roseisabooknerd-rooknerd

[roseisabooknerd-rooknerd]

i dont think that people actually dislike 'fluff' in writing its just that not many people know how to write characters well when nothing high stakes is happening and therefore the scenes feel bland or wasted (tucks and rolls offstage) because they can only imagine people to be interesting during high action scenes and not during the slower moments in between (slides on a tomato) likely because they consider their own life and the people around them uninteresting and cannot imagine characters they want to like to be anything less than larger than life when in reality the quiet humanity between action is the core of all good character writing (gets shot)

[roseisabooknerd-rooknerd]

*consumes you uncritically*

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“This is your daily, friendly reminder to use commas instead of periods during the dialogue of your story,” she said with a smile.

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in the google doc. straight up "writing it". and by "it", haha, well. let's justr say. Nothing

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I need everyone’s best character advice. STAT.

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“Lolita isn’t a perverse young girl. She’s a poor child who has been debauched and whose senses never stir under the caresses of the foul Humbert Humbert, whom she asks once, ‘how long did [he] think we were going to live in stuffy cabins, doing filthy things together…?’ But to reply to your question: no, its success doesn’t annoy me, I am not like Conan Doyle, who out of snobbery or simple stupidity preferred to be known as the author of “The Great Boer War,” which he thought superior to his Sherlock Holmes. It is equally interesting to dwell, as journalists say, on the problem of the inept degradation that the character of the nymphet Lolita, whom I invented in 1955, has undergone in the mind of the broad public. Not only has the perversity of this poor child been grotesquely exaggerated, but her physical appearance, her age, everything has been transformed by the illustrations in foreign publications. Girls of eighteen or more, sidewalk kittens, cheap models, or simple long-legged criminals, are baptized “nymphets” or “Lolitas” in news stories in magazines in Italy, France, Germany, etc; and the covers of translations, Turkish or Arab, reach the height of ineptitude when they feature a young woman with opulent contours and a blonde mane imagined by boobies who have never read my book. In reality Lolita is a little girl of twelve, whereas Humbert Humbert is a mature man, and it’s the abyss between his age and that of the little girl that produces the vacuum, the vertigo, the seduction of mortal danger. Secondly, it’s the imagination of the sad satyr that makes a magic creature of this little American schoolgirl, as banal and normal in her way as the poet manqué Humbert is in his. Outside the maniacal gaze of Humbert there is no nymphet. Lolita the nymphet exists only through the obsession that destroys Humbert. Herein an essential aspect of a unique book that has been betrayed by a factitious popularity.”

— Vladimir Nabokov (tr. Brian Boyd), Apostrophes (1975)

[roseisabooknerd-rooknerd]

Finally finished a book after stopping so many halfway through due to burnout SOOOOOO here’s my review ᗡ:

Falling Back in Love with Being Human by Kai Cheng Thom

27/27

(Given that this is a collection of letters rather than a story, the rating categories have been slightly altered)

Content & Writing Style (10 of 10)

Wow. Just, wow. This book is a collection of letters written by a transfemme of color to different individuals or groups throughout the world and history. In addition, after each letter there is a short self-help activity that the reader can choose to act on in their personal life. The letters are written with a seemingly informal and short prose, but despite the length of each letter they contain poems which truly speak to the soul. Genuinely, Thom weaves words together so beautifully, every letter making me reflect or just FEEL. Empowerment, sadness, joy, grief, longing, warmth…this collection has it all. I mean shit, even the letter to J.K. Rowling had me rethinking my perception of the world. Unexpected but not unwelcome. Not every letter was for me, I will admit that, but I definitely took something away from every single one. THAT is an automatic 10. But this is only amplified by the aforementioned self-help activities, which take a lesson or theme from each letter and allow the reader to experience or understand it. Again, I did not do all the activities—whether due to time or knowledge—but the ones I did do genuinely improved my life. I’ve been going through a rough patch, and I don’t think I could have chosen to read this at a better time. This book will absolutely be picked up again whenever I need reminders on how to love myself and the world around me. Truly amazing.

Themes and Connectedness Through Those Themes (10 of 10)

This book, at its core, is about love. Forgiveness, understanding, affection, inspiration, condolences. Love. The threads of love itself are sewn into these pages with each new letter, all of them stitched together to fill you with a newfound sense of wanting to spread that warmth. Loving the ones you love, loving the ones you hate, loving the ones by your side, loving your rivals and enemies and abusers, loving the world, loving yourself. It’s all love, really, and we all deserve it. That’s all I really have to say.

Banger Quotes (3 of 3)

Too many to fucking COUNT. But here’s one that I could not stop thinking about through the entire book:

“dear trans women: when they come bearing torches, remember that you are a being born of flame. and every moment you love yourself is a moment they can never take from you.” (Thom, page 7)

Did I Enjoy It? (3 of 3)

YES! YES YES YES YES!!!!!! Every fiber of my being felt so connected to this book, every word resonating so deeply. I too live life trying to spread love, to live as a beautiful and rebellious transfem with warmth in her heart. This book is my gospel, and I now have even more words to preach. As I previously mentioned, this book also came to me at a stressful and bleak time in my life, and Thom’s words helped carry me through. I love this book, and I truly do believe it to be “required reading”. Thank you Kai Cheng Thom.

Did I Cry? (1 of 1)

No joke, I cried while reading more than half the letters. I cannot stress enough how beautiful and meaningful this book is. GRRRAAAAHHHHH!!!!

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love reading a book and it suddenly and unexpectedly doubles as a self help guide. like YEAH, ill do your silly little tasks and make my life more bearable sure!!!!

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I BROKE THE CYCLE!!!! I NO LONGER HAVE AN UNHEALTHY RELATIONSHIP WITH ANNOTATING AND FINALLY JUST READ BOOKS!!!!! READING IS FUN AGAIN!!!!!!!! WE MADE IT CHAT!!!!!!!!!

[roseisabooknerd-rooknerd]

booktok authors writing secondary characters

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[roseisabooknerd-rooknerd]

if you’re white and wanna write a poc character and feel awkward about it i implore you to ignore any twitblr stuff treating it as a massive ethical burden and instead come in more with the same mindset you’d have if you wanted to write about idk firefighters but didn’t know anything about firefighters so you do... research. Like fuck off with the weird kinda creepy calls for spiritual introspection you’re not writing about god damn space aliens you’re writing about humans and if you think you need more perspective of different life experiences just read?

[roseisabooknerd-rooknerd]

Pro-writing tip: if your story doesn't need a number, don't put a fucking number in it.

Nothing, I mean nothing, activates reader pedantry like a number.

I have seen it a thousand times in writing workshops. People just can't resist nitpicking a number. For example, "This scifi story takes place 200 years in the future and they have faster than light travel because it's plot convenient," will immediately drag every armchair scientist out of the woodwork to say why there's no way that technology would exist in only 200 years.

Dates, ages, math, spans of time, I don't know what it is but the second a specific number shows up, your reader is thinking, and they're thinking critically but it's about whether that information is correct. They are now doing the math and have gone off drawing conclusions and getting distracted from your story or worse, putting it down entirely because umm, that sword could not have existed in that Medieval year, or this character couldn't be this old because it means they were an infant when this other story event happened that they're supposed to know about, or these two events now overlap in the timeline, or... etc etc etc.

Unless you are 1000% certain that a specific number is adding to your narrative, and you know rock-solid, backwards and forwards that the information attached to that number is correct and consistent throughout the entire story, do yourself a favor, and don't bring that evil down upon your head.

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reblogging here too because I LOVE THIS AUTHOR AAAAAAAAAAA

they should give you a big certificate & a kiss on the lips if you’re trans & you go swimming for the first time as a woman

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Reading Station 11 and I LOVE when main characters are a bit fucked up and evil. Perfectly good main characters are LAME!!! LET MORALLY GRAY MAIN CHARACTERS SHINE!!! LIKE YES GIRL, CHEAT ON YOUR BF OF TWO YEARS CAUSE YOU’RE BORED!!!! GO OFF!!!!!!

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Writing advice from my uni teachers:

If your dialog feels flat, rewrite the scene pretending the characters cannot at any cost say exactly what they mean. No one says “I’m mad” but they can say it in 100 other ways.

Wrote a chapter but you dislike it? Rewrite it again from memory. That way you’re only remembering the main parts and can fill in extra details. My teacher who was a playwright literally writes every single script twice because of this.

Don’t overuse metaphors, or they lose their potency. Limit yourself.

Before you write your novel, write a page of anything from your characters POV so you can get their voice right. Do this for every main character introduced.

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I’ve been swamped with fatigue and college work BUT i have slowly started to get back into reading so this account will probably be a bit more active again? idk we’ll see ¯\_(ツ)_/¯