Little Fires Everywhere: Who Did It Better?

Written by Carli Varble

It’s the age-old debate, do you prefer the miniseries or the book? Personally, I’m usually on team book. I probably spend an unhealthy amount of time dwelling on things that were changed for show, and I definitely spend an annoying amount of time talking about it to people who don’t really care. Cut to me in 2012 absolutely raging about how Effie Trinket said hat instead of buttons, my dad about ready to leave me at the movies. That being said, after watching the show and reading the novel Little Fires Everywhere, I am actually pretty on the fence of which I like more. So, I decided to write up a little comparison for myself, and for those of you who are also deeply invested in this debate. There will be spoilers ahead! You have been warned.

I think the main aspect that made me want to write about this was the relationship between Elena and Izzy. I watched the show first, and really remember disliking Elena a lot more because of how she treated Izzy. The show implies that Elena, an overwhelmed working mother, didn’t want another child, and that’s why she’s so terrible to Izzy. This made me hate Elena so much more. The fact that Elena was so cruel to Izzy (cutting her out of family pictures, actually telling her she wasn’t wanted) just made her character so much more irredeemable. Not that she isn’t also awful in the book, but the book paints a very different picture.

In the book, Elena’s criticisms of Izzy stem from Izzy being a premature baby with lots of health complications. While it doesn’t justify Elena’s actions, they definitely take on a bit of a different meaning especially with the absence of some of Elena’s crueler actions that are in the show. For this aspect, I am team book.

The next thing I want to talk about is the big blowout between Elena and Mia. If I’m being honest, the book left a lot to be desired. I finished this part of the book, and I was a little disappointed. For me, the fallout from the argument in the show really helped me see why Mia decided to leave Shaker Heights, but the argument in the book made me wonder why Mia—no nonsense, doesn’t care about other people’s opinions—decided that she had to leave. Yes, they were renting from the Richardson’s and working for them to cover the rent, but it was established that Mia didn’t need to work for the Richardson’s so why not just find a new apartment? I prefer clearer motivation, which I found in the show and not in the book. Point to team show!

Now I’ve got to address Lexie and Pearl. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I really think the show did Lexie wrong. She wasn’t stellar in the book, but like her mom, she was so much worse in the show. In the show, you miss out on Lexie taking Pearl shopping and the two lending clothes to each other. The book actually shows a friendship between the two rather than Lexie taking advantage of Pearl. Like Elena and Izzy’s relationship, this stems from one event. Book Pearl offers to write Book Lexie’s college admissions essay rather than Cinematic Lexie stealing Cinematic Pearl’s experience for her essay.

These are two drastically different events that show Lexie in two very different lights, which I guess is my big problem with it. Lexie is still not great in the book. She leaves Pearl at a party and uses Pearl’s name at the clinic, but it’s almost like the people behind the show were concerned we wouldn’t dislike the Richardson’s enough and had to make them worse, which brings up a whole other list of questions in my brain that I don’t have the time to cover in this piece. Point to team book for its portrayal of Lexie.

Lastly: that ending. Both the book and the show did great with the ending. Despite knowing the house was going to burn down, I was still pretty amazed with how they got there. There is just something about the plot twist in the show that just makes it slightly better than the book in my opinion. In the book, all signs point to Izzy the whole time. You get to the end and it plays out and you’re pretty satisfied. The show twists this on its head by making you think its Izzy, but it’s actually the other siblings.

I love this plot twist so much because it shows some good sibling solidarity that we don’t really get in the book. The book ends with Izzy leaving because she feels like she’s absolutely alone in the world, but the show ends with her siblings sticking up for her. You get the sense that the siblings have grown closer together rather than further apart which puts me on team miniseries for this aspect.

I have so many more thoughts about the show and the book, but these were the things that stuck out the most to me. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the show and reading the book, and definitely recommend both to anyone looking for something to watch or read. Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Sprinting Through Writers Block

Written by Abigail Beard

Let’s face it: Writing is hard.

It doesn’t matter who you are or how long you’ve been writing. It takes a lot of focus to sit down and write a draft, and it sometimes seems all but impossible, especially if the paper is more than a page long. And with social media easily accessible, it’s easy to get distracted; ten minutes go by, then a half hour, then a full hour, and the page (and our minds) are still blank.

I expressed my problem with staying focused and meeting my word count with my writing mentor, Kayla Olson, and asked her how she is able to finish a book draft on time. Her response:

Try Writing Sprints!

Writing Sprints is a technique many authors, journalists, and writers use to maximize their writing time and decrease their distractions while writing.

Here’s how it works:

1. Set a timer for 15 – 20 minutes, depending on how comfortable you are with writing and how you’re feeling that day. If you’re feeling discouraged or daunted, try setting the timer for 15 minutes. If you’re feeling great and you’re just struggling to put words down, go for 20!
2. Once you start the timer, write! Don’t worry about whether what you’re writing is “good” or not—just write. Get those thoughts down, and try your best not to stop until you hear that timer go off!
3. Give yourself a 5 – 10-minute break (this is your time to check Instagram and TikTok, stretch, get some water, or refill your coffee or tea).
4. Repeat!

I’m a fairly slow writer. It takes me a while to get into a groove where my thoughts really start coming to me and my fingers start flying across my keyboard. But when I started incorporating Writing Sprints into my writing routine, I went from writing about 700 -1,000 words in an hour of writing time to writing between 1,500 – 2,000 words in an hour of writing time. For me, that’s a lot, and it was a sign that Writing Sprints worked and was something I needed to do more often.

Benefits of Writing Sprints:

You’ll find that the more sprints you do, the better you train your brain to produce words when you sit down at your computer. The brain is a muscle, too, and it takes consistent training to become a better writer, just like it takes consistent exercise to train your body to run a 5k.

You’ll make the most of your writing time. Which would you rather do? Write for an hour straight, or write for a 15 – 20-minute chunk of time, and repeat that a couple times? Writing for a focused 15 – 20 minutes seems way more manageable to me. And knowing that I get a quick break after I work hard makes the time fly!

Extra Tip:

When she advised I try Writing Sprints, Kayla told me about an app called Forest that she uses during the time she’s writing. The purpose of it is that you set the amount of time you cannot look at your phone (the same time as your writing sprint), and you plant a tree. If you open your phone, you kill the tree. If you don’t, and you keep planting a tree each time you “sprint,” you grow a forest! It’s a great incentive to not touch your phone during your Writing Sprint!

Take it slow. Start writing for 15 minutes and give yourself a 10-minute break, and then as you become accustomed to Writing Sprints, try adding an extra 5 minutes to your sprint! That being said, don’t force it. If you’re not feeling it that day, don’t push yourself to write for 20 minutes. Write for 15 minutes, or even 10 minutes. If 10 minutes is all you’re able to manage that day, then you wrote for 10 minutes, and that’s infinitely better than nothing.

Writing is hard. That’s a fact of the game, but you now have another trick in your writing arsenal. The next time writing gets hard, get comfortable, set a timer, shut off your phone, and Sprint!