Michael Clupper > Recent Status Updates

Update: the misunderstood beauty has left her home to live with a beastly man for the benefit of her father. Said beauty has just discovered a library and is delighted because she loves to read.

This is a new and interesting character concept

We spend chapter 19 journeying to Treow (pronounced tree-oh). As it turns out, tree-oh is called as such because it’s a town of tree houses. Tree-oh.

This might be more egregious than the reveal of “Starfall” in ACOMAF as a *meteor shower*

If you want me to take your narrative seriously, don’t name your deuteragonist first name “The” last name “Guardian”, and don’t call the most terrifying beast in your world a “grizzur”, because grizzur?

(Inhales breath)

I HARDLY KNOW H —

Romantasy: where blatant sexual harassment is passed off as flirtation and thus excused by a majority of consumers. This is a disproportionately problematic genre, y’all

“Don’t worry.. I’m not a flight risk.”

“DON’T WORRY, I’M NOT A FLIGHT RISK.”

That phrase emerged from the US legal system in the 1960s dawg, you can’t be throwing that around in your FANTASY BOOK. Christ Almighty who is editing these things

I’m about to summarize every paragraph in this book:
1. FMC makes a snippy comment or observation about Topic
2. FMC proceeds to ponder Topic by posing four different but related hypothetical questions about Topic, with question four being a sarcastic rephrasing of question 1.
3. MMC acts like he’s going to answer one question but doesn’t. FMC is mad and plots his violent death

Oh my GOD we’ve arrived at #NewExoticHotKingdom and EVERYONE IS WEARING PANTS. It’s all too much, too hot. Too *exotic*

The FMC just pondered whether she’s always been quite so violent, and whether this is how her older sister has “always been wired.”

“Always been wired”? As in electrical wires? As in the colloquialism that emerged in the late 20th century US?

Immersion is not at an all-time high here

Chapter 11: in which 10 minutes of audiobook time is dedicated to extolling the virtues of *checks notes* pants

What befuddles me about this genre is why any author would spend hours upon hours establishing a fantasy world — geography, magic, politics, monsters, etc — just to squander any and all immersion by having every character act/ speak as though they’re from the 21st century United States

Through exhaustive research, I have determined that every romantasy MMC is described as smelling of both 1) something harsh and masculine, and 2) something pleasant and sweet. Smoke and citrus. Leather and lavender. Charcoal and pine. My man’s out here smelling like machine oil and sour patch kids

Another Romantasy, another “Enemies-to-Lovers” story where the “enemies” are actually just two people who are — at the VERY most — mildly condescending towards each other for approximately 10 chapters

If the audiobook narrators for “Shield of Sparrows” entered a vocal fry competition against the average voice actor, it would likely be as competitive as Michael Phelps swimming against my 3-year-old daughter

Ah, yes. The old “I’m going to have a character arbitrarily withhold information so I can engineer a dramatic reveal later on” trope, otherwise known as the Matt Dinnaman special

Legit kudos to having a believable sibling relationship in place, not just all love or all hatred

The Guardian? You’d better believe he has liquid color-shifting eyes and has now been referred to as a jackass no fewer than 3 separate times

Oh, yeah… it’s all coming together

Odessa Cross? Xavier Wolfe?

I take it back we’re at the Rebecca Yarros school of naming conventions

Mmmmm, yummy. A healing helping of “tell, don’t show”: my favorite.

Bro we’re forced to wear all gray AND dye our super amazing unique red hair because it makes us look like our dead mom?

I wasn’t aware this many genre tropes could fit into a single FMC

Obligatory worldbuilding chapter? Check

Heavy handed symbolism? Double check

Alright, so we’ve just learned about “The Guardian”: a mysterious man with a bloody past who is also an incomparable warrior. He’s almost certainly the MMC but we won’t know for sure until we learn whether he has an arbitrarily abrasive personality and disarmingly beautiful eyes

Oooh HELL yeah. FMC is only allowed to wear gray dresses while her older conventionally better sister is allowed to wear all the colors?

We are taking the “suppression of agency and potential” trope to the absolute MAX today

Mf name is BANNER?

Someone’s been attending the Colleen Hoover school of character naming conventions.

For some reason, every Disney scriptwriter and Romantasy author has given the protagonists the Sammie narrative voice and verbal delivery direction: overly awkward, super stilted, utterly bemused by everyone and everything