Salsa1 essays

Salsa1 essays Since Columbus discovered America and the slave trade began, music has always been a very important part of the Cuban culture. Cubas strategic position in the Caribbean, made it a real crossroad for all the trades between Central and North America and for most of the incoming slave ships from Africa. Cuba became a sponge that absorbed and processed all the surrounding music influences and all the incoming African rhythms and melodies. Since those days the music has mutated many times and through out the years one genres of music gave birth to new ones one of the most resent of those mutations has been called Salsa. The history of salsa is no only limited to Cuba but it extends to Puerto Rico and New York. In the last few years salsa has reached even the most unthinkable places of the world. Since Columbus came to America and brought with him the colonization of Las Americas, music has been a rich part of Cuban culture. When Spanish colonists started the trade of African slaves, the history of salsa music began. Given to Cubas crossroad position between North America, South America, the Old World and the New World most of the slave trading that occurred in the New World was done in Cuba. As consequence of this Cuba basically absorbed the cultures and religions from surrounding islands in the Caribbean and all the traditions and music that came from Africa. The real development of salsa music genre came from a series of music mutations when in the late 1800 the guaguanco or Santeria music started to make its way out from the sugar plantations to rural peoples lifes and then to the cities. The first music style that had its roots in guaguanco or Afro melody was a music genre named danzon but as all genres it slowly mutated. In the 1920s, the son, a faster, more danceable version of the older danzon was making it self to the top, but the classic ballrooms rejected it. However, Cub...

Im Writing a Trilogy (and How You Can, Too)

Im Writing a Trilogy (and How You Can, Too) Why I'm Writing a Trilogy - and Maybe You Should, Too After graduating with a degree in Biological Anthropology, Kara Timmins is now bringing her keen interest in evolutionary processes and natural systems into the fantasy genre with her first major release, Eloy's Discovery - book one in a trilogy. In this article, she talks about the power of three when it comes to storytelling, and offers tips for telling a cohesive, dynamic story in three parts. We can see evidence of the satisfaction found in groups of three all around us: Earth, Wind Fire; Lock, Stock, and Barrel (or Lock, Shock, and Barrel for you Nightmare Before Christmas fans); or The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. It’s everywhere.To sum up: people like trios.Now, enough about the mind and 600-year old art. Let’s talk about structuring a trilogy.The structure of my trilogyIt’s not an accident that my series is comprised of three books. Consumers are primed to understand and appreciate things in threes: as readers, we’re looking for ways to link, group, and interpret stories. This is an opportunity for writers, and I kept these expectations in mind while writing my series, The Eloy Trilogy.Each book in the trilogy is titled after a different phase of life: Discovery, Challenge, and Legacy, and is meant to feel like a different part of life. Within that framework, I’ve also broken up the three stories into three different obstacles: book one is man vs. circumstance, book two is man vs. man, and book three is man vs. nature.While it is a fantasy with magic and monsters, the structure of the novel is intended to represent familiar and relatable stages of life. A first love is a first love - whether you’re fighting ground-dwelling creatures or trying to get through sixth period in high school.Filling in the gaps between sequels and prequelsThe story is broken up into three for the reader, but not for Eloy, my protagonist. For Eloy, it’s just his life. Recognizing the distinction between what the reader sees and what the character sees helps create a sense of a gradient (another thing our minds like). For me, that transition is the best way to include parts of what happened in the past book into the next one in the series, without having to rely on an â€Å"info dump.† Eloy is a person, and though he lives and struggles in a world very different from our own, his underlying structure is the same as someone living: his past doesn’t fall away from him. He uses what has happened to him to try and make sense of the present and predict the future. This is where that gradient lives, in his reflection of the past and his actions based on that. Bringing a character's past into their present is the best way to avoid info-dumps in a book series. Finding the right editor for my trilogyIncorporating these layers feels like a lot - and it is! It’s hard to monitor cohesion when we’re shoulder-deep in a lump of clay on the spinning wheel.One of the most important aspects of writing The Eloy Trilogy was finding an editor willing to believe in the intention I have for this story. And I have found that in Chersti Nieveen. Chersti provides me guidance by steering my voice; she elevates it and keeps it on course. She knows what I’m trying to do, and more importantly, she knows what the audience wants. She’s there for me when a small change in book one causes rippling edits in book three: like combing out tangles, and just as painful.We’re united in our effort to link the business with the art, and, like Eloy surrounding himself with those who thrive where he is weak, it’s how I can foresee following this journey to the end. The rule of three has been used in storytelling for centuries. Read how it can benefit your book. The possibilities of what we can do using this already established structure of three are limitless. Readers will forgive us for selling three books when there’s a reason for it; when we’re giving them more than three free-floating stories. We may not be Hieronymus Bosch, but we can give them art.Eloy's Discovery, the first book in The Eloy Trilogy, is available in paperback and on Amazon Kindle.For more tips on writing a trilogy, check out our past Reedsy Live video: Writing a Genre Series: The Perils and Pitfalls.Please share your thoughts, experiences, or any questions for Kara Timmins in the comments below!