Are dragons anthropomorphic?

This is a question I started asking myself today.  Why?  I have no idea. But since it seems like a good question I thought I'd share my thoughts here.

So what does Wikipedia say about it:

Anthropomorphism, or personification, is attribution of human form or other characteristics to anything other than a human being. Examples include depicting deities with human form and ascribing human emotions or motives to forces of nature, such as hurricanes or earthquakes.

Of note on the Wikipedia article is John Tenniel's depiction of the Rabbit in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.  I've just started reading this to my daughter and it's the first illustration in the book.

 Even the Owls of Ga'Hoole wear armour, write, live in houses etc


Bacl the question of Aslan and if there's a question of Aslan what of Draco?

Draco is probably my favourite movie dragon from my favourite dragon movie; Dragonheart.


So how much different. I ask you, is Draco to say Toothless? Toothless, from How to Train your Dragon, can't talk but he does manage to communicate with Hiccup and it would seem he can understand the boy as well.  But where Toothless comes across like a dog, albeit with wings and scales, Draco is represented as a much more human like being.  One that would sacrifice a part of himself to save another no less.  Is that act of self sacrifice a human act?

Or does a dragon have to be more human-esque to be considered anthropomorphic?  Do they have to be bipedal? Wear armour? Carry a weapon?

I don't have the answer. It's just a question I've been pondering today as I work on other things.

Maybe you have an opinion you'd like to share.

Casting Shadows Everywhere by L.T. Vargus
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I usually read fantasy and rarely read this sort of novel. But the last three books I have read, excluding a couple of cool Novellas, have been a bit of a let down. So I thought I'd try something a bit different.

This is the journal of a fifteen year old boy, Jake, and how a series of events turn his life upside down and inside out.

Extremely well written, LT Vargus, has done amazing work on creating a book that reads exactly like you would expect the journal of a 15 year old boy to read. Complete with expletives, random thoughts and other believable entries.

I found myself sucked into Jakes world and believing everything that happens to him. You get a wonderful insight into his mind as he learns from both his dysfunctional, criminal, cousin Nick and a college Psychology class he isn't even supposed to be undertaking.

The book starts out like a simple journal and much like a parabolic curve everything ramps up towards a climatic finish.

Overall a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Phil



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So as I close in on the time when I'm going to publish George and the Dragon my thoughts turn to book covers and what I think would make a decent book cover.

The first thing I did was to have a good search around on-line to see what there was out there.

There's a whole industry that appears to thrive on selling pre-made book covers.  To me this seems like writing a novel to fit the cover rather than the reverse.  While I have a found a stock picture I would like to be used as the cover for Second Chance At Happiness I would still rather pay to have someone turn that into a bespoke cover than go to a website and trawl through their pre-made covers trying to find one that 'loosely' fits the book.



I mean seriously do you think the book covers for any of the most popular books you can think of were just picked from a random list of covers on some website because they were cheep.

Take Harry Potter for example not only are the covers all bespoke through each series of covers there are common features.  Especially the primary colour set at the top.


I have decided, I think as it's not set in stone, to use a company that offers to both help with the cover design and getting the book on Kindle and Smashwords.  For me this makes the most sense as it will neatly tie up the end process of getting the book out to the masses.

Elf Killers by Carol Marrs Phipps
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

How big is a troll?

I ask because it's a relevant question. Time and time again I found myself wondering this while reading this book. It's a train of thought that was triggered during an early part of the elves flight from the trolls. It was one of the first inconsistencies that jared me the last one being the end which made no sense if I'm being honest.

While creating languages for the two races in the book was admirable they heavily over use it with the trolls. Two thirds of the way through the book I started to skip large parts of the troll dialog, much of which was repetition anyway, to save myself a headache.

The story is not bad but several things never made sense to me. For example why didn't the elves stay in the eastern woods instead of risking their lives in the Strah with troll killing birds?

Overall not a good read.

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What have I been up to lately?

Well it hasn't all been editing - although I should have done more than I have.   However, I have been pondering over a problem I have.

I own GeorgeAndTheDragon.co.uk which as part of the the book launch I will use to push the book.

However, if you clicked on that link you'll realise I haven't yet done anything with the website.  I don't have a book jacket/cover to show off and I don't even know what style of font the name of the book will end up using.  So I've been pondering what to do with the website in the meantime.

A couple of days ago I hit on the idea to turn it into a war-time newspaper. Into which I'm going to insert clues about the book and hidden links to an 'About Me' page and other bits as and when I add them.

Here's an original news paper from the period, although a little later in the war:




To give you a taster this is the heading I have designed for the website:


The adverts are based on real adverts from the period but the HP Sauce one had a wobbly border that I found difficult to reproduce.  The title is made up but loosely based on the Evening Standard.  The rest of the design is fairly typical of the period.   I may tweak it some more before I commit to it.

Hopefully by the end of the week I'll have the site up and running.

This highlights:

1. Overuse of common words such as: Could, Feel/Feeling/Felt, Initial-ing, Just/Then and Knew/Know to name but a few of the words it will highlight.
2. Grammar
3. Diction
4. Sentence Length
5. Writing Style

And much more besides.  It has helped me to improve the way George and the Dragon is written and hopefully that will make it a better reading experience.

I will never publish a book without first editing it with Pro Writing Aid.

*They've now placed a 3,000 word limit on their free accounts but that's still pretty decent as limits go.