Dan Brown - Tumblr Posts
(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3fvfe4tgQ0)
Here is part 2 of my current TBR pile, this time regarding book series! Man oh man, am I going to be busy this year!
And I’m so looking forward to it!
What I learned from Dan Browns Free MasterClass Session
Check out the full video on Youtube.
“If you can sit down and write, you’re nowhere near the end of your ability. […] I wasn’t born knowing this [writing] I learned it by making mistakes, reading writers who do it much better than I do and saying, wow I love the way they do that, I want to pull that into what I do.”
– Dan Brown
“Protect the process and the results will take care of themselves”: Writing is 90% routine and just 10% inspiration – a marathon, not a sprint! Create a space in which you can be creative.
“Make it important to yourself”: Writing has to be a project, a priority which importance you have to enforce with yourself and your surroundings. And sometimes that’s hard and uncomfortable.
“every story has been told”: We know the hero will safe the day, but it’s all about how things happen! You get a template on which you can apply your creativitiy and voice.
“be honest with your reader”: creative liberties are alright (e.g. in historical fiction), but you have to be upfront with your reader about what is accurate according to your research and what is your creativity.
“the three C’s” for great stories: clock (time pressure, e.g. a time bomb), crucible (a box that encloses the action, restrain characters and make them face their demons, e.g. a sinking boat), contract (every page should be a promise to the reader: “I know something you don’t know and if you turn the page I promise I will tell you”).
“sticking to the right POV let’s you play fair with the reader in withholding information”: omniscient narrators owe it to the reader to spill a secret the POV character knows – if somebody has a secret that shouldn’t be told yet, stick to another POV
“whichever character has the most to loose, that’s the one you write from”: whoever is the most emotionally stimulated, just found out something upsetting or is in danger, tends to be the most interesting POV.
“I wanna do this better tomorrow”: If something doesn’t work out at first, come back later and give it more creativity, tell yourself that you can make it better to stay motivated, take it as a challenge!
“The way you spark creativity is to empty your mind”: meditation, taking a walk in nature, turn of television/smartphone, whatever let’s you be blank, your mind doesn’t like to be empty, so it will make something to fill itself up.
“Setting the table for breakfast”: Before you end your writing session, start the first paragraph for the next session – it will keep you from going back and being stuck on the last things you wrote.
“You always want people looking in the wrong direction”: Never underestimate your reader! They can tell that the person the author is shining a spotlight on is the red herring. Create a second red herring character on the sidelines who the reader could pick up on as the villain.
“The Michaelangelo way of writing”: At the first stage of writing start with many clues, make sure all the information is there. You can take unnecessary or overdone clues away during editing. It’s easier to take things away than it is to add them.
“I’m always trying to get out of a scene before it’s over”: rather than wraping everything up in a nice bow – get out before the bow is tied. A later chapter can tie up the bow of something that happened a few chapters back! You’re simultaneously solving a problem and posing a new problem. Introduce and answer questions as you go to keep things satisfying. It’s all about tension and release.
Just Imagine that !!!
~The Da Vinci Code & Angels & Demons by Dan Brown :) <3
I love Robert Langdon lol xD
I own Lost Symbol & Inferno as well
Faith ― acceptance of which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove
Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code
The Da Vinci Code Versus The Gospels
By Eli Kittim 🎓
Bart Ehrman was once quoted as saying: “If Jesus did not exist, you would think his brother would know it.” This is an amusing anecdote that I’d like to use as a springboard for this short essay to try to show that it’s impossible to separate literary characters from the literature in which they are found. For example, when Ehrman says, “If Jesus did not exist, you would think his brother would know it,” his comment presupposes that James is a real historical figure. But how can we affirm the historicity of a literary character offhand when the so-called “history” of this character is solely based on, and intimately intertwined with, the literary New Testament structures? And if these literary structures are not historical, what then? The fact that the gospels were written anonymously, and that there were no eyewitnesses and no firsthand accounts, and that the events in Jesus’ life were, for the most part, borrowed from the Old Testament, seems to suggest that they were written in the literary genre known as theological fiction. After all, the gospels read like Broadway plays!
Let me give you an analogy. Dan Brown writes novels. All his novels, just like the gospels, contain some historical places, figures, and events. But the stories, in and of themselves, are completely fictional. So, Ehrman’s strawman argument is tantamount to saying that if we want to examine the historicity of Professor Robert Langdon——who is supposedly a Harvard University professor of history of art and symbology——we’ll have to focus on his relationship with Sophie Neveu, a cryptologist with the French Judicial Police, and the female protagonist of the book. Ehrman’s earlier anecdote would be akin to saying: “if Robert Langdon did not exist, you would think Sophie would know it.”
But we wouldn’t know about Robert Langdon if it wasn’t for The Da Vinci Code. You can’t separate the character Robert Langdon from The Da Vinci Code and present him independently of it because he’s a character within that book. Therefore, his historicity or lack thereof depends entirely on how we view The Da Vinci Code. If The Da Vinci Code turns out to be a novel (which in fact it is), then how can we possibly ask historians to give us their professional opinions about him? It’s like asking historians to give us a historical assessment of bugs bunny? Was he real? So, as you can see, it’s all based on the literary structure of The Da Vinci Code, which turns out to be a novel!
By comparison, the historicity of Jesus depends entirely on how we view the literary structure of the gospel literature. Although modern critical scholars view the gospels as theological documents, they, nevertheless, believe that they contain a historic core or nucleus. They also think that we have evidence of an oral tradition. We do not! There are no eyewitnesses and no firsthand accounts. All we have about the life and times of Jesus are the gospel narratives, which were composed approximately 40 to 70 years after the purported events by anonymous Greek authors who never met Jesus. And they seem to be works of theological fiction. So where is the historical evidence that these events actually happened? We have to believe they happened because the gospel characters tell us so? It’s tantamount to saying that the events in The Da Vinci Code actually happened because Robert Langdon says so. But if the story is theological, so are its characters. Thus, the motto of the story is: don’t get caught up in the characters. The message is much more important! As for those who look to Josephus’ Antiquities for confirmation, unfortunately——due to the obvious interpolations——it cannot be considered authentic. Not to mention that Josephus presumably would have been acquainted with the gospel stories, most of which were disseminated decades earlier.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to downplay the seriousness of the gospel message. I’m simply trying to clarify it. The gospels are inspired, but they were never meant to be taken literally. I’m also a believer and I have a high view of scripture. The message of Christ is real. But when will the Jesus-story play out is not something the gospels can address. Only the epistles give us the real Jesus!
dan brown really said the true holy grail is all the french cryptologists friends we fell in love with irresponsibly and unnecessarily made along the way
Detective Elizabeth "Lizzie" Needham from CBS Instinct (United States of America)
Krystyna Kaminski from Fireman Sam (United Kingdom)
Anna Mikhailovna from Servant of the People (Ukraine)
Astrid Hofferson-Haddock from How to Train Your Dragon (United States of America/Scandinavia/Canada)
Dr. Vittoria Vetra from Dan Brown's Robert Langdon series (United States of America)
If you don't find this man attractive, I just might have to whack you upside the head.
If Brenner really is in Italy this season, I wonder what his reasons for being there are.
The only theory I have is that he might be on some Robert Langdon-esque fact finding adventure where he discovers the origins of the demogorgon and the Upside Down.
I know a lot of people hate dan brown books but honestly I don't get why people need to trash talk them. They are no masterpieces but they are a fun read that gets you invested. Obviously fictional and no way realistic but just great to actually stay motivated to read. It doesn't need to be serious and deep reading all the time.
And then shitting on what he writes about?! Yeah if you don't like it move on and find a different author with a different style and genre if you think he writes nonsense. I think he actually does a lot of research for his books since they have a historical core even if it's embellished with lots of made up conspiracies. But then again if you can differentiate between reality and fiction and go with the flow it's a pleasurable read in my opinion.
Everyone should be allowed to read what they want and to not fear what others may say. That's true for anything really. From high fantasy to romance novels. Reading is reading and should be always looked upon as a good thing.