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**This journal really is just an excuse to use another skin. lol**

I've known this about myself for a while but recently had my first conversation about it with a friend on Friday night.

It's apparent to me, and possibly to you too, that I love Allusions and Puzzles. Not only in my stories, but in other stories. (I can't WAIT to see Sherlock Holmes.)
For those of you who don't know what an Allusion is; it's basically a reference to something well known. So Aslan from The Chronicles of Narnia would be an Allusion because he represents Jesus. (He's actually more of an Allegory, but we'll save that for another time.)


Enemy of Me is my first stab at really using allusions to the fullest and I think it's ok. Well, as ok as documenting the behaviors of a narcissistic doctor-wannabe and his psychotic patient can be.
I chose Jekyll and Hyde because they're well known but not often used.

Another Allusion project I'm working on is a 4 Horsemen story. I've actually set up an outline for this one because it's so complicated.
Simply put, the four horsemen are not so much the bringers of the world's end as they are bringers of balance. Using their abilities; war, famine, pestilence and death, they tread the world in search of places where evil's hand has a little too much leverage over good.
Why don't they ever bring down the hand of good when it has leverage? Because among humans, good never peaks for long.
In that story I also plan to use the Oracles or "See no evil, Speak no evil and Hear no evil" as well as the seven deadly sins.



I use Allusions because the answer is given to you all at once, you just have to know what to look for to get it.
And I use Puzzles because the answer could be locked deep within the plot, given unexpectedly or not there at all.
Together, I find these two amazing in a story.

I want to write books that intrigue the mind, not for people to just pick up and breeze through them like cold cereal on Saturday morning. (What?) I mean I do want to write books that are moderately paced, young adult novels, but I want to make people think. I want people to learn from what I've written.
It's always comforting when you find that you recognize the allusions in a story while you learn from putting its puzzle together.

Also: Pulchritude; Noun. Meaning luster, the glory of, magnificence, great beauty.
There's your vocab for the day.

~Owari