#*snailoriginals

[writingwithsnails]

welcome! a little intro to my writeblr...

i'm snail, 26 y/o, and she/her but i'm not picky about pronouns!

i write at a snail's pace -- hence the nickname

and messaging me is like poking a snail with a stick, i curl up in my shell because i don't know what to do but give me a second and i'll figure things out 💖

instead of writing, i like getting sidetracked by research and trying to find the answers to very specific, very strange questions

fave genres: nordic noir, southern gothic, cozy british mysteries, 18th century (that's it, that's the genre), queer novels written before 1980, academic writing about obscure historical figures.

fave themes: time is a circle, truth and performance, devouring devotion, and the cycle of shame and violence.

there will be nsfw and dark themes posted here, including but not limited to: death, murder, suicide, cults, kidnapping, domestic abuse, religious abuse/trauma, and childhood trauma. graphic descriptions and images will be tagged.

another note: i post KJV verses and biblical stuff because i appreciate their literary qualities/value -- not because i'm christian, sorry lads!

about me • works in progress • tags

last updated: 11/02/24

[writingwithsnails]

fellow writers, i have a question! i'm always on the lookout for good writing guides/books on composition, like stuff from writer's digest. are these books that people are interested in? would you be interested in reading reviews on them to see if they're worth checking out?

[writingwithsnails]

I'm compiling a list of writing/composition guides that I'm going to review and so far the list is:

Who Says? by Lisa Zeidner

Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Writing from the Senses by Laura Deutsch

Write Smart, Write Happy by Cheryl St. John

If you want a specific writing guide reviewed (lbr it's important to know whether spending that $25 is going be worth it), let me know!

[writingwithsnails]

SOUNDTRACK CHALLENGE by snail.

Don’t want to work on your project? Looking for a reason to browse Spotify/Youtube? Need to cut down your 500-song playlist? Here’s a challenge for your afternoon!

The basic idea is to create a playlist of ten to twenty songs and give them titles as if they were your project’s original movie/TV soundtrack. Think about the future and how, in the perfect world, you get to choose all the music for the adaption of your project. Track names, track order, album cover, etc. The guidelines below aren’t hard rules but this is a challenge so it’s…meant to be a challenge.

BASICS

No more than twenty songs (don't include songs that simply capture the 'essence' of your project).

Primarily instrumental music.

Arrange the songs as they would be played in the show/movie.

Include titles for each song (ex: "Manda's Drive" - Downhill Lullaby by Sky Ferreira)

An alternative way to do this challenge would be to post one song a day with a title, description of the scene, and why you chose it.

HARD MODE

No music from existing original soundtracks. This gives you the opportunity to explore composers and artists you might not otherwise have found!

Include a main theme/opening credits song.

Create a graphic to go along with it. Maybe an album cover, tracklist, or poster.

Tag five people to create their own soundtracks!

[writingwithsnails]

I bought a 13 week goal journal because I want to start exercising and writing regularly but now my problem is defining my goals and making them actionable arrhhhhHGHGHGHGHH dammit

[writingwithsnails]

i wrote the grossest smut scene and i feel like this emoji

:3

[writingwithsnails]

i'm stupidly excited about this, love when things line up 👀

[writingwithsnails]

I finished The Copenhagen Trilogy and The Trouble with Happiness: And Other Stories, both by Tove Ditlevsen and the Trilogy is one of those books that, as soon as I finished the library copy, I went out to buy my own. There's so many good quotes that are now tattooed on my brain. The first part of the series, Childhood/Barndom, hit the hardest.

[writingwithsnails]

sad it say that i can't finish baudrillard's simulation and simulacra. i like some of his theories but it's a real slog to get through. maybe one day i'll come back to it? idk

for now, i'm going to be pouring all of my fave hilary mantel and tove ditlevsen quotes into my queue. tove really, really, really gets me. except that she's romantically successful and i'm not but that's a different subject.

[writingwithsnails]

garbage's discography is literally jem! waiting for god is jem's young adult years dealing with the grief and turmoil that comes after her friend's death. then godhead and control describe jem's evolution into their destructive phase.

and of course queer is their life: 'The strangest of the strange / The coldest of the cool / You're nothing special here / A fake behind the fear / The queerest of the queer / Queerest of the queer'

[writingwithsnails]

SNARTNOTES* ON... Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin.

Main Takeaways:

Overall rating is 4 out of 5 stars.

Quick read, good for a train ride

Emphasis on technique (use of sound, grammar, syntax, POV, verbs, etc.) and associated building blocks

Uses classic works as examples instead of using the author’s own work

Provides a different view of what verb tense adds to your story

Last chapter focuses on why it matters what you include and what you leave out

* snail + notes = snart

First Impressions & Aesthetics: The book is…little. It is neither eye-catching nor boring, neither obtrusive nor forgettable. It even fits in my purse! The table of contents reveals that it’s not your bog-standard writing book which focuses on plotting, pantsing, and that sort of thing. Le Guin’s book focuses on technique and what creates the foundation of a good story. She teaches you what you need to know before you pick up a book on plotting and story structure.

Nitty Gritty: The first line of the first chapter hooked me because I agree 100% with her. “The sound of the language is where it all begins… The basic elements of language are physical: the noise words make, the sounds and silences that make the rhythms marking their relationships.” (pg 1)

And this line shows you exactly where we’re headed on this craft, the U.S.S. Le Guin, so hop off while you can. Storytelling began as an oral tradition and the chapters build on this by focusing on sound, syntax, and repetition build onto each other. One can’t happen without the other. In the chapter on syntax, emphasizes that “in most good narrative, especially long narrative, it’s less the immediate dazzle of the words than the sounds, rhythms, setting, characters, action, interactions, dialogue, and feelings all working together that make us hold our breath, and cry…and turn the page to find out what happens next.” (23)

Le Guin makes it clear that syntax and grammar lessons are necessary – almost half the book is dedicated to it. “In written prose, incorrect usage, unless part of a conscious, consistent dialect or personal voice, is disastrous… To break a rule you have to know the rule. A blunder is not a revolution.” (15-16). She’s also quick to tell you that you and you alone must learn the rules and put them to use. Grammar and spellchecking programs will “chop your sentences short and stupidify your writing. Competence is up to you.” (13). Learning grammar is also up to you. She suggests Strunk and White’s classic to get started.

The second half of the book peels back the layers of POV, verb tense, and narration. She suggests that past and present tense offer different levels of “complexity and size of field” (52). Present tense tends to focus on action in a single time and place while past tense, which is more natural, allows “continual referring back and forth in time and space” (52). Present tense also creates “a kind of permanent artificial emergency, which can be exactly the right tone for fast-paced action” (52). The choice of POV is also important and switching between them shouldn’t be taken lightly. “It’s a major change of voice to go from first to third person, or from involved author to observer-narrator. The shift will affect the whole tone and structure of your narrative.” (70).

The final two chapters offer another intriguing thing to think about: what you don’t include in your story is just as important as what you include. She discusses expository lumps and how “crafty writers (in any genre) don’t allow Exposition to form Lumps. They break up the information, grind it fine, and make it into bricks to build the story with.” (96). She warns against these lumps but says that descriptive passages, which are not lumps, can move a story forward. You don’t need constant action.

“Crowding and Leaping” is exactly what it sounds like on the label. Sometimes it’s necessary to cut out words or actions to keep things tight. Sometimes you have to leap over events. Both “have to do with the focus and the trajectory. Everything that is crowded in to enrich the story sensually, intellectually, emotionally, should be in focus – part of the central focus on the story. And every leap should be along the trajectory, following the shape and movement of the whole.” (124).

And now I shall leap to the end of the review, to the compilation of quotes, because that's the most important part. I rabidly underline all the best bits and here are the ones (some aren't mentioned in the review above) that provide helpful advice and summarize the main points of the book.

Quotes:

Since narrative is what this is all about, try to make each exercise not a static scene but the account of an act or an action, something happening. It doesn’t have to be bang-pow “action”… What it has to do is move – end up in a different place from where it started. That’s what narrative does. It goes. It moves. Story is change. (xiv)

Punctuation tells readers how to hear your writing. (11)

These [spellcheck] programs are on a pitifully low level of competence; they’ll chop your sentences short and stupidify your writing. Competence is up to you. You’re on your own out there with those man-eating semicolons. (13)

Many of our schools all but stopped teaching grammar. Somehow we’re supposed to be able to write without knowing anything about the equipment we’re using. (13)

Lying is the deliberate misuse of language. But language misuse through “mere” ignorance or carelessness breeds half-truths, misunderstandings, and lies. (14)

In written prose, incorrect usage, unless part of a conscious, consistent dialect or personal voice, is disastrous. (15)

Writing can be completely conversational and informal but to communicate thought or emotion of any complexity at all, it has to follow the general agreements, the shared rules of grammar and usage. Or, if it breaks them, it breaks them intentionally. To break a rule you have to know the rule. A blunder is not a revolution. (16)

I see the big difference between the past and present tenses not as immediacy but as complexity and size of field. A story told in the present tense is necessarily focus on action in a single time and therefore single place. Use of the past tense(s) allows continual referring back and forth in time and space. That’s our minds normally work, moving around easily. Only in emergency situations do they focus very tightly on what’s going on. And so narration in the present tense set up a kind of permanent artificial emergency, which can be exactly the right tone for fast-paced action. (52)

The quality of limitation may attract a writer to the present tense. Its tightly focus beam of attention affords the writer and reader the detachment of visible artifice. It brings the field very close, like a microscope, yet distances by eliminating the surround. It cuts out, minimizes. It keeps the story cool. (52)

People often use the passive voice because it’s indirect, polite, unaggressive, and admirably suited to making thoughts seem as if nobody had done them, so that nobody need take responsibility. (57)

There’s a tendency to fear descriptive “passages”, as if they were unnecessary ornaments that inevitably slow the “action”. To see how a landscape and a great deal of information about people and a way of life can be the action, the onward movement of the story. (110)

Crowding is…what we mean when we exhort ourselves to avoid flabby language and cliches, never to use ten video words where two exact words will do, always to seek the vivid phrase, the exact word. By crowding I mean also keeping the story full, always full of what’s happening in it; keeping it moving, not slacking and wandering into irrelevancies; keeping it interconnected with itself, rich with echoes forward and backward. Vivid, exact, concrete, accurate, dense, rich: these adjectives describe a prose that is crowded with sensations, meanings, and implications. But leaping is just as important. What you leap over is what you leave out. And what you leave out is infinitely more than what you leave in. There’s got to be white space around the word, silence around the voice. Listening is not describing. Only the relevant belongs. Some say God is in the details; some say the Devil is in the details. Both are correct. (117-118)

Crowding and leaping have to do with the focus and the trajectory. Everything that is crowded in to enrich the story sensually, intellectually, emotionally, should be in focus – part of the central focus on the story. And every leap should be along the trajectory, following the shape and movement of the whole. (124)

Often a cut that seemed sure to leave a terrible hole joins up without a seam. It’s as if the story, the work itself, has a shape it’s trying to achieve and will take that shape if you’ll only clear away the verbiage. (126)

[writingwithsnails]

sometimes writing is sitting down and typing away, feeling positive about things. sometimes writing is dragging yourself to your chair and feeling like ensign chekov when he said "i'll live -- but i won't enjoy it".

[writingwithsnails]

i haven't made a playlist in a while... mhmhmmhmh how about some enemies to lovers or enemies with benefits?

[writingwithsnails]

Categorized alphabetically by location instead of title because titles change with the wind but location and setting are forever.

EAST ANGLIA. Antiques Roadshow meets Midsomer Murders.

Genre: cozy mystery Format: short story series Theme(s): found family, history repeats itself, true love Status: brainstorming Pitch: A historian meets an antiques dealer and the pair get involved in hijinks.

MONACO. Mission: Impossible (1966) meets To Catch a Thief with a bit of PG Wodehouse humor mixed in.

Genre: 1950s spy caper Format: short story series Theme(s): this is my silly story series, themes and serious things are not allowed Status: brainstorming Pitch: The Prince's distant cousin is recruited to help catch a thief and she reluctantly joins forces with a private detective who is searching for the thief for a different reason.

MONTANA (1). Hannibal-esque mind games between the lion and the lamb.

Genre: Far Cry 5 fanfiction Theme(s): time is a circle, truth and performance, violence and shame Status: first draft Pitch: The Deputy (Arden Hurst) knows it's a matter of time before John captures them...but what if it's easier to fight from the inside out?

MONTANA (2). The Deputy has ghosts from the past that are almost as damaging as Jacob's.

Genre: Far Cry 5 fanfiction Theme(s): queer shame, religion and trauma, absolute devotion Status: brainstorming Pitch: The Deputy (Jem Knight) has devious plans and they won't let the Seed Family get out alive.

PENNSYLVANIA. Outlander...but without the sexual violence. :))))

Genre: historical fiction Format: novel trilogy Theme(s): time is a circle, fiction as history; history as fiction, violence and shame Status: first draft Pitch: A widower's family becomes the center of a murder investigation and he has to rely on two strangers to save his daughter from ruin.

SWEDEN. A nordic noir series without a depressed white male protagonist.

Genre: nordic noir Format: unk. Theme(s): violence and shame, justice in america, absolute devotion Status: first draft Pitch (book one): While a detective works to solve the cold case of a missing Russian student, the forensic anthropologist on the case struggles with her own personal demons that have followed her across the ocean.

[writingwithsnails]

i restarted my commonplace book recently because something (idk what) made me panic about losing my favorite quotes and things. i used to have one going and it turned into a writing notebook, which wasn't what i had planned. i've made some changes this time around and even though i'm not great about keeping up with it, i like it so far!!!

things i've done differently:

cheap spiral notebook instead of expensive notebook

colorful, cheap stickers on the front to remind myself not to take things too seriously

majority of the text is printed from the computer, a small amount is handwritten

including doodles and washi tape for color

no writing or drafting -- focused on quotes, inspiration, prompts, music, etc.

i would love to be able to print out color photos and stick them in but my printer is a piece of shit and my work printer only does black and white.

[writingwithsnails]

fc5 hannibal-esque AU and it starts with the brand new deputy trying to figure out why people have gone missing and where their bodies are. the deputy starts talking with john and he's like "i'd love to get to the bottom of this mystery too! it's bad for the cult's image! let me help you!"

it slowly goes downhill as deputy realizes they have to mental chess with a guy who staples skin to church walls. (does john eat them in this AU? idk maybe jacob eats them and john makes pretty art with them.)