters live in my spine. They remind me that the people who push us — the ones who challenge us, frustrate us, sharpen us — are often the ones who change us. And I love it!!!!

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“Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafes. Non- racers. The emptiness of those lives shocks me.”

From the very beginning, Tim’s inner voice is powerful, but it’s a headstrong one that sometimes expresses opinions I don’t share. The idea that those who aren’t racers live unfulfilling lives is a significant statement, and it certainly sheds light on his character. However, he lost me once he considered a girl in the audience.

“What gives this girl the right to raise her voice?”

Yes, I can see this character is cycling in a race in the 1970s, and while I recognize times were different back then, as a female reader, this quote made me raise my eyebrows at the casual sexism. I’ve lost all respect for the character, and now I’m actively hoping he fails to win the race. My research into women’s cycling revealed an all-women’s Tour de France in 1955, which then disappeared until its revival in 1984. Financial hardship, minimal media exposure, and systemic sexism have all contributed to the challenges women have encountered in professional cycling. If Tim Krabbe were racing with a woman, he would have complained, so I can infer this race was only for men.

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Focusing exclusively on stream of consciousness immerses the reader in the rider’s experience, yet simultaneously positions all other characters as competitors. When racing for money, can friendly rivalry still be a factor? The narrative restricts us to the character’s consciousness solely when he’s getting ready for the race, competing, or has just completed it. This means we only witness the character’s competitive spirit, the one they reserve for race day. Engaging in sports teaches you the necessity of a determined mindset to see things through. Having a competitive spirit can result in developing an ego.

Krabbe acts like the most committed cyclist, simultaneously belittling the other racers. He even says the glasses are a disadvantage to another racer. We learn from the text that the racer, who wears glasses, aided his younger counterpart in entering the world of racing. It’s puzzling why he would put down a racer from whom he received help from. This character only reframes his moments of failure into strategic choices, but he doesn’t have the same grace for others. The narrator of this character is only trying to preserve his self-image.

Krabbe uses selective memories about past races to convince the reader that he deserves to win this race. His increasing efforts to be seen as a serious cyclist made me feel less able to rely on the narrator. He judged other cyclists for accelerating at the wrong time, then he replicated their behavior. Krabbe would also drop cycling jargon or statistics, but as someone outside of the racing world, it just felt like numbers being thrown at me. Krabbe prioritized defending his choice of racing over explaining it to the reader.

Actively competing in a race and simultaneously recalling every kilometer precisely appears unfeasible, which likely leads to missing information. The compelling nature of this author’s self-told story hinges on the reader’s belief in its truth. There were moments when I was invested in the narrative, yet at other points, I questioned his character. Despite the athlete’s unreliable narration, I’d enjoy more books presented in this style.

Tim Krabbe’s The Rider serves as an excellent demonstration of athletes’ ability to narrate their own experiences and craft their memories into stories for an audience. This story format offers an immersive reading experience, making me feel like I’m inside the book, even though I’m not taking part in elite sporting events like the Tour de France or the Super Bowl.

The moment I stepped inside, the air felt… thick. Not warm. Not cozy. Thick. Like someone had ladled it into the room with a giant spoon. My skin registered it before my brain did. My lungs followed. And then the realization hit: Oh. This is heat. Real heat. Intentional heat. Someone did this on purpose.

How am I going to workout in a room that is 100 degrees? Will I survive?

I had already unrolled my mat. I had already committed. There were witnesses.

So I stayed.

And even though it was hard. I turned out to love it.

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And here’s the thing about heat: it strips you. Your little internal performances. Your curated self. Heat doesn’t care about your narrative. Heat demands honesty. You can’t focus on the people are you if you are just sweating everything out.

Within minutes, I was sweating in places I didn’t know had sweat glands. My hair was performing its own tragic opera. My bangs are so sweaty that they are pushed back in a ponytail without a headband. Every inhale felt like drinking something invisible and boiling. But every breathe was relaxing.

But something else happened too.

My mind, usually a crowded hallway of competing monologues, went quiet. Not peaceful. Just quiet in the way a room goes quiet when everyone turns to look at the same thing. The heat became the only thing. The central fact. The scene partner I hadn’t rehearsed with but suddenly had to trust.

I stopped thinking about how I looked.
I stopped thinking about how I was doing.
I stopped thinking about doing at all.

Heat makes you honest because it removes your ability to pretend. You can’t fake your way through a plank when the air itself is pressing on you. You can’t intellectualize your way out of discomfort when your body is melting into the floor. You can’t perform competence when your heart is beating in your ears like a drumline.

You can only be there.
In your body.
In the moment.
In the climate.

There’s a strange intimacy in suffering with strangers. We weren’t talking, but we were absolutely in conversation. We all showed up and we are putting in the work to try to better ourselves.

And then, as quickly as it began, it was over.

When I stepped outside, the regular air felt like a gift. Cool, light, almost flirtatious. My body felt loose, molten, rearranged. Like someone had taken me apart and put me back together with softer edges.

I didn’t expect transformation. I expected a workout.
But heat teaches you things you don’t learn in regular rooms.

It teaches you that your body knows more than your brain. It teaches you that discomfort isn’t the enemy — it’s the doorway. It teaches you that you can stay longer than you think. It teaches you that sometimes the only way out is through. It teaches you that you are capable of surviving climates you didn’t prepare for.

I thought I would hate it but I actually can’t stop thinking about when I can go back to another heated class.