Thanks to Susan over at Novel Lives for this tag! I love This or That tags – it’s always good when you have to decide between two things! This is my first time answering this tag on my blog, as I’ve answered them before on my bookstagram.
Let’s go!
1. Series or standalone?
I think series are more fitted for fantasy (as there’s so much of the world and the characters you can tell) and standalones (and then also standalone sequels), are more fitted for contemporary – as each book can be focused on another character and their own story.
But if you’re asking me for my personal preference – I love series!
2. Magic Earned or Magic Born?
I prefer Magic Earned a little bit more than Magic Born (says she who’s writing a YA Fantasy WIP where the one main character is Magic Born). With Magic Earned you get to see them learning the magic, studying to become better. I’m not saying Magic Born isn’t good – it does have its perks – the character is probably more familiar with the magic, with their limits, maybe even have family members that’ve passed the magic gene down to them and therefore can pass down all their knowledge.
3. Enemies to lovers or friends to lovers?
I love love love enemies to lovers!! Don’t get me wrong, friends to lovers are really cool. But there’s just something about reading banter between ‘enemies’ (and by enemies I mean they’re saying ‘I hate you’ but what they really mean is ‘Please date me’) – like this is what I love!
4.Hilarious Banter or Emotional Ruin?
You can pry both of these from my cold, dead hands. I live for my hilarious banter but I just also live for my emotional ruin – do you see the problem? And of course the problem is when both of them are in the same book, and they’re both fantastic. Like you’ll fall on the floor with laughter the one moment and then the next you’re just clutching your hearts trying not to cry at like 2 in the morning (the struggle is real, okay?)
5. Love triangle or insta love?
I’d honestly rather have neither. I find instalove sort of…unrealistic and so often love triangles are just done wrong or the person ends up with the wrong person.
6. Keyboard smash names or names that all start with the same letters?
Keyboard smash names definitely. I mean I get confused with my main characters and they’re basically at the opposite ends of the alphabet!
And then with the keyboard smash victims (I mean characters), you more than often get a pronunciation guide in the book/author’s website etc that tells you how to pronounce it – and I definitely like that.
7. Mean parents or dead parents?
How about alive and good parents? Parents that are there for the characters and parents who listen to their kids?
8.Supermodel looks or constantly saying how “plain” they are?
I’m going to go with neither. I’m not a big person on how the character looks. Yes, I do like to know how they look, but for some reason when I read books, the characters just appear to me as faceless? DON’T ASK ME WHY, I DON’T KNOW. I know it sounds creepy, I’m most likely creeped out but it’s…been this way as long as I can remember?
9) Face on cover or typography on cover?
Typography!! I love to see all the different fonts and sometimes the typography matches the genre of the book – which is just really cool.
10) Villain turning a little good or hero turning a little bad?
I mean, I love when heroes do something that they wouldn’t necessarily do – but they do do it because it’s the right thing to do or it’s the only thing to do in the situation – because it shows you that not all people are perfect, and that people can, in moments of desperation; perform an act that is usually completely outside their comfort zone.
However, on the other side, I’m a huge fan of Once Upon a Time and therefore know that it is possible for the villains to become good.
11) Best friend dies or love dies?
Neither? I don’t really like where the death of a loved one (platonic or romantic) is used as a plot point.
12) Awesome writing with a dull plot or amazing plot with murderously bad writing?
Oh gosh, this is such a difficult one. I don’t want the awesome writing if the plot’s going to bore me to death; but neither do I want the amazing plot with murderously bad writing… So if I had to choose between the two, I would just close both books and choose a good one.
13) Cliffhanger ending or heartbreaking ending?
Cliffhangers!! I’d rather have the heartbreak earlier in the novel but I’d want to end with a good cliffhanger that makes me want to reach for the next book instantly.
14) Breaking the spine or dog-earing the pages?
I actually think breaking the spine of a book is inevitable – unless you only half open it and then have to read the book at an awkward angle.
Now with the dog-earing – if it’s a library book or a friend’s book, I’ll use a bookmark (and by bookmark I mean anything that can remotely be a bookmark). But if it’s my book, I dog-ear it all over.
15) “Bad boy” trope or “perfect golden boy” trope as the love interest?
This is definitely a question where I’m passing on both. Both are uninteresting and overused? But I’m glad that they seem to be phasing out of books.
Well, there you are! There’s all my answers! What do you think of it? Tell me down below in the comments! If you want to join in on this tag, feel free to say I tagged you!
I agreed with you and most of these! Also, yay! Once Upon a Time!
Really what gets me annoyed is just how the Plain girl attracts everyone, I mean, yea she can be amazing but they like insta fall in love with her and it just has me wondering ‘what guy who looks like Leonardo DiCaprio is like yes, I love that mousy quiet unobtrusive chick that I’ve never spoken to in my life’
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I actually still have to finISH Ouat but you know let’s not get into all the tv series I have to watch now. Lol yeah I think if more guys looked like Leo the world would be cooler. Completely Plain Girl goes on and on about how unpretty she is and then my eyes just glaze over and I skip whenever she talks about her looks. And then of course she has a makeover (and if she’s wearing glasses they go off because obviously glasses are unattractive) and suddenly everyone loves her.
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“How about alive and good parents?” YES PLEASE! We really really don’t have enough of them in YA for some reason.
I agree with a lot of your answers! I’m all about the series life, and also about the enemies to lovers trope although friends to lovers is cool too. I have to disagree on keyboard smash names because like I never bother to look at pronunciation so I just make up sounds and then when I hear people talk about the book I’m like WHAT NO THAT’S NOT HOW YOU SAY IT even though I am clearly in the wrong xD But I guess keyboard smash names do work for fantasy?
I like magic born but then needs refining through magic learning… Such a nice balance there ^.^
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We don’t! Maybe it’s because some of the more popular series have dead/bad parents (Harry Potter, Star Wars, etc etc) and so people think it’ll work? And yes, it does, but so do alive and good parents!
I pronounce various characters names in such a way that when I hear how they’re meant to be pronounced I just…ignore them and keep on saying it the way I said it (unless it’s an ethnic name, then I make sure to look up the pronunciation.
Thanks! Magic learning does always lend a hand to magic born – which sort of ties into Magic Earned, which just means more magic for the reader!
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Nice tag! I did a Dutch version of this tag back in 2017 🙂
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Thanks! I saw that – I really liked your answers!
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haha I love how half your answers are “…neither”? and I do agree with you on a lot of these, they’re really difficult choices!
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They are! And some of them weren’t exactly a clear choice, so it was either make a really hard choice or just choose something different.
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Great answers! I have to agree with you on a lot of them. I totally LOL’d at the “name smash” question, though. (I’ve never heard it termed that way. But boy, now do some names come to mind that were probably conjured this way.) Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
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Thanks! Whenever I think of keyboard smash names I always think of Kvothe – from The Kingkiller Chronicles from Patrick Rothfuss? I mean, honestly, I love the books but what is that name?!
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Ohhh! Idk if I did that exact this or that one before … if not i’ll probably steal it xD nice answers!
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There’s always room for more tags! Thanks!
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I loved this post and your answers. I’ll probably choose magic earned but magic born is the plot material. And alive and well parents is the best way to write!!! Great post
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Thanks! Magic born does seem to have the better plot, though. I can’t really remember any good Magic Earned books right now?
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Honest , I haven’t heard a book with magic earned . Most just say they’re born and improvise….
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That is true – born and improvise deal. But then again you do get those characters who come into contact with something and get their powers – Magic Sprung? I don’t know what to call it…
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Oh that’s an interesting tag. I guess I prefer awesome writing with a dull plot and hate cliffhangers, but aside from that, I agree with you on pretty much all of these, especially the romance ones and more living, loving parents in fantasy. Please, writers, fewer orphans.
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I do understand the choice behind awesome writing with a dull plot – meaning that you might be distracted by the bad plot if the writing’s good. And definitely fewer orphans!
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