In the book reading community, across the board, there’s an argument that I’ve seen prevail, and it’s about young adult books: books that are written with a target audience of people who are between 13 and 18 years old. I’ve heard and read tons of different arguments regarding whether or not these books are good or bad as a whole, so I decided to take some time, do some research, and put together a post about this idea that YA books are objectively bad by default.

ount. Today, I want to talk about some of the things that I’ve learned from writing so much (and I have written a lot). I’ll be listing five things that I wish I had known a decade ago, so this is something of a letter to the version of myself that hadn’t quite received his first writing award, yet. Hopefully, if you’re a writer who’s just starting out and looking for some help, this will be exactly what you need!

Dark content has been prevalent in stories of all kinds for a long time. However, it hasn’t always been as pervasive or in-your-face as it seems to be today. It seems like we can’t turn on a show, go see a movie, play a game, or open a book without experiencing content that’s aggressively dark or grim hitting our eyes at some point during the story. This is something I’ve seen ramping up lately, particularly with the success of shows like Game of Thrones. The question I want to ask today is… do stories need dark or controversial content? Are violence, gore, sex, drugs, trauma, and other topics that have been considered taboo in the past necessary for stories? Do they improve the stories overall, or would the stories be better if this content were cut?

Today, I’m going to provide you with a couple of tips for setting up your space to ensure that you are going to have a successful writing period. These are all things that help me stay focused during a time that I’ve set aside for writing. My hope is that some of them will help you, too!

Today, I’ll be talking about the top three stories that I experienced in 2021. These can be across any medium, books, movies, games, etc. I’ll list off some honorable mentions to start, then I’ll get into the top three. It’s important to note that I am selecting from stories I experienced for the first time in 2021, not necessarily stories that came out, last year. Especially since I had some catching up to do with books and the like, I mainly read, watched, or played stories that were a year or two old, rather than new releases. That said, let’s get into my list, beginning with honorable mentions! Every story I mention will be linked if you’d like to experience it for yourself.