#AND i don't have to write descriptive stuff

[fixyourwritinghabits]

Heya! Lately, I've noticed that almost every description I give has "-ly" tagged onto it. I feel like my writing is a sea of description ending in -ly. Is there a guide to explain how to get away from this?

Obligatory disclaimer: You do not have to delete all your adverbs in writing. There is always going to be a case when throwing in "quickly," "angrily," "sharply," etc will be fine. It's entirely up to you to decide what works when.

However, you will often see the advice to get rid of them, because they can be used as crutch words - they weaken your chance to use more descriptive writing, and that's always worth thinking about. Some places to pay particular attention to adverbs:

In Dialogue Tags

The biggest overuse of adverbs are in dialogue tags, but often you can more strongly convey emotion in both the dialogue and the description attached to it. Consider:

"What are you doing?" Jane asked angrily.

Versus:

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Jane asked, her expression twisted into a scowl.

Simple stuff, but I've conveyed that Jane is angry by adjusting her words and describing her body language. This gives me the chance to reveal more about Jane in the vocabulary she uses when angry, and also in her body language. You can also swap some "said _ly" tags with clearly words like "snapped, yelled, whispered, hissed, etc" (but don't overdo that either.)

Weak Description Words

Really, very, barely, almost, kind of, etc - there's a lot of adverbs that get in the way of being more clear about the action and weakening the intent of the sentence. They're filler words that don't give you range to convey what you really want to convey. Consider the following:

Max almost reached out to comfort her.

Versus

Max could've wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer as she cried, but he couldn't work up the courage, his arms hanging limply at his sides.

Again, not the best example, but the second shows us more emotion from Max, and that's going to help your reader connect more to the character.

Should you always avoid adverbs? No, sometimes they're fine. But there's often a better word out there that makes your sentence stronger. "Sarah ran quickly" could become "Sarah sprinted". More specific words can paint a clearly picture. Galloped, crawled, dragged, and skipped are better than a -ly adverb.

When in doubt, try two versions of the same sentence. Does "Jake moved quickly" work better for a fast-paced action scene? Would "Chen lingered by the door, dragging himself forward as if forced" work better than "Chen reluctantly entered the room" for a slower scene? Fiddling with the language can often get you the right amount of adverbs to use. Trust your instincts!

[sam-keeper]

so this is months after the fact, but i'm wondering if you read dean kissick's now infamous harper's piece about "representation" making art banal, because while it seems to me he has some kind of a genuine frustration, both he and the people responding to him are sort of talking around the actual issue in question, or misplacing blame (classically by pointing the finger at "minority" artists)? my first instinctive response to the assertion that no interesting art exists because of the nebulous project of representation, was that, well, skill issue - interesting "minority" artists exist, very much so, perhaps the more interesting question is WHY they don't make it into shows and what would have to change structurally beyond the lip service of institutions to elevating non-white, queer artists.

...but at that point i realised i know literally nothing about the visual art world lmao and while i can confidently point to why this happens in publishing, i was wondering if you had any thoughts abt the actual piece and some of its very blithe (and what seems to me!) and sweeping assertions?

oh my god I had not seen this piece and it BODIED me. WHAT AN OPENING PARAGRAPH! I read the opening line out to Sarah and she looked like I had thrown a flash grenade in her face. she was blinking the spots out of her eyes. the whole thing is so incredible it's sort of hard for me to get my thoughts together--though, I think it's very Psychological that he keeps complaining that the art world has lost the vitality it had when he was... in his 20s? and my man surely you're not writing a whole article grousing about identity then in one of the last paragraphs dropping a line like, "In the Nineties, when I was a student at a Christian boys’ school in Oxford,"

but that opening though. oh my goodness lmao.

ok confession though on the main subject: I generally feel pretty disconnected from the contemporary high art world myself honestly? I've always had trouble getting an overview of Scenes cause I tend to burrow pretty deep into the stuff I'm most interested in, I've always been a bit too autistic and working class (complicated term for me but w/e) to really... fit in with my peers even when I was in grad school for contemporary art history... you're probably more knowledgeable about contemporary publishing than I am about contemporary art tbh. it's something I actually feel self conscious about as a self professed materialist haha

the annoying thing is I do sort of get what he means, for like, 6 paragraphs or so in the middle of the piece. there's definitely a strain of contemporary identity-focused art that leaves me kind of cold or just nonplussed in part for the reason he lays out: that there's all these things that are supposedly signifiers of this or that or "call to mind" or "invoke" some historical marker... but all of that is present in the descriptive text rather than the piece itself? like, you would need an incredibly specific and *narrowly focused* repertoire to see a chain made of salt and immediately jump to "ah yes it's like the ancient greek slave trade, in particular".

I don't think this is necessarily a problem of bad art though so much as bad ad copy?

like, I do encounter a lot of artist statements that leave me going, like, ok but *does it decolonize the body through the inversion of subject and object* though? or whatever. like what would that actually feel like, to have happen to you, intellectually and affectively? there's a lot of bold claims about what radical things the work is doing and it often feels like upselling, to me. but that doesn't necessarily mean I dislike the art! actually at multiple shows in my area I've seen stuff that I really enjoyed and then looked at the artist statement and learned that in fact what seemed like a shocking, surreal expression of an inexpressible inner experience was actually banal old "social anxiety". like the art has to fit into a consecrated schema of psychotherapy or sociology or ethnography to be marketed or justified. I don't think that's a problem of identity, or politics, I think it's one of commodification, but I empathize, I think, with the author's *frustration* about it.

also, tangentially, I have this whole thing I wrote recently that might make it into an article or might not, about Felix Gonzalez-Torres's "Untitled (Portrait of Ross in LA)", his famous interactive/conceptual piece where a pile of candy weighing the same as his lover's ideal body weight is continuously depleted by gallery attendees and refreshed by gallery administrators. the Smithsonian recently showed that with just, a comically blithe description that cuts out the entire context that this is artwork about gay men during the AIDS crisis. and that's actually a good example imo of a place where it's really important to have contextualizing information because the contextualizing information is part of the piece and shapes how everyone involves participates in the work. like, you might come to the conclusion that it "invokes" communion, and that's great, though I think saying that in the museum guide maybe is a bit over-determining? but you can only get to that invocation if you already have a context about the performance that you've been invited to engage in, if that makes sense. the accompanying explanation is a script that the participants are using to guide their interpretation--interpretation the way an actor interprets a line, I mean. and I think Kissik would just throw this out along with everything else, which is unfortunate.

but! like! I don't really know because he also seems to enthusiastically cite things pretty similar to this as pluralistic art that is of the present instead of the past. why is Wael Shawky's Cabaret Crusades good and Puppies Puppies's bronze nude self portrait bad? I have no idea. (well, she's transsexual so.......) or, like, is he suggesting that the Symphony of Sirens, an avant garde whole city performance honoring the October Revolution, is good because it's not... about anything? sometimes it seems like he just has a problem with people painting in traditional ways but then in others he's like hey look at this cool traditional painting! I find this so genuinely perplexing lmao. I genuinely do not know what I'm supposed to come away from this piece doing, as an artist.

oh, well, except that the bit about Louis Fratino sort of hits, too. his critique of Fratino is that he may be making gay cubism but the fact that it's cubism still makes it aesthetically conservative. I actually think about this a lot, the tendency for marginalized artists right now to paint themselves into history, as it were. it's directly relevant to my own practice, since I'm drawn to art primarily from the turn of the century, or I guess broadly from something like 1860-1960 maybe? I was classically trained, I do a lot of figure drawing, and I love drawing nudes of my queer friends. is that aesthetically conservative, or is depicting trans people happy and horny and beautiful surrendering to bourgeois aesthetic values? if I draw a fat snake furry in a pose based on Ingres's Odelisque is that a clever detuning of the canon, or is that a concession to the canon's authority and an admission that I don't have anything to say that hasn't already been said by a cishet male european?

it's definitely an anxiety for me. (I'd say it's table stakes for him but I guess the opening paragraph's point is that it's all fun and games until somebody loses a leg.) no idea what to do with all this but I do think about it, and I do feel frustrated with how... inward focused so much art now can be? that's not something that appeared in the last 8 years though lol that's the whole postmodern turn! like, architecture for example--yes there's all sorts of ironic quotations of classical greek elements and forms but it represents a historical return that contrasts the break represented by say brutalism. lichtenstein does dot painting renditions of cubist art. practically everyone in the Lowbrow Movement that comes out of comix are addicted to quotation and citation from both fine art and pop culture, and those guys are almost all cishet white guys!

so, whatever. the piece touches on some stuff I've thought about too, basically, but in such a garbled way that I'm not even sure what to really do with it. also I found out from this piece that he's associated with the Dimes Square people. once again I feel vindicated in being prejudiced against New York City and its people, though I can't say more about what kind of performance piece I'd like to see introduced to Dimes Square without getting put on some sort of List. oh, also Helen Lewis thought this article was brilliantly written. lol. and also, lmao.

I feel like there's probably more that could or should be said but I can't really think of what else to say so I'll stop rambling now.

[thetarttfuldickhead]

Okay I don't think I'm allowed to ask about all your WIPs (trust me if I could I would) and I want you to know that I am extraordinarily torn between Tan Lines canon divergence and Texts (how could you make me choose??? The cruelty!!! /j). But because Texts is so much less descriptive, I am VERY curious about it and will send my ask about that :) thank you so much and I hope you have a lovely day!

What are tag game rules, except waiting to be broken? ;) But excellent call on your part, really, as I got another ask for the Tan Lines one.

“Texts” is not only less descriptive, the thing itself is also exceedingly vague compared to the other WIP:s. It’s not even a proper fic, really… Basically, I got home from a night out, used a word generator to give myself a three word prompt while fairly sloshed, and somehow ended up playing around with one of those sites that lets you create fake text conversations. Now I have a vision of RJK shenanigans, only the whole thing is just texts, bc I'm weak for that sort of thing. Like this:

God knows where it's going or if it'll ever get done, though.

My day has been moderately lovely, and all the more so for all the inbox fic fun. I hope you’ve had a great day, too, and thank you so much for the ask! <3

[hegory-grousing]

im not a writer so this doesn't have real dialogue. mad libs I guess. I imagine this happens often on their lunch dates hehe

[fictionadventurer]

"If the structure of your world ever evaporates, I will still be here."

I think The Q might contain one of the greatest declarations of friendship/love ever.

[aquilamage]

[Image Description: a set of five edited bug fables screenshots from the pre-battle zommoth encounter. The first is the same as in-game, Kabbu saying "W-What is that!? Something's coming!" The second is of zommoth appearing on screen with its sprite edited to be various shades of pink and yellow, wings the same pattern as Leif's (but still with the purple blight magic stuff in the chest area.) The next three images have the sprite edited in the same way.. The third image is of Leif's saying "...Wh, Rkejrm-m-Muse!? Kjdrira, mebsrgr...!!!" The next is Kabbu saying "Muse!? Leif, that's..." The final is Vi saying "T-That doesn't make any sense!" End ID]

I thought about one of my fucked up and evil au ideas for five minutes again, so I decided to spend like fifty hours making a thing about it. Basically what if Muse went back into Snakemouth later to try to rescue Leif or at least bring back his body and got caught by the roaches.

Putting just the edited sprites under the cut if you wanna see those without the lab mood lighting:

[longagoitwastuesday]

Thinking of one of those two fanfics that rewired my brain this last summer once again. Thinking of the sunrises

[httpiastri]

[gender-euphowrya]

there's people who have incredible levels of talent for worldbuilding and subtle storytelling and even visual effects and they use it to make intricately crafted interconnected ASMR videos with fucking lore and shit and most people will NEVER know because they fall the fuck asleep

[whosname]

That’s either a woman with no style or a stupid man

[thekidsare-not-alright]

the fact that the killers and fob have beef is so homophobic (to me)

I've never seen this quote so like what the Fuck lmao. Anyways we coulda had mr brightside emo version (but maybe better than the one they did tbh) but noOo. (x)

[ID: screenshot of an MTV article that says "You don't realize what you could be getting yourselves into with Fall Out Boy," Flowers said, addressing British music fans, "and what kind of impact it could have in a way that you don't really want. Culturally, if it gets as big as it is in America, it could change an entire generation of people growing up here. Emo, pop-punk -- whatever you want to call it -- is dangerous. We don't wanna dislike anyone, and we've still never met Fall Out Boy, but there's a creature inside me that wants to beat all those bands to death. They just all go into the happy-emo funnel and everyone loves 'em without thinking." End ID]

[tekatonic]

Well that was all the 2022 SEGAU design sheets. Unfortunately I don't have any others ready to post rn but I'm working on some more, rest assured !

Feel free to send asks about the AU while I figure out how to present written explanations on the major worldbuilding concepts ( I'll probably have to scribble some schematics, otherwise it'll be boring to look at... agh ). I know I really just posted designs without really explaining why they are the way they are and the differences with canon... I imagine you must be a little confused.

I'll have to work on those sketchbook pictures too, there's a lot of them to take, and for some reason my pictures look much darker on my laptop than on my phone, so that's a problem.

Ah but regardless, yes tell me your thoughts ! I love feedback !! ( Even if the feedback is criticism. Feel free to tell me what you don't like, too ! )

[darkestrellar]

Once again I spent more time and energy on blog maintenance than I thought it would take... brought the carrd here 98% into line with blog info with the last update/rules rewrite. Made some minor edits to the verses sections on both to add/shuffle a couple things. Also tweaked a few minor things of the stuff I'd done a couple days ago like wording that I wasn't 100% satisfied with. (On Ice's stuff too.)

Plus made a few cosmetic edits like I decided to bold snippets of text in the various rules to make skimming easier + it feels less textwally. And added some short symbol dividers at the bottoms of the carrd sections. That last one was just because I thought it looked kinda nice and keeps the navigation links a little more separate.

[hisui-dreamer]

for the ask game:

🔍, 🩵, and 🎧 ?

for this ask game

🔍 what character do i enjoy writing for the most: ooh this is an interesting question. obviously jade bc he's on my mind a lot, but also floyd, deuce, ruggie and leona! they're characters i can really understand and connect with haha

🩵 do you have any pets: yes i do! i have three adorable guinea pigs! in order, their names are eclair, kata, and mikan!

🎧 last song i listened to: july by noah cyrus!

[corbinite]

Not me taking inspiration from fucking unbreakable kimmy schmidt when planning ttrpg villains

[captain-mommy-issues]

Ugh, that stupid Greedent hogging the phone all to himself! HELLO ROTOMBLR!!! I know you guys missed ME. Your GOD.

These stupid things are too high leveled and the human didn't bring my knife. All we have are plastic knives! What can I do with that?! I can't yell at him either because he can't understand a thing I say, ugh... He's busy, anyway!

[ Image ID: A photo of Arven, tinkering what seemed to be the time machine. He had a serious look on his face and seemed to be hyper focused on whatever he was currently doing. His eyes were reddened, and his eye bags were quite noticeable. It looked like he hasn't slept in days... More noticeable, a thick, red paste dripping from his nose onto his upper lip. It popped on top of his pale skin. It didn't seem to bother the boy at all, seeing as he hadn't cared for any of his injuries. His school uniform was tattered from sliding down the cliff face. Jagged cuts were visible on his fingers; some red with blood. It's assumed that he got those from trying to grip onto rocks and sharp edges to avoid falling. ]

I tried distracting him from it so many times but he just doesn't react! Stupid human... All these lesser Pokémon are boring! And also I'm hungry!!!

-Arceus