In Mr Baty's excellent book No Plot? No Problem! he recommends making a list - a Magna Carta, according to him - of things that you love in books.
It sounded like a fun thing to do. So here, in no particular order, are some things that send happiness into my shriveled little soul:
- snarky protagonists
- non-heroic heroes
- ...especially when they become heroic by the end
- ruthless villains
- the eighteenth century
- the nineteenth century (it should perhaps be noted that Mr Baty says he hates books set in the nineteenth century. Mr Baty, your tastes are FOREIGN TO MY NATURE. FOREIGN.)
- wuv, twoo wuv (MAWWAIGE! that bwessed awangement. that dweam... wivin... a dweam!)
- heroic outlaws and rebels
- characters that have to decide whether to follow the rules or do what's right
- footnotes
- rampant steampunkery
- faeries that are unpredictable and cruel ("no one ever said elves are nice. elves are bad." - terry pratchett)
- schools of magic
- best friends
- sword fights
- poetry
- unusual narrators
- chivalry
- cool hats
So there's my Magna Carta - that's not everything I like, but it's a fair beginning. What do you love in books?
(Also holy cake do you SEE that new header? Is it not gorgeous? It comes from the absolutely amazing Megan Kristine. I added the text using Paintbrush. The font is Courier.)
(Also also twenty-two thousand words.