Living In A Painting

Understanding The Plot of Your Book

Sounds silly doesn’t it? ‘Of course I understand my book’, I hear you say, I would have said the same before. You might be right, but here is a very simple exercise/test to ensure that you do:

One line summaries. 

Previously, these words invoked a feeling of dread in my soul but they don’t need to! It all changed once I started to follow this easy structure:

While struggling with their everyday life, Character finds the catalyst; BUT when the stakes rise they must learn the theme before the consequences ruin their life. 

Let’s take The Hunger Games for example: 

With her family on the brink of starvation, 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen must leave them and take her sister’s place in the Hunger Games, an annual event where 24 teenagers fight to the death until only one survives; But when she is hunted by a pack of elite, highly trained tributes, she must learn who she can trust and form an alliance before they kill her and her family are left to rot.

Well damn, that sounds dramatic and enticing, but it also lays out our characters life, wants and challenges all in a single (albeit rather long) sentence. 

After writing my one line summary, I began to understand my plot in a much clearer light. I understand my theme, my focus and it allows me to ground my plot as I edit my manuscript. I only wish I’d known to do it before!

Whatever stage your at—drafting, editing, querying—I highly recommend you give this a try. Feel free to drop a one sentence summary of your WIP below as getting feedback is always really helpful! I’m there much could be done to improve the one line summary I’ve given above, so feel free to improve on that too. 

[If reposting to Instagram please credit @isabellestonebooks] 

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how i got a 29 the first time i took the act

i just wanted to give you guys some tips! not all of these work for everyone though so keep that in mind. also, i am going to take the test again in april for those interestedin knowing

to preface: i took the test while pretty sick and it was the morning after the opening night for a Christmas dinner i do each year, so i got maybe 6 hours of sleep. not the best conditions

my scores

composite score of 29

english score of 31

mathematics score of 26

reading score of 31

science score of 29

science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) score of 28

understanding complex texts of “above proficient”

progress toward career readiness of “progress toward gold level NCRC”

some general tips

choose a test center close to you. you will not want to wake up for the test. you will not want to drive there. it doesnt matter if youre unfamiliar with the place, people will be there to help you. but bring your own pencils and an eraser, they probably wont help you with those.

try to get as much sleep as possible. i didnt get much so to force myself awake i took a cold shower, but no caffeine because i feared crashing.

my breakfast that day was just some poptarts while i drove to the testing center, but i started to get hungry during the break. for the next test, im going to plan better and eat some cereal or toast.

take advantage of all leftover time. for me this meant going back to the questions i was super unsure of and making sure im satisfied with my answer choice as well as making sure all bubbles on my answer sheet were filled in enough. it also meant taking 5 minute naps where i drooled on the test booklet a little. oops?

use your break wisely. the testing center i was at had vending machines so i borrow a dollar from my friend and ate some m&m’s as a pick me up. i also put a bunch of cough drops in my jacket pocket. after i did this in the span of like 3 minutes i went back to my room and took a nap.

take advantage of the fact that everything is multiple choice (except the essay portion, obviously) because it reallycomes in handy.

i didnt really struggle with nerves because i went into the test with the mindset “i get what i get”. i had done what i felt was necessary to prepare and i knew this wouldnt be my last time. realistically, my act or sat score could be the thing that keeps me from entering my dream college (a school with a 7% admission rate and average act score of 34) but i am happy with my other choices of colleges. i have done all that i can do (which in this case was like.. 3 days of studying).

my biggest overall tip: know what the test will be like. know the order of the tests, the number of questions, and the time limits. this will leave no surprises. i was really glad i did this because i always knew what was coming.

tips for individual portions

english portion

75 multiple choice questions with four possible answers in 45 minutes.

dont read the entirety of the passage! read the first paragraph and the last paragraph before you read the questions then for each question skim for the info you need to properly answer the question. this allows you to spend more time with each question and to focus only on whats necessary.

brush up on word groups like there/their/they’re, it’s/its, and two/too/to. a lot of these questions are about following grammatical rules.

math portion

60 multiple choice questions with five possible answers in 60 minutes.

do what you know first. i almost ran out of time because i couldnt remember some things and spent too long on them so when i got to questions i knew at the end i was rushing and panicking and probably got some wrong.

if youre not sure how to do a problem, guess and check to the best of your abilities. guess and check works wonders.

reading portion

40 multiple choice questions with four possible answers in 35 minutes.

tbh i thought this was really similar to the english part so similar tips. but if the passage is on the short side, just read the whole thing.

science portion

40 multiple choice questions with four possible answers in 35 minutes.

real talk, i thought i bombed this portion like i walked out thinkin it was the reason id do so badly.

do NOT treat this like the english and reading portions! read the entirety of everything! redraw, rewrite, and rename things if you need to!

this part really focuses on graph interpretation and they will try to screw you over so hard with names of things. make sure you know how to interpret graphs well.

this was the only section where i rechecked every single answer. i was so used to the sat that i didnt know how to handle a science portion. it freaked me out.

essay portion

1 essay based on a promot in 40 minutes.

i didnt actually take this part because the only college on my list that says anything about it just recommends it and that school happens is my safety college. if youre really confident it will help your composite score, then take it. i chose not to mainly because im lazy and i didnt want to take the risk of it hurting my score even though i thought it could help since i write pretty strong essays, even under time constraints like id experience on the test.

some final tips

the act company sells a book. buy the book. its genuinely super helpful and im so glad i chose to buy it. i know some people use ones from outside sources, but i dont trust those as much. the official book is actually where i got a lot of my tips from.

take the test multiple times. i took the test in december because i knew i was unfamiliar with the formatting and wanted to have a basis for comparing my april score too. if i still am not happy with my april score, i plan on retaking it during the summer.

pay the extra $20 dollars to get your answers sent to you. it is quite literally the easiest and fastest way to see what you need to focus and improve on.

if you know youre taking the test, sign up as soon as possible. at the very least, sign up before youd have to pay the late fee.

dont add your picture until its like almost the last day. im the kind of person who changes uo my appearance often, specifically my hair color. if i uploaded a picture for the april date now, id be blonde in the picture even though ill probably have brown hair when i take the test.

a reminder

dont peace your self worth on this test. could it impact what college you go to? sure. but whether or not you did student council could too. im very proud of my score, but its not my end all be all. im more proud of the way i fold clothes or how organized my closet is than my act score.

good luck on all your tests everyone ❤️💕

Seven Deadly Sins Playlist

Lana’s songs that depict the Seven Deadly Sins

Envy

Jealous Girl

Serial Killer

Kinda Outta Luck

Sad Girl

Roses

She’s Not Me

The Other Woman

Gluttony

Lolita

Big Bad Wolf

Betty Boop Boop

Cherry

Summer Wine

Delicious

Young and Beautiful

Greed

National Anthem

Off To The Races

Money Power Glory

Fucked My Way Up To The Top

Other Woman

Go Go Dancer

Hundred Dollar Bill

Lust

Be My Daddy

Hot Hot Hot

Behind Closed Doors

Cola

Paradise

Burning Desire

Push Me Down

Pride

Junky Pride

Delicious

Disco

Summer of Sam

Smarty

You’re Gonna Love Me

Playground

Sloth

Television Heaven

Music To Watch Boys

Boarding School

This Is What Makes Us Girls

Last Girl On Earth

Dark Paradise

Tomorrow Never Came

Wrath

Noir

Is This Happiness

Tired Of Singing The Blues

Ultraviolence

In My Feelings

Your Girl

Honeymoon

unmade playlist

The gluttony ones are literally just ones that mention food

I like reqursts

Timothée Chalamet + photoshoots (2017)

Photo by Júnior Guimarães on Flickr.

dropbox containing linguistics textbooks

contains 34 textbooks including etymology, language acquisition, morphology, phonetics/phonology, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, & translation studies

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contains 86 language textbooks including ASL, Arabic, (Mandarin) Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Hebrew (Modern & Ancient), Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovene, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, Welsh

dropbox containing books about language learning

includes fluent forever by gabriel wyner, how to learn any language by barry farber, polyglot by kató lomb

if there’s a problem with any of the textbooks or if you want to request materials for a specific language feel free to message me!