#Its more of in the middle between being an outlined idea and prose

[kwamiwayzz]

Convenient Contract

Sometimes when I think about Jecka and Nicole both moving away from their hometown, and towards LA, they think their lives would somewhat automatically be better now that they’re away from all the stuff that held them down.

For Jecka, she no longer has to face the looming threat of getting beaten by her dad every other day. She’s out of that house, out of Virginia. She’s graduated high school, and far away from the shallow social circles that she forced herself to be in to avoid being alone. The only friends she considers are real enough to her are Nicole and (probably) Emily. College is the next step now, Jecka just needs to focus on securing a good future for herself. And she can do it without her family’s financial help. They just saw her as nothing but an asset, anyway. Something to prop up their image of the wealthy, white, suburban family that happens to donate to charity from time to time. But she doesn’t want that. She fucking hated it. She has no idea what she’ll be doing in college, or what career she’ll be going for. But at least she’s far away from the things that suffocated her.

For Nicole, she’s not living with her mom and brother anymore. That’s already a major upgrade. There’s also the bonus that she can live rent free with Jecka as she’s going to school in LA. Jecka was just meant to be a temporary person. A friendship of convenience for her to last through high school, After that, the contract was over. Or at least it was supposed to be over after graduation. Nicole was surprised to hear of Jecka’s request to come with her. She thought she was high when she came up to her that day, asking if she would want to live with her in a brand new state, free of charge. But in way, this is probably just an extension of that friendship of convenience contract. Jecka doesn't want to be alone, and who else would be a better option to come with her, than her proclaimed best friend?

Once Jecka graduates college, she won’t need Nicole around anymore. That’s what Nicole keeps telling herself. It’s why she’s never sober when they happen to have nights where they’re spilling their guts out about their respective traumas. She doesn’t even know how it gets to that point, where they’re actually being…vulnerable about themselves to each other. Where they’re pouring out each other’s hearts or whatever other cliche statement there is to describe that experience.

During one of those nights, Jecka finds out the full story of Nicole’s dad. How he blamed her for his suicide. How she was the first to find him when she tried to seek refuge at his house. Pieces would start to fall into place for Jecka, and fully made her understand why Nicole is the way she is. She knows it’s not healthy, but in Jecka’s mind, sometimes all she can think about is how she can save Nicole. Or at least try to make her not want to off herself again.

Oh yeah. Jecka forgot to mention to Nicole that she was the first to find her trying to hang herself in her room on that one day. It doesn’t matter. Because it slips out during one of their drunk nights that she still deals with the nightmares of finding her hanging when it’s too late.

Nicole doesn’t really know what to say to that. She barely remembers much of what happened, and the events that led up to, the day she actually wanted to join wherever her dad is. Most of that memory feels like a hazy dream locked within the confines of her fucked up brain. But now it’s out in the open. Jecka was there when she tried to end it all.

At least one person cared. One person cared…

Nicole doesn’t know how to process that. So she just brushes it off with more quips and jokes, in typical Nicole fashion. Jecka just expects that. She knows Nicole won’t bear her heart out like that overnight. At least, not when she’s sober.

The years continue to pass, and the two get closer. Nicole still tries to tell herself this friendship is just for convenience. Once Jecka has her bearings from college, she’ll toss her out, and Nicole will be left to fend for herself in a state she barely knows much of.

But everything in between seems to paint a different picture of this friendship of convenience.

Sometimes, when Jecka comes back from a long day of classes, she’ll find Nicole in the bathroom, razor blade in hand, ready to make more lines that will break skin. Nicole expects to get a scolding from her. She’s heard it all before. The fake cries of sympathy from her mom. The pitied looks from her classmates whenever they see her scars. Jecka always knew they were there, but she never actually saw her doing the act itself in real time. But instead of getting a scolding, Jecka just sits with her, and lets her do her thing. Once Nicole finishes, Jecka gets the bandages and antiseptic to help clean up the cuts and wrap them.

"Wow, maybe going for med school will be pretty useful after all," Nicole laughs.

Jecka just smiles as she continues to wrap the gauze around Nicole’s arm. It ends up becoming a routine at some point--either finding her in the bathroom bleeding all over the floor, or knocked out on the bed with pills strewn across the sheets. She tries to steer her away from all that. Outsiders think she should just leave Nicole behind.

Dump the deadweight and focus on yourself!

You don't owe anyone anything!

But Jecka doesn't want to listen to them. She knows it's a load of bullshit. But she knows she doesn't want that because it's what Nicole would want. And this is one thing from her best friend Jecka would actively go against.

More years pass and Jecka has graduated college, graduated med school. The blonde bitch actually did it and became a doctor. But Nicole is still around. Still living with Jecka. Still living rent free. She hasn't stopped thinking about the inevitable day where they'll have to part ways and end their contract.

"If I wanted to kick you out, I would've done it awhile ago," Jecka once told her. This was only a few days ago, yet it replays like a broken record in Nicole's brain. Jecka says one thing, but her brain says another.

Jecka might've graduated college and has a fancy doctor job, but wait until she finds a rich husband. Then that'll be the day she slowly fades from Jecka's life. That's how it always was. That's how it always is. Her mom already proved it to her time and time again.

Nicoleism. She tries to remind herself. Keep using Jecka as long as possible until the day comes. Don't share anything. Don't get attached. Don't let her seep into parts of your life.

But Nicole already knows it's too late. It's already long been too late when Jecka told her how she spilled her whole emo backstory like some tragic emo video-game/TV character.

So when Jecka is out, Nicole thinks of one thing she can do to "fix" this problem. Just make one cut, and it's all over. Nicole won't have to worry anymore about the inevitable. And Jecka? Jecka can be free from the dead weight.

When Nicole wakes up, she's in the hospital. Jecka is there, face down, with her usual smooth hair looking like a rat's nest. She's upset, furious even, but most of all, glad that her friend is still alive. Nicole doesn't know what to say. All she knows is that she fucked up in trying to off herself...again.

"You're an actual dumbass, you know that?" Jecka tells her as she tries to hold more tears from streaming.

Jecka cares, she always has. Nicole knows this. She always has. But no matter what, it won't stop the looming dread in the back of her mind from eating her alive. Trauma is a bitch. And it turns out, leaving the place and people that caused it in the first place doesn't mean it goes away. It doesn't go away no matter how much Nicole stops thinking about it.

Drugs don't make trauma disappear, it just puts a blanket over it, ready to be pulled away the moment the Percs, Vicodin, whatever, stop doing their magic.

This is a contract. The friendship is a contract. It's all Nicole knows. She hates that she thinks this way, but she'll destroy it first before everything good about it gets pulled away from her.

Jecka won't let her.

If Nicole sees their friendship as a convenience, then fine. Let her.

"Let's get married," Jecka brings up one day.

Nicole doesn't oppose. Gay marriage had been legal in America for a few years by now. And thank goodness. Finding a man that won't subject either of them to domestic violence would've been hell.

They go on a random Tuesday morning. The papers get signed, and they find the process surprisingly easy.

"So, will you change my contact name from 'hawt bitch' to 'hawt wife' then?" Nicole teases.

Jecka just laughs. Everything between them is still normal. There's no ceremony, no formal announcement to their friends, and no rings. Just each other. It's all they need.

If Nicole saw everything between them as a friendship of convenience, then why not turn it into a marriage of convenience? She knows it's not healthy. She knows Nicole is fucked up to even consider marrying someone like her. But then again, isn't Jecka the same? It's why they're together in the first place.

If turning an imaginary contract between them into an official one enough to keep Nicole alive for as long as she can, then so be it.

[4veslil]

🎓 - Blunt and straight forward but that does not welcome plain rude and horrible comments. Criticism that doesn't beat around the bush to spare my feelings, it's practical and helpful, influencing change/edits in my writing.

📝 - I have beta'd for someone before and while I enjoyed the experience I was never asked to beta this persons work formally, simply given the chapters to read through as a friend. I would love to do it again, especially for writers with English as their second language and who struggle (somewhat) with writing. I want to do this so their wonderful stories are clearly written for their readers and they can receive the love they deserve for their work.

🧭- I have not had a beta before but I would love to as I love creating and collaborating with other writers and providing the best work for my readers.

🤩 - I would say I really enjoy Patrick Ness, I have read nearly every book he's published and each one is brilliant. I read everything he's published despite it not being what I'd normally pick up, just because it was written by him. His story telling and world building is amazing!

🛠️- I believe I need to improve how I write opening chapters, I find they do not hook the reader how I intend; I'm aiming to improve how I structure my writing to engage readers from the first sentence. I don't want to be a writer who asks someone to just wait until they get to chapter two to read on, I want them invested from the beginning.

👌- I guess the fact I like my writing to read like it's straight out the gothic genre. I love the style of this writing and get so giddy when people like/comment on that.

🏁- By a hugeeeee margin, I started writing at 14 as a way to express myself and while I had potential and had great ideas, I would love to go back and re-write them. I won't though because I love going back and seeing how I've progressed. I hadn't honed my writing style then so its very different and there's a lot of variation in my style in my earlier works. I think finding my style and focusing on it (focusing on my prose and the gothic genre) and reading fiction outside YA and going University, I've improved a lot by constantly doing anything to keep the writer in me alive.

🌓- I can't show a before and after but my works on Ao3 compared to tumblr are sorta like first draft compared to the last draft and even then I am always going back and editing so it's very hard for me to do that haha

🤯- A comment left by my fellow writer who said my writing was exactly what I've always wanted it to be, actually kicked my feet like a little girl haha.

🎨- Gothic - full of metaphors, exaggerated and extreme description of emotions, the scene is very important for setting the mood and the presence of nature is as important because it helps me communicate the scene's vibe, especially the conflict of man, like the conflict between the Id, Ego and Superego (as we see depicted in Jekyll and Hyde). I also try keep descriptions very romantic but also with a dark edge to maintain the gothic feel.

🗃️- I would say I loosely stick to my chapter outlines, they're more a guideline than a fixed list of what should be included. The most important things will be in bold as a MUST in the chapter but everything else is just what I'd like to be included. Outlines for the story are very rough and depend on how naturally things progress in the story based on how I write :)

🌲- I would say somewhere in the middle, the back story of my characters is always set in stone from the beginning and very important so I know how the character will navigate the story (going back to natural progression) and from there it's a loose plan and seeing how things naturally grow from the first chapter. There MUSTS in my story but from there, how they branch out is anyone's guess, that includes me haha

Writeblr Shop Talk Ask Game! Pt 2

🎓 -How do you like to receive your critique?

📝- Have you beta'd for someone before? Did you like the experience and would you do it again?

🧭- Has someone beta'd for you before? How did you find that experience?

🤩 - Talk about a writer whose style you admire and why.

🛠️- What's a weakness you'd like to improve in your writing?

👌- What's something about your writing style you enjoy?

🏁-Looking back at the first thing you've written/posted, how have you improved since then?

🌓- Show us a snippet of a before and an after between drafts! What did you change and why?

🤯-Tell us about a comment you've received about your work that you still think about sometimes

🎨-How would you describe your own writing style?

🗃️- What do your outlines look like? How often do you stick to them?

🌲- Gardener or architect, or somewhere in between? What's your process?

[rubyjean-jacket-blog]

writing first drafts

as writers, there's a lot of pressure we put on ourselves: obsessing over getting everything right the first time, trying to make everything we put on a page the most incredible, moving, intriguing piece of literature ever written. and not only is that not realistic, it's also not at all helpful. so i'm going to outline a bit of my outlook and process when it comes to first drafts, in the hopes that it helps someone else out there on the interweb, and lessens some of my own discomfort with writing first drafts.

if you're subscribed to my tog fic fanaticism, you might know where this post is going already.

the point is this: writing is a process.

well, duh, i hear you say. that's obvious. you start with the first word, and then you write all the words that come after.

and to that, I say:

you don't have to start at the beginning. sometimes a story idea starts with an ending. sometimes it starts with a middle. sometimes all you have is a beginning, or a setting, or a character. whatever it is, a story does not pop into being fully-realised and in the perfect narrative (or chronological, even!) order.

sometimes you're writing a scene with a baller line of dialogue at the beginning. and when you get to the end of the scene, you realise that the beginning is a bit wonky because of that line, so you move that line to the end.

but wait! there's more!

writing is messy. there's so much more that happens between an idea and the finished work. the first draft isn't good -- it doesn't even look like literature, in most cases.

now, when I say "first draft," i mean that literally. my first drafts are the first written records i have of a story idea. here's another good way of thinking about first drafts:

here's my (completely unedited) first draft for chapter 33 of the aforementioned fanaticism. be warned: here there be typos!

I have to finsih fanatacism. I onkwo i writie it for myself but ther’es people that read it, and so i feel like i can’t just iugnore them. The nett the hapter im writing is kind of boring; its hard ot get it to say the write things’ ha. Funny typo. Yusuf and nicolo are djisjgighs awkward around each other which is kind of difficult because theyve already havd one lowe confession moment and its hard to have two in a row een though i think it makes sense given their characters and the circumstances. Nivolo fon’y let people in easily, and i ddon’t think hes ready to be open with andromache. Maybe not quynh either, but i think they get along better because she’s less pushy thna andromache.  Why is ysuf holding back??? External validation?? That;’s pronbalby it. He came from a very loving home where they said their love loudly, and know he’s with nicolo, half-feral and bad at showing emotions, andromache, who is keeping herself at a distance in ordre to protect her soft heart, and quynh, who’s denying her own feelings and therefore not able to be poroplery genuine with anyone else. Booker. Yipes.

this isn't always what my first drafts look like. this time, i did a freewrite, meaning i wrote without interruption. basically just vomited words onto the page. (post about freewriting to come!)

now, did i have any actual plot in this first draft? any beautiful prose? nope! instead, i had typos and nonsense and vague ideas and tangents into unrelated topics.

it doesn't matter if the words you're writing are shit. you're allowed to write shit. most of the stuff i write is shit, and people more successful than me would agree. the important thing here is volume: once you churn out enough shit, maybe you'll find something in the shitpile that interests you or makes you think of a cool dialogue exchange, metaphor, or whatever. once the words start flowing, it's so much easier to keep them coming.

let's circle back to my shitpile.

Yusuf and nicolo are djisjgighs awkward around each other which is kind of difficult because theyve already havd one lowe confession moment and its hard to have two in a row een though i think it makes sense given their characters and the circumstances. Nivolo fon’y let people in easily, and i ddon’t think hes ready to be open with andromache. Maybe not quynh either, but i think they get along better because she’s less pushy thna andromache. 

That;’s pronbalby it. He came from a very loving home where they said their love loudly, and know he’s with nicolo, half-feral and bad at showing emotions, andromache, who is keeping herself at a distance in ordre to protect her soft heart, and quynh, who’s denying her own feelings and therefore not able to be poroplery genuine with anyone else.

now, this is interesting. i'm going to clean this idea up so y'all can actually fuckin read it.

Yusuf and Nicolo are awkward around each other. They've already had a moment of intimacy between them, but they haven't acknowledged their feelings since that moment. For Nicolo, this is because he doesn't let people in easily. He's not ready to be open with Yusuf when there's an audience, like Andromache or Quynh. For Yusuf, it's because he's used to affection being shown very openly, so he's not reading any of the cues Nicolo is dropping.

okay. those are character motivations. those are emotions. now we're cooking!

so, next, I thought about every awkward moment i've ever had with another human being, particularly ones that i like(d) or love(d) in significant ways. what are some ways that people show affection for each other?

compliments, borrowing/offering belongings, spending time together, gifts

cool. easy. now, write those scenes.

They will sit beside each other at supper – Yusuf will compliment Nicolo on the stew, if Nicolo cooked, and Nicolo will mumble something dismissive and embarrassed under his breath and that will be the end of it. If Yusuf has cooked, the roles will reverse, and Nicolo will be the one stumbling through thanking Yusuf, who flushes so dark that it almost looks unhealthy.

for those of you keeping track, this is DRAFT FIVE. (four, if you don't count outlining the love languages.) in these later drafts, we can do what you probably think of as actual editing: word choice, grammar, pacing, etc.

writing is a PROCESS. it's not pretty or immediate; it takes time. creative inspiration isn't lightning striking a tree and starting a forest fire, it's starting a campfire with flint and steel: striking two ideas together with determination and patience and resilience.

go write. you've got this!

[helenarasmussen87]

Writing Asks

This the post where I know no one is going to ask me anyway.

1. Describe your comfort zone—a typical you-fic.

Something that is like a “Oh hey, what happens if we do THIS!” and go from there. Usually ends up having loads of emotions, comfort, angst, introspection, loads of kitchen sink dialogues, not too much action. Families, happy endings.

2. Is there a trope you’ve yet to try your hand at, but really want to?

Fluffy stuff and humourous stuff. I am a little too serious for either one and my humour is drier than the desert and very odd. So no.

3. Is there a trope you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole?

Teacher and Student relationships. Necrophilia, abuse of all sorts, underage. Just not my thing. I’ve gotten unable to stomach a lot of grimdark and super dark stuff as I get older so I won’t write it. But go ahead if that’s your thing.

4. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

Two, since I can’t have more than two on the burner. Learned THAT early on and they’re Terror AU’s One is a fixit, but with health complications and angst. The other is a Modern Day AU which has two professors falling in love after one gets injured and the other worked as an EMT and helps to take care of him and they fall in love.

5. Share one of your strengths.

I can offer insights on what flows and what doesn’t. I can also happily shred my own drafts if they don’t work. 

6. Share one of your weaknesses.

Action. I work at it, but it’s not my favourite. Or war writing. 

7. Share a snippet from one of your favorite pieces of prose you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

“Danny had to turn his head away to hide his smile, because he knew that it was a legitimate concern for Jose. Most of the time, he had jumped into bed with his partners first and then did the mating dance. 

Although extremely smart in other aspects, dating and social interactions were always a bit skewed, because he was always second-guessing himself and nervous as hell.

“That’s actually how things work out in these situations. At least it did for me and my ex and for me and Claude.” Danny explained calmly, making Jose nod and take another pull of his slurpee.

“So what do I do? Like is there a time when I bring up the possibility of us sleeping together?” Jose asked, the words slightly mumbled as he chewed on the straw.

“You don’t bring it up. You’ll just know when the time is right for it to happen. Sex isn’t what a relationship should be built on. Yes, it’s nice and it’s part of it, but it’s not the end all to be all. Trust me on this. It will happen if it’s meant to happen.” Danny explained, hoping that he had put it all in the plainest and simplest terms he could for his friend.

I am proud of this because it was majorly borrowing from life and I can see the difference from earlier writing. 

8. Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

“Sergio laughed shortly. “I’ve already done enough of that, and look at where it’s gotten you. Yeah, legally I hold claim over you. I could make the club buy out your contract and sit at home all day, having litter after litter.”

Iker’s blood froze at that and he turned to look at Sergio to see if he really meant it, but Sergio’s face gave nothing away.

“Or I could sign your rights to the club and let them sell you wherever or to whomever. Take you out of Spain, or sell you to Getafe or Malaga. All of these things I could do. The club actually did bring it up at that meeting you didn’t show up for.”

Iker blinked, his hands going numb as Sergio’s wickedly honed words hit home.

“I’m not telling you this to hurt you. Or make you feel indebted. I’m telling this to you because you’re this close to losing your spot and that’s the last thing I want for you. But there’s only so much I can do for you.”

He sighed and looked at Iker dead in the eyes.

“I miss him too, Iker. I miss Antonio every fucking day. And I miss you.”

Iker swallowed hard as Sergio abruptly turned and left, slamming the front door and freeing him from the command so suddenly that Iker fell onto the couch and curled up in it.

He had no energy to do anything else. Not when he was all too aware he’d fucked up and fucked up big and needed to fix it.

Borrowed from life again and it was more of a dialogue that needed to be had when you finally realize how much you fucked up and how much you need to stop coasting and make it right. 

9. Which fic has been the hardest to write?

ALL OF THEM! Kidding. I want to say the one I’m working on right now. I was lucky enough I got a ton of help fleshing it out. I can see the end of the 1st chapter and I am having a hell of a time writing Goodsir’s chunk. He’s turned out more emo and romantic than I was expecting. 

10. Which fic has been the easiest to write?

The QuiObi prompts for the prompt week. Took me like two hours to knock them off and post. 

11. Is writing your passion or just a fun hobby?

Its a passion and a hobby. It helped me through a lot of rough patches and keeps me sane. 

12. Is there an episode above all others that inspires you just a little bit more?

Mostly music or a change in life. I tend to write when everything is in flux with me.

13. What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever come across?

Just write. Worry about editing later. Once you have something on the paper, fixing it up becomes easier. 

14. What’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever come across?

Edit as you write. You don’t get anything done.

15. If you could choose one of your fics to be filmed, which would you choose?

Oooh. I think it’s a toss up between my Qui-Gon/Jango fic in a pastoral setting where they have put their pasts behind and are farmers on Concord Dawn. Or the Werewolf fic I wrote during my RPF phase.

16. If you only could write one pairing for the rest of your life, which pairing would it be?

Bloody hard. I would have to say Fitzier (Commander Fitzjames/Captain Crozier)

17. Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?

Depends. Sometimes I go straight from beginning to end and sometimes I end up writing the middle and not figuring it out until later.

18. Do you use any tools, like worksheets or outlines?

Outlines. I have notebooks I jot down point form notes about the characters and the plot.

18. Stephen King once said that his muse is a man who lives in the basement. Do you have a muse?

Mine is a librarian or an alchemist trying to figure out answers and how things fit in.

19. Describe your perfect writing conditions.

A good playlist. Alone, in my room.

20. How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting?

I revise it along the way when I sit down to write. Then before I post, I give it a once over to make sure it flows and makes sense. 

21. Choose a passage from one of your earlier fics and edit it into your current writing style. (Person sending the ask is free to make suggestions).

All my old fics are honestly gone so I’m skipping this one. 

22. If you were to revise one of your older fics from start to finish, which would it be and why?

Honestly? The Duo and Heero one I wrote about them being in an abusive relationship where they split up, then got back together again. I was again writing from life, and I have seen couples who did overcome it, but looking back, I think I should have written it that they separated and went their own ways. 

Keep in mind I was very young when I wrote this, and I was in an abusive relationship myself and didn’t realise it at the time. He hit me once, apologised and never did it again. But he did end up manipulating me, gaslighting me, and emotionally abusing me until I finally had enough and left. 

23. Have you ever deleted one of your published fics?

Yes. Loads of them due to me not wanting to finish them. Or the hosting sites going under. 

24. What do you look for in a beta?

Someone who is honest, someone who knows the way I write, and has suggestions to fix those said things. But someone who is themselves is the best. Because they know what they want. Same here. 

25. Do you beta yourself? If so, what kind of beta are you?

I do, simply due to lack of steady betas. Flow and story telling, but I also look for syntax and formatting as well as grammar. I will miss typos, so I run spell-check too. I mostly use a mental rubric. Teacher training.

26. How do you feel about collaborations?

I haven’t had a successful one due to the second person always deciding that they can’t follow through or up and disappearing. So I don’t do them.

27. Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

Oh my God! I read so much and so many different people that I can’t pinpoint three. I usually end up reading a fic or two, so I can’t say why I read the author.

28. If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

I haven’t done that. I do admit to having inspired by fics. I wouldn’t ever presume to do that. It just feels like a snub.

29. Do you accept prompts?

Not really. I can’t tailor write stuff consistently. 

30. Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant?

Oh always! I end up liking the characters that somehow never make it until the end. And in the Terror, unless you want to write angst all the time, you HAVE to ignore canon. And I mean BOTH the book and the show, since the book is nasty. The show is amazing, but oh my god is it depressing.

31. How do you feel about smut?

Yes damned please!

32. How do you feel about crack?

Depends on how well it’s done. Sometimes it is needed. Sometimes it’s like “Why?”

33. What are your thoughts on non-con and dub-con?

A bit tricky. I don’t mind non-con, but it has to be handled well. Dub-con, especially in A/B/O happens within context and it is usually dealt with. So I can tolerate that more than the first. Outright abuse, no.

34. Would you ever kill off a canon character?

Yes. Not often thought. But yes. I usually try and keep as many alive as I can though.

35. Which is your favorite site to post fic?

AO3, its a wild place and I love it for that reason.

36. Talk about your current wips.

It’s an AU where two professors that live in the same building and work in different faculties get thrown together and start to get to know each other. Due to circumstance, one gets injured and the other kind of volunteers to help take care of him, where they fall in love. The others in the vicinity do also. There’s Canadian shenanigans and baking. 

37. Talk about a review that made your day.

That they really liked how I wrote Frank Randall and would like to see more with his son, an OC I created for the story.

38. Do you ever get rude reviews and how do you deal with them?

I either delete, or give a generic reply and leave it. I’ve got stuff to do.

40. Write an alternative ending to [insert fic title] (or just the summary of one).

Nope. It just doesn’t work for me.

*somewhere I fucked up on the number but here you are*

Whoever wants to do this.

[thanksjro]

Children of a Lesser Matrix: It’s Like A Saturday Morning Cartoon, But With… Genocide

Children of a Lesser Matrix is by no means a complete work- more of an outline that never got past the “slap some ideas in as they come to you” stage. Fun fact: you don’t have to write in sequential order if you don’t want to. It can actually help with writer’s block to jump around.

Let’s take a look at the writing process, shall we?  

I wasn’t kidding when I said the self-insert got the shaft in Eugenesis.

It turns out that back when the Transmasters UK club was a thing, it was pretty common for the members to have a sort of mascot for themselves, a character that would show up in their work repeatedly. You see it nowadays with fanfic writers too, so it isn’t exactly an odd phenomenon, but it’s something I found interesting.

You know who else shows up repeatedly in Roberts’ other works?

Throwback.

But that’s a topic for another day.

This story takes place in the year of 1990. No peering into the future here; this was probably set in the modern day at the time of writing. Seeing as Eugenesis was first published in 2001, it’s safe to assume that we’re looking at the work of a very young Roberts.

Our focus at present is an asteroid in uncharted space.

Oh!

Oh.

Looks like these guys are Autobots, and their ship crashed into this space rock, killing them instantly. These must be the equivalent of Transformers’ red-shirts, because it usually takes a little more to take them out. There’s also a Decepticon, but we’ll get to him in a second.

What else is on this asteroid? Oh, y’know, nothing special. Just the Creation Matrix.

AND IT’S EVIL.

And everyone knows that green is the color of EVIL.

We’ve got an interesting take on the Matrix here, in that A) it’s evil, and B) it’s sentient. Like, really sentient. Also, it can summon demons, and is gonna stuff them in these Autobot corpses it found in the ship.

No mention of what it does with Thunderwing, if anything at all.

Yep. Thunderwing. If you read the IDW Stormbringer miniseries, or the MTMTE Revolutions one-shot, you know about Thunderwing at least a little. In the Marvel UK comics, his whole shtick was that he was obsessed with obtaining the Creation Matrix, believing himself to have an affinity with it. Guess that sort of backfired on him here.

This is the first time I’ve seen something bolded like this in Roberts’ work, and I really couldn’t tell you exactly why, but it’s oddly endearing. Maybe it the mental image of this 14-year old kid just furiously getting this outline down, underlining the word “will" so hard the lead in his pencil breaks off.

We get hit with an interlude, taking place inside a robot grandpa.

Of course, I’m being facetious, but this is a little interesting. Perhaps this is referring to his base on Cybertron, and not Alpha Trion himself. It seems more likely than Roberts mistaking the name for a place.

And who’s inside Delta Triton? Why, it’s Skimmer!

You probably don’t know Skimmer.

Skimmer was actually in MTMTE #41- or at least, he was mentioned. Hailing from Caminus and serving under Thunderclash, the comic doesn’t even know what gender he is. He’s male. Probably can’t put that on the wiki, seeing as this is about as far from “canon” as it gets- an unpublished, basically unwritten fanfiction. It’ll be our little secret, just between you, me, and James Roberts.

Skimmer runs into his boss Quillion- who does not show up anywhere else, as far I can can tell- who doesn’t look terribly happy at the moment. There’s a huge blip on the radar, and it isn’t anyone they want to have over for tea.  

Language!

Quillion orders for these massive rocket boosters they’ve strapped to the moon be turned on so they can get the hell out of the way of this honestly preposterously large pile of Decepticons coming their way. They flip the switch, and moon #3 blasts off.

Oh hi, Luna 01, didn’t recognize you there!

Back at the asteroid, the Matrix went and brought the Autobots back from the dead, and proceeds to wax poetic  on the nature of life, and how its new underlings will serve it.

That’s the royal we, baby. The Matrix is making no bones about it, this thing is KING. Seems like the Omniforce is a Roberts-original idea. Wonder what that’s all about. And what of this new force of evil?

Oh my fucking god his name is Genocide.

If I were a middle-school kid reading this outline, I’d be losing my mind over how cool and edgy this was. Roberts is trying so hard here, and I’m all about it. You go, tiny JRo. You go full cowl on these evil robots.

Our Omniforce have personalities to match their new looks and identities, and it’s about what you’d expect- these boys are a drop of blood in the water away from going completely feral. Also, Thunderwing’s starting to wake up. So, that’ll be a thing soon.

Back at the interlude, everything’s settling down as the gravity rights itself. The moon almost hit light-speed- which, holy shit- but it looks like the laws of inertia in a vacuum are on vacation today.

Not that I expect a kid from the 90’s to know about that.

They’re roughly 7000 hours away from Cybertron, so they better start heading back now. Assuming that there’s still a Cybertron to go back to.

Back with the first plot, Thunderwing’s having a seizure- Roberts’ prose characters seem to do that a lot- and the Matrix is freaking out, because if he dies, they won’t have a ride off this barren space rock. There’s only one thing to do!

The Matrix zaps Thunderwing with green (evil!) lightning, saving him from the brink of death. Thunderwing is less than enthused with this turn of events.

You get redundancies like this when outlining, it happens.

Thunderwing is pissed, and the brand-spanking new Omniforce isn’t super sure how to handle the current situation. The Matrix, thinking quickly, merges with Thunderwing.

This does not help the situation.

You’ve had them for five minutes, and you’re already killing them. I know you’re new to this, Matrix, but come on now.

TWENTY THOUSAND YEARS LATER, it turns out that Quillion’s estimate of their arrival back at Cybertron was off by just a smidge. The moon runs into a tomb of all things in the depths of space, and brings it on inside to see what all the hubbub’s about.

It’s got a Mind-Krell in it.

No, I have no idea what a Mind-Krell is. Another Roberts original. He’s always been rather ambitious as a writer, it would seem.

Jumping back in time, Thunderwing’s throwing out his rawest lines, and it’s amazing.

Like holy shit, I unironically love this. I wish he’d decided to do more with this, it’s fantastic.

We get our first taste of action. Theres a lot going on here: Genocide is apparently a necromancer, capable of controlling the dead, which Thunderwing currently technically is. However, this takes time to set up, so it’s Black Fusion’s turn to step up to the plate. He shoots off a volley of Black Fusion from his eyes, knocking Thunderwing over.

Yes, they’re named after their powers. Or are their powers named after them? Anyway, they’re about to head for the shuttle, when Genocide orders Kaos to use his- you guessed it- Kaos Energy.

We’re also dealing with the “can’t just use said” phase that every young writer goes through. Kaos’ staff, which he’s had this whole time, turns into a gun? It’s not clear, but he shoots Thunderwing and then dives into the shuttle at the last possible second, Indiana Jones-style.

As the shuttle takes off, Genocide warns their resident possessor Daemon to not do the thing, even though he really, really wants to. With that, they train the onboard weapons systems on Thunderwing below- all of them.

And that’s all we got for Children of a Lesser Matrix.

Clearly there would have been more if he’d continued with the ideas, but as is we have a fascinating snapshot of what was probably one of Roberts’ first forays into writing. You don’t get to do this with very many authors, where you can go this far back and see what they were doing, what changed, what stayed the same. I wasn’t expecting to see ideas from MTMTE pop up here- and certainly not ones that were as big as the moon thrusters.

If this entry seems a little soft around the edges, it’s probably because it is. I’m of two mind about covering this at all. On one hand: it was published online for others to read, which makes it free game, and it’s a part of his growth as a writer, so of course I’m going to look at it! On the other hand: Literal. Child. I wouldn’t make fun of a kid just starting out now, and I’m definitely not trying to rag on a young writer retroactively. That being said...

I’m not gonna lie, this is kind of a rough sit. I mean, other than it being an idea springboard that never went anywhere. There are some neat ideas, but… look, anything that’s truly made from the bottom of one’s heart, out of pure love, is always going to be at least a little cringe-inducing. That’s just how it goes, even with the best writers, and this is an outline written by a kid who grew up on 80’s-era media and was just starting out.

Still, there was a lot of potential here. It’s ambitious, it’s over the top, it’s silly and earnest. I like it. It makes me smile to read it and think about the person creating it and having fun doing it.

It just goes to show that no one starts out amazing at what they do.

Up next, a relic of a bygone era- the ‘zine! It’s The Mystery of the Transformer Decoys, a ‘zine that was printed out and sent via snail mail. We truly are spoiled by the internet.

[vandorens-archive]

ten questions tag | i was tagged by: @mshelleys, @emdrabbles, @pe-ersona, @evergrcen and @septemberliterature. thank you so much, and i’m so sorry i’m getting to this so late!

everything is under the cut!

@mshelleys

i. if you could change the genre of one of your wips, what would you change it to and how would the story/characters change?

So, trahison already features a ghost and a brief stay at a manor. have i considered turning it into a full fledged horror because of that? perhaps.

ii. do you think of your characters as actors playing a part in a movie or as people in history actually doing things that effect the future?

i think of them as actors playing in one long, crazy, unpredictable play. 

iii. role swap your protagonist and antagonist but keep their personalities the same; how different would your story be?

honestly, not different at all, because when it comes to it, the subject of trahison’s antagonist (s) is pretty complex. 

iv. are any of your characters based on you, family, friends, or someone else you know?

oh, absolutely. my characters range between self inserts, to characters i wish i was more like, to characters that are essentially walking, talking, breathing love letters to the people i care about.  

v. how long have you had your main protagonist(s) of your wip(s)?

I’ve been working with marin, nate and ruby for years, long before they were even called that and were a part of a dystopian crime novel (don’t ask). antoine joined them soon after, followed a while later by beth and isadora, and miles was invented during the plotting stage. 

vi. do you prefer to write chronologically or just make a bunch of scenes and order them after they’re written?

it depends on what i’m working on and how serious i am about it, but if we’re only talking about trahison, then chronologically!

vii. imagine the problem in your wip is sorted out, how would the protagonist recount the story to their children if they asked?

with a far away look in his eyes and an uncharacteristic fondness in his voice, marin would turn to his children, and tell them how extraordinary his friends were during his university years—their zeal, their inquisitiveness, and conveniently leaving out the uncomfortable loyalty they all had towards each other, until time and life’s commands separated them. 

viii. favorite (non-spoilery) line(s) of your current wip(s)?

This small bit of description, albeit a little purple prose-y, is one that i’m very, very proud of.

“ The morning rain had made its grave in the dirt, the bittersweet smell—like exotic black tea—rising into the air. It was the night pluviophiles came to dance. If I think hard, I can still taste the ghost of the raindrops on my tongue and sense Beth’s radiating warmth beside me; its own ghost ” - trahison, chapter three

ix. if your wip was a movie, could you see it be done in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, or 2010s? why that decade in particular?

so, fun fact, i hadn’t decided when to set trahison (see: the big question mark in my plotting notebook) but i have recently made up my mind and decided to set it in the seventies! if it was a film, then i could see it being made in seventies france! very a la the dreamers.

x. are you able to just make up a story on the spot, or do you need help (plot generators or other outside influences)?

sometimes i’ll take the help of prompts or media, but otherwise i just come up with things on my own!

@emdrabbles

i. what do the names of your main characters mean? did you pick them for the meaning or another reason?

i picked the trahison characters’ names based on two things: how much it related to the character’s backstory or personality, and how pleasing it sounded out loud. here are the meanings of their names:

marin — of the sea

ruby — deep red; precious stone; behold a son

elizabeth — god is my oath

nathaniel — gift from god

antoine — priceless one; beyond praise

isadora — gift of Isis

ii. what book are you currently reading?

I’m currently reading the time machine by h.g wells!

iii. last sentence written?

“ When the end of the world comes — I’ll film it ” — copycat, or the one where i predict the future. 

iv. who are some of your faceclaims?

i usually don’t use faceclaims, but if i had to choose:

marin van doren (trahison) — timor simakov

eloi hill (psychophantia) — maxence danet fauvel

cass parker (penny lane) — monica tomas

v. gimme some worldbuilding facts!!

alright, here’s one: in the world of psychophantia, not only is the magic system and your powers controlled by your morals, but so is your social ranking, your education, and any future you may have—to an extent. 

vi. do you outline? if so, do you have a specific method?

i’m a plotter and only really work well with a solid outline, however, my outlines range from a series of messy, incoherent bullet points to meticulous scene-by-scene planning based around the three act structure. this post is my go to for plotting assistance! 

vii. favourite author?

Like every tumblr user ever, i love donna tartt and maggie stiefvater, but i’m also a huge fan of f.scott fitzgerald, agatha christie and vera caspary!

viii. what is your oldest wip?

trahison! It went through many, many changes — from changes in genre to changes in character names, and there’s still a possibility that it could change even further. 

ix. what is your favourite wip?

every wip i reblog under my #others. tag! You all are so damn talented!

x. where do you get your inspiration from?

everywhere around me! from conversations i have with people, from films and books i consume, from the music on the radio — i like that anything and everything can inspire me to create.

@pe-ersona

i. in one sentence, explain your current wip!

a group of secretive students attempt to become immortal, only to uncover the worst parts of themselves — and each other — as they do. 

ii. was writing your main interest or did you have other interests?

although writing is my main interest (see: my social media bio on every platform ever), i also like to journal, sew, cook and make videos! my interests usually do have to do with the intention of creation. 

iii. what’s your favorite genre to write? to read?

I love writing horror and mysteries. those are my favourite genres, but i also love reading a good contemporary romance!

iv. what is one goal you have for your wip this year? how’s that goal going?

to finish the first draft! so far, not so bad, though i do wish i could write more, but unfortunately, time constraints plus school restrict me from doing so. 

v. how old is your wip? or when did you start writing your wip?

trahison is nearly three years old, but i only started writing the current version of it a year ago. 

vii. what scene made you cry or laugh or both?

these lines made me laugh out loud the first time i wrote them:

“ Up the stairs stumbled Miles, my slovenly genius roommate. He grinned at the giggles and winked at the exasperated stares. 

The gall of him! 

I wanted to be him. 

He managed to find his balance enough to reach our dorm. I immediately stepped back to let him in, and to make sure I was in no association with his uncomposed state. Nate gave a disapproving look at his back as he staggered in. 

I took another step back, raised a pointed eyebrow, and closed the door ” — trahison, chapter three

vii. how many ocs does your wip have? who’s your favourite?

my main wip, trahison, has six main characters. out of the main six, my favourite has to be nathaniel. he is very much the epitome of pure, and sometimes i wonder how he ended up in the middle of such a dark plot. 

vii. you have a brand new idea for a wip, what do you do? 

brainstorm, brainstorm, brainstorm. scribble down whatever the hell pops up in my brain, attempt to link it together by a thin string of yarn, cross my fingers and hope for the best.

ix. you are having your first book-signing, where are you?

i’m in a small bookstore, nestled in a corner near the storage room. almost no one knows about this town, so the line is small but chatty, fans exchanging theories and analysing certain paragraphs. the sight of them makes me feel warm inside. 

x. you have the ability to live in any book, publishing or not, what would it be?

would it be too cliche to say the harry potter universe? other than that, other worlds i would love to be a part of is the world in my novel penny lane, or in midst of a detective story.

@evergrcen / @septemberliterature

i. how did you come up with your wip’s title? what does it mean in relation to the story?

okay, so i discovered the word ‘trahison’ after hearing my french teacher say it, and immediately knew i had to use it for something. ‘trahison’ means betrayal or treason in french, which is one of the main themes in the novel. 

ii. do you title your chapters? if so, what’s your favourite?

I don’t, but I would love to!!

iii. what’s a recent line you really like?

Not a very dramatic or noteworthy line, but here’s one from a poem i’m writing:

“ So the two of you get in the car, proceeding to have an argument with the radio ” — examples of easy solutions, or the one where the internet has no answers. 

iv. are there any writing-related quotes you really like?

“i think a lot of art is trying to make someone love you” — keaton henson

v. do you have an idea for a cover design for your story?

A black background with serif text, that’s it. It’s simple. It’s mysterious. It’s the type of vibe I want to exude. 

vi. what sort of au can you imagine your story being?

...dark academia au anyone?

just kidding. in all seriousness, though, i can see a royalty/political au for trahison, or a medieval fantasy au!

vii. which oc would be the most angry with you as the writer?

eloi. i really need to give that poor boy a break. 

viii. if you had to tell the story from a different pov, which character would you choose?

ruby! she’s the token enigma of trahison, so i think her point of view would be very interesting to see. 

ix. what would be your oc’s taste in music if they lived in our world?

OKAY let’s see:

marin — classic rock, so the who, queen, def leppard.etc

ruby — that one person who you’re pretty sure only listens to classical music, but is actually very attuned to modern day music. she would mostly listen to female singer-songwriters, so take lorde, marina, lana del rey, and other such artists. 

beth — take one look at her playlist, and you’ll see that ninety five percent of it is mitski, while the other five percent is bedroom pop. she would like very tender, calm, cry to in bed music. 

Antoine — same as marin, but add other modern day music artists with eclectic sounds, such as twenty one pilots, arctic monkeys, that sort of thing.

nathaniel — classical music, instrumentals, and film soundtracks make up his playlist. if it has sung words, he won’t listen to it. has little to no understanding of modern day music and is too scared to find out more about it.

isadora — 2000’s diva pop plays in the background of her life. rihanna is her go to whenever she gets to control the party. Don’t be surprised if ‘rich girl’ by gwen stefani starts playing in your head at the sight of her. 

x. what’s one personal goal you want to achieve by the end of the story?

finishing it with pride!

[tacitwhisky]

Sansa Stone: Story Autopsy

Photo Credit: Sophie Starke

Sansa Stone is a little unusual as a story as I had the whole thing outlined, and even released the outline, before I started writing it. As such I thought it would be fun to go through the original outline and look out how and why it changed in the actual writing. I love reading this kind of thing when other writers do it, and there’s nothing writers like more than talking about themselves. It also just helps me think through my decisions and hopefully become a better writer.

Note that this will only really make sense if you've already read the story. Which you really should, I'm quite good at writing. You can also find the original outline I released and will be quoting here. The original prompt was:

Sansa really is born as petyr baelish’s bastard, who he persuades Robert to legitimize and raises from a toddler as his heir. Sansa somehow meets Jon and falls like an avalanche. bonus points if she gets daddy to help her marry jon.

The idea of Sansa as Petyr’s true bastard immediately clicked with me and got me thinking how it would’ve shaped Sansa: in canon she’s at the top of the social ladder and by the time she becomes Alayne her personality is already set. How does it change if she’s been shaped since she was a child with the stigma attached to bastards in westeros? That ended up being such an interesting idea to me that I kind of forgot the part about Robert legitimizing her. That’s kind of how prompts and ideas work sometimes; you pursue the parts that speak to you and discard the parts that don’t.

In canon Petyr actually did have a bastard with Lysa Tully, but it was aborted by her father. For this AU let’s assume that child wasn’t aborted and Petyr took her after she was born, though no one but him and Lysa know her true parentage. It explains why this Sansa has red hair and the Tully look. He names her Sansa after one of Catelyn’s favorite songs because he is a massive creep, and also Stone because he says she was born in the Vale (but mostly because to me Sansa Stone sounds a lot better than Sansa Rivers).

This seemed like a really tidy and neat way of making the premise work, and also opens up all kinds of interesting plot opportunities. Now, in an outline its relatively fine to frontload all this exposition, but in the actual story itself, putting it at the beginning obviously doesn’t work. At first I tried to move the reveal to the middle of the feast (the section where Sansa kind of zones out before she starts drinking), but it didn’t really work there, and eventually got moved to the end of the chapter.

Partly this is because reveals like that add narrative momentum and escalation, but mainly the move was just logistical: Sansa’s true birth is too much information to unload on the reader all at once. Because I decided to start the story when Sansa first meets Jon (I’ll go into that in a moment), there’s already a huge amount of world building and exposition that has to fit cleanly and organically into a very small space: who Jon is, what Sansa thinks of him, the physical setting, the rest of Sansa’s backstory.

To slap on top of that all of the backstory of her being a secret cousin to the Starks is a lot, and it just hurt the flow of the chapter, and story, as a whole. Putting that material at the end of the first chapter also just gives it a lot more space to breath and be explored.

(I actually considered just cutting that entire part of Sansa’s backstory because it would slim down the story and doesn’t really add anything on a plot level, but ultimately it felt too important to her character’s interiority to cut)

Sansa Stone spends the first five or so years of her life being raised in Petyr’s old home, with him visiting her sporadically. When she’s six he takes her back to Kingslanding with him and quickly begins teaching her how to navigate court life. Dearly she’s always loved songs and ladies and kings and queens, but now that she’s at court Sansa finds the reality different to what she thought. As a bastard she can only ever be on the fringes of all she’s ever wanted.

She clings to her courtesies and ladylike behavior (sewing, singing, etc) because on some level she believes that if she can excel at those maybe, just maybe, they can make up for her bastard birth. Her sexuality is also something she’s much more aware of then in canon; as a girl thought to be base by nature men feel comfortable leering at, even knights and lords she thought noble. It disillusions her and makes her think of herself as dirty or tainted somehow. Not that she shows it beneath her smiles and courtesies.

Keeping all of the core Sansa things (ladylike aspirations, love of songs, idealism) but changing the context fundamentally changes in a lot of ways her reasons for doing them, and that’s such a fascinating idea and character to explore to me.

There’s a world where I write Sansa’s childhood and upbringing in Kingslanding in a kind of lyrical, lilting passage of time chapter before the rest of the story. And while I love writing that kind of thing, for this story it felt like an unnecessary approach. I’m a big proponent of starting stories as close to the middle as possible, and the ‘scenes’ of this story really start at the next part when Sansa actually arrives at Winterfell, so it made the most sense to start there. Considering most of the above material got folded into the first chapter pretty easily and cleanly, I think it was the right decision.

Sansa meets Jon when she journeys north with the king’s procession when Robert goes to ask Ned to be Hand. There in Winterfell she meets Jon sitting exiled at the low table during the feast. She approaches Ghost, and Ghost lets her scratch him behind the ears, which surprises Jon. She asks about Ghost and they talk, bastard to bastard, connecting despite their differences in temperament. He tells her his plan to go to the Wall. The black knights of the Wall, she tells him she remembers them called. A noble cause. 

I did a thing here that’s fine when first writing an outline (when all that’s important is getting the idea no matter how rough on the page), but is a bad habit of mine and is a pain if I don’t fix it in a second draft. And that thing is that I tend to skip over specifics in outlines.

I want to stress that this is fine to do in a first outline. Really. But when you go to expand it in prose it causes problems. ‘They connect despite their differences in temperament’ seems fine, but what are the actual words involved in illustrating it? In turning it into actual dialogue? Being vague and skipping over that stuff has become the bane of my existence with outlines. To combat it I often go through an outline and highlight the points where I skipped over details to force myself to try and fill them out before starting on the actual prose.

So, for example, in my first outline I wrote after the above:

Sansa witnesses Jon’s conversation with Benjen and him storming out of the hall.

And in my second draft of the outline I expanded it to:

Benjen straddles the bench on the other side of Jon. My lady, Benjen greets her with a tilt of his head. He grins at Jon. I’d know idea you kept such beautiful company. Jon flushes and mumbles something. Sansa understands. She’s well used to being a bastard, to be considered base, to be flirting with a man simply by sitting next to him. She answers Benjen’s compliment with a smile though, tells him that Jon has been most kind to let her sit next to him. She’s only a simple southern girl, after all, and unused to the north.

This is more fleshed out, and gives me more hooks to lay the prose and dialogue on when it comes to write the scene. One thing I wanted to emphasize is just how constantly aware of her social position and image Sansa is, that she knows she’s a sexualized object.

This is also a good example of how something can say ok in an outline, and then not work when you go to write it. Having Jon be embarrassed by Sansa seemed ok when I was outlining it: he’s drunk and easily embarrassed to begin with, and it’s a very human reaction. When I actually wrote it out though, it mostly just came off like Jon being a dick. And it also just didn’t feel like it fit his character. Right from the first chapter of A Game of Thrones he appears in he’s someone who’s willing to sacrifice having a direwolf of his own so that his brothers and sisters can have theirs.

Once I changed it I realized (though I really should’ve before) how important it is to the entire chapter and story that Jon stand up for Sansa here, how it’s part of his strength of character that Sansa is attracted to, the boy who really tries to live up to the songs.

She witnesses his conversation with Benjen and him storming out of the hall. Maybe she follows him and comforts him after, or maybe just watches from the benches. Either way, in the dark scheming Petyr part of herself she doesn’t like to acknowledge, a plan starts to form in Sansa’s mind. For years Petyr has petitioned Robert to legitimize her, but always been rebuffed. But Jon’s father will be Hand soon, and he could legitimize her. She could charm Jon, Petyr has taught her how to use her sweet smile that way, and have him lobby his father to legitimize her.

One of my all time favorite conflicts for a character to have is between doing what they know is right on the one hand, and what their desperate and selfish want on the other. It’s such a lovely source of angst and also a really legitimate conflict we all go through in life. Hopefully if I’ve done my job right as a writer, the audience feels just how desperately Sansa no longer wants to be a bastard.

Through Jon she could finally be a bastard no longer, but that would require manipulating him not to go to the Wall, and the only way to do it would be to seduce him, bed him; he would marry her for honor after that, she knows, a son of Lord Stark could do no less and Jon has vowed to father no bastards. But too, it wouldn’t be right.

I ended up deciding to move this specific thing, baby trapping Jon, to later in the story for escalation and because it just felt sort of abrupt and out of left field this early on. It’s another example of how tone and pacing in an outline can get kind of wonky and not work when it’s dramatized in prose.

Separately, I’m not entirely happy with how the last third of this chapter turned out after Benjen leaves. Generally it’s bad writing to have a character simply sit around and think about things; which is what Sansa does here for nearly a thousand words. In the case of this story I think it works because of how well the scene otherwise plays out and where the reader’s interest lies, but I’m not sure I could get away with it in an original story where the reader wasn’t already so invested in Sansa. It’s an example of how writing original fiction and fanfiction can be very different.

In the following days Sansa meets with Jon and spends time with him, tries to shove down and not listen to the whispers of Petyr’s voice that tell her she could entrance him easily, so easily. She finds herself drawn to Jon in a way none of the squires at court have ever interested her, something intriguing in his dark eyes and long face. It’s strange, makes her feel naked to be the one that wants instead of being wanted.

This is the part of the story that got expanded the most. What’s a paragraph here ends up being a full chapter. I originally wanted to keep it just in lyrical montage, but that’s always my instinct and not always what’s best for the story. There’s still a little of that summarizing in the middle of the released chapter, but it’s bookended by two solid scenes.

I’m going to quote from the completed version of the fic for a bit because otherwise this turns into just a wall of text. I’ll let you know when we get back to the original outline.

“I’m not a lady. Not yet.” Arya scrunches her nose, but seems to suddenly remember her own courtesies, and gives a grudging curtesy back. She eyes Sansa curiously. “Why don’t you have to do needlework?”

I originally wasn’t going to have Arya show up in the scene where Sansa and Jon watch the boys sparring in the yard, but the Stark girls are simply too great a dynamic not to explore at least a little, especially with how it would change with Sansa as a bastard.

Now, I did want to avoid the trope fic writers tend to fall into when they write divergent fic like this where the characters are all chummy and the conflicts in canon are ironed out just because one character was raised different. It always feels like wish fulfillment to me and like the character conflicts in canon are some puzzlebox to be fixed.

And ultimately it felt right to me that Sansa and Arya even in this universe wouldn’t get along that well. In all likelihood they would probably actually get along worse since they don’t have that sister bond under their disagreements: though their relationship might be interesting to explore how it grows once they’re both in the Red Keep.

(I also just find it endlessly hilarious that Sansa thinks that she and Arya would closer if they were raised together. You sweet summer child, you.)

Another route I thought about going down is having Sansa be resentful of Arya: after all Arya has everything she’s ever wanted and more or less just spits on it. I read an excellent meta once talking about how in canon that’s why Jeyne is so mean to Arya. Despite being better at feminine pursuits and closer with Sansa, because of her birth she’ll never be as good as Arya.

I ultimately didn’t go down this route just because it didn’t feel right: it makes Sansa a less likable character, and this Sansa is still a very kind character who doesn’t even know Arya well enough to warrant that kind of bitterness. It also undercuts the longing Sansa has in this world for siblings or family of some kind beside Petyr who is a creep.

Sansa grins back and combs back her hair from a gust of wind, looks out at the rolling and empty hills around them. There is a bleak beauty to them and the blue-grey sky and chill wind, and despite how different it is from Kingslanding Sansa feels a desperate yearning inside her to never leave, feels as though she could spend all her life here and be happy.

I liked the concept of Sansa in this world feeling out of place, there being some kind of echo of canon in her situation, an itch she can’t quite scratch. It’s also an interesting contrast to canon where Sansa is perfectly happy to go south and is coded more with southern courtly culture than the north initially. In this verse she’s already been disabused of her view of songs and chivalry and just like Jon has a deep yearning for belonging. Home for a bastard is a fickle thing, and really a metaphor for the way they’re inherently destabilizing to the westerosi social hierarchy and can thus never fit into it. It’s something I explore a lot in my Jon of the Kingsguard fic too.

Jon bursts into laughter, easy and warm, and Sansa has the sudden and reckless urge to lean across the gap between their horses and taste it, press her lips to his and find out if it’s as warm and free as it sounds. Squire after squire, knight after knight, lord after lord of the Red Keep has flirted and courted and wanted her. Comely and ugly, fair and dark, bold and shy, laughing and serious: all had wanted her and none had ever made her feel like this, flushed and breathless and skin tingling with each brush of the wind. The feeling is strange, uncomfortable, and Sansa looks out to the hills around them, longing for something she doesn’t understand blooming painfully beneath her breastbone.

I played around a lot in this scene with how much Sansa should realize her attraction to Jon. It’s such an interesting idea to me that Sansa is perfectly fluent in one half of attraction but not the other: she knows with exhausting detail what it’s like to have men be attracted to her, but has never really felt much of an attraction to anyone to the point where she probably doesn’t even realize that’s supposed to be a part of love.

After all, in a lot of those chivalric songs they talk a lot about the knights love for the maiden, but kind of skip over her interest in him (this attitude is still really, really common in our media nowadays). It’s part of the way chivalry in westeros makes women into objects. Wanting and hunger on the part of the woman is destabilizing because it isn’t under male control, and thus is gross and wanton and penalized.

“Winterfell.” The word is sad and hopeful and longing all in one, and something in it clouds Jon’s eyes. He looks down at the reins in his hand. “I dreamed of my father naming me his heir and giving me Winterfell, of becoming it’s lord.” He shakes his head, voice touched with an old and bitter shame. “I would never betray Robb like that. Never. But still I couldn’t stop imagining what it would be like if it was mine. If only we’d born opposite. I know I shouldn’t, that it’s a bastard’s curse to be envious and faithless-”

“It isn’t.” Sansa reaches over and touches Jon’s arm, voice hot. “It isn’t, Jon. We- there’s nothing wrong with wanting. Not for us. We cannot help what we want.”

If there’s a central theme to this story, it’s wanting, and whether it’s right or wrong to want. For both women and bastards it’s wrong to want because it destabilizes the westorosi social contract, and so both Jon and Sansa have internalized a certain amount of self hate for wanting the things they want. And they’re not dumb: they both know that taking the things they want will hurt others, Robb and Jon respectively. And that’s kind of the resolution of the theme by the end of the story: it’s ok to want, but you shouldn’t hurt others to get what you want.

Getting back to the original outline:

After Bran falls Sansa comforts Jon in his grief. I can’t stay at Winterfell, he tells her quietly. She bites her lip, because in that moment she knows he’s teetering, that she has him, that in this moment of weakness she could kiss him and comfort him and let him have her body. She cradles his head and they kiss, and it unlocks something in Sansa, a desperate yearning, an ache to have him inside her. It would be so easy. So easy to tangle her fingers in his shirt and draw him down to his bed.

This mostly stayed the same, just expanded and dramatized. I also punched up why Sansa’s attracted to Jon, not just that he tries to stay true to idealism and songs, but that he doesn’t have the objectified and hyper-sexualized view of her that others do. And as I mentioned above, Sansa doesn’t really understand wanting someone for herself, and thus it’s so much harder for her to control herself.

I should mention that in the abstract this whole element of Sansa’s sexual desire being tied up with moral wrongdoing is kind of super problematic considering how much female sexuality tends to get penalized, but for some reason I feel like in the actual implementation it isn’t too bad? I tried to make it clear here and later that her sexuality and wanting isn’t wrong, just the consequences of it in this specific situation.

But Sansa forces herself to break their kiss, rests her forehead against his and takes a deep breathe. Jon pulls back, an apology already on his tongue, but she shakes her head firmly and smiles at him even as she can feel a hole yawning open in the pit of her gut at the thought of never seeing him again.

One of the hardest things for me to write is a character drawing back from the brink of temptation. They can’t almost do something, and have every reason to do something, and then just not do it. As a writer you have to find some element that sparks them to make the right decision. Here it’s Littlefinger’s creepy inner voice that makes Sansa realize what she’s doing isn’t right and is something she’ll be ashamed of later.

Littlefinger in this story as a whole was a little tricky to write. I wanted it to be clear that there wasn’t any actual sexual abuse between him and Sansa, but I still wanted a certain amount of his creepiness and possessiveness to come through: for example, when I describe in the first chapter his breath rasping her ear or him stroking her cheek.

Even in the completed chapter the, ‘Let him do as he likes with you, take comfort in you, spill his seed in you’ / ‘Let it happen, sweetling. It will be over soon’ she mentally hears him say is pretty rapey language. It’s there to emphasize the control he has over how Sansa views herself, and the ways she’s been shaped to be passive in her sexuality.

The next day the king’s procession makes ready to go south and Sansa slides up on to her horse. Jon rides up to her and despite the sadness in her Sansa offers him good luck on his journey north, tells him he will make a fine knight of the black. Jon looks at her a moment before answering, gaze intent. I’m not going north, he tells her softly, I’m going south to Kingslanding with my father. Sansa’s heart leaps into her throat, and she smiles, not the carefully manicured expression Petyr taught her, but a blinding and uninhibited thing. And together, the two turn their horses south.

This is an example of something that makes sense when you write in an outline, and then you write the thing and it doesn’t quite make sense any more. Once I’d made it such a point that Jon didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye to Bran, I couldn’t just have him up and leave at the end of the chapter. Having Jon promise to follow Sansa also leaves the ending a little more bittersweet, which fits the tone better (it also opens up all kinds of sequel plottage if I ever decided to go there).

It’s a bit of a thematic cop-out to have Jon just decide to not go to the Wall: Sansa’s challenge in this fic is to do the right thing despite how she has to sacrifice her happiness for it. For her then to get what she wanted anyway kind of betrays and undermines that theme. But, you know, I’m not Hemingway and I’m not trying to write the next great American novel. I mostly just want my favorite characters to smush faces.

---

In all, while I love all my stories, this is one of my favorites so far. There’s so much thematic and character richness to this version of Sansa, and the way she relates to Jon. I have an idea of where it would go if I ever decide to continue and have a few chapters outlined, but there’s a few factors in why I probably won’t write it.

First, I have too many WIPs right now. Second, while I know where this story would go for a few chapters, continuing it past that turns it into a full on series AU and that sounds exhausting. I kind of did that with Jon of the Kingsguard, and even cutting out a bunch of canon elements that turned into fourteen chapters and 50k words. And third, I kind of want to file off the serial numbers and turn this fic into an original story, especially if I’m going to write a novel sized continuation of it anyway.

Basically, the future is a little unclear for this fic, but I do genuinely love it and this version of Jon and Sansa. Hopefully you did to.

(If there’s any specific part of this fic that I didn’t talk about here that you want me to go more in depth with, just hit me with an ask or quote it in the ask box and I’ll expound on it.)

[chonideno]

i’m a new writer on ao3 and i’ve been feeling a little discouraged. i was wondering, did it take you long to get where you are in terms of popularity and skill? and do you have any tips for new writers?

Hi! I hope you understand how hard of a question it is to answer, though I’m not blaming you at all, [grandma voice] I was the same at your age. Writing is hard, and understanding what makes good writing is hard, and understanding what makes your writing good is hard. Nothing I can tell you will sound new to you - write for yourself, be patient, have fun, popularity is overrated, yada yada yada. 

This being said, there are lessons I keep having to re-learn every 3 months or so. I’ve been writing fanfiction for too many years and I still forget some lessons - not that the words disappear from my memory, but there are some things you only learn through experience and I tend to forget them every so often, until I go through yet another learning experience. Here’s a list of things I wish I was prepared to learn when I started:

don’t be afraid of being bad. I know, you don’t want to be bad, that’s why you’re asking about how to get better, and how much time it takes to be popular. But being bad is the foundation of your experience. We all started as terrible writers, and some of us are still there after years of practice - and it’s fine! You have to truly be okay with the idea that you’re going to suck, too! And no amount of experience will ever protect you from that. Being bad happens to everyone, and it’s great. Your writing is going to suck - and what about it? Your writing is going to be terrible, and? What is anyone going to do about it, if you want to shove it into their faces? Nothing, that’s what. The more you write, the less often these moments will happen (but as I said earlier, they still will  happen, and they’ll still sting like hell) so keep at it. Don’t be afraid to be the worst at writing, because if you don’t get this stinky stuff out of your system you’ll never get to the good part.

grieve your Ideas. It’s not the first time I mention it I think, but try a thing: think of your Idea right now, your beautiful prefect story that is just waiting for you to write it down, and it has all of these incredible scenes and this intensity and this emotion and it’s going to be great - now let it go. Your Idea with a capital I is a mirage. No matter how hard you try, you’ll never get 100% there. You can get real close, and that’s where the satisfaction lies, the farthest you go from your outline and the closest you get to the Idea, the better your fic. But perfection is unattainable. The finished product will not be a copy of that Idea you had in your head - worse! The finished product will look nothing like your Idea to your readers, who are not in your head, and it also won’t look like what you think it looks like. Because, and that’s very important, writing is a product of 1) the person who lays its eyes on it (whether it’s the author or the reader) and 2) your writing style and what influences it, the Muse, the Spark, the Whatever people like to chase. No story will look alike to different people. So forget about your Idea - it’s never getting born. It’ll have a cousin, so get ready to love this one instead.

learn about your content creation cycle, and be patient with yourself. You will never be a perfect machine. Writing blocks will happen. Every so often I feel like that’s it, that’s the last fic I was ever going to write, and these feelings are sincere and true. I truly believe it to my core. And then writing happens again, and woops, there I go posting another fic. It’s a pattern. It happens. I answered asks about this here, here and here. Be patient. Learn about your own creation process. You’re not your own enemy.

popularity is, ultimately, meaningless. I know how this sounds, but please bear with me here. Popularity is not correlated with quality in any way. It is valid to chase popularity, but you have to do it separately from other goals. You can’t think “I’m going to write a really beautiful fic and it’ll become popular” because there’s no guarantee it will. You can’t think “I’m going to pour all of my emotions in it so it’ll be raw and people are going to love it” because that’d be wrong again. Popularity is a function of timing, marketing skills, what’s currently trendy in your fandom niche and dumb luck. Some of my fics did high numbers, but I have no idea what led them to do that. I’d even argue that between these few fics, not two got a lot of hits for the same reason. Most of the fics I have written over the years have not made a ripple, and I will, inevitably, disappear from everyone’s radar soon. And what is popularity anyway? Hits? Kudos? Kudos/hits ratio? Digging in the numbers depresses me. You want to be known, this much I understand, but I was on this pedestal for a bit and yeah, I’ll admit it’s nice, but if you don’t enjoy your writing or if you don’t like your own output, none of it will make sense, and it’ll only slow down your progress as a writer.

it’s all about you. It’s really all about you. In many ways. You must want to write what you write. You must write for yourself first, and a love letter to a character or a trope is a good way to do that. You should write what you know - not the situations you know, but the emotions you know, the sentimental truth (if it applies to what you write at least - pwp probably doesn’t need it lmao). You might look back on your previous works and think “wow, this is literally about me”. It’s okay to be self-obsessed in writing and art in general. Who else is gonna do that for you?

you don’t need to fit a mold. I know the temptation is great, especially if you’re starting and you’re trying to figure out what people like so you can make a name for yourself or something, but you truly, truly don’t have to write things you don’t like. there are different types of writers, and you might change types over time as well.This Kind Of Writing is real popular but doesn’t fit you? Then don’t write it. Don’t force yourself to write things just because you think people will like it, it will truly not help. At best you’ll end up confused about what you want out of your writing, at worst it’ll disgust you from writing for a time. I have to re-learn this lesson over and over, and every time it rings more true: write what you want. If it’s horrible poetry, do it. If it’s the next 500k sci-fi reincarnation soulmates enemies to friends to lovers au, do it. If it’s sharp one-shots, or mindless porn, or studies of family dynamics, or one-dimensional fluff, do it. You don’t have to reach imaginary standards either - remember, you have the right to suck by anyone’s standards! You can be the most stereotypical ooc coffee shop au author ever, or write chat fics, or indulge in character x reader fics, and what are people going to do about it? Break into your house and steal your keyboard? No!! They’re gonna do nothing!! No amount of joking about these kinds of writing has the power to stop you!! You want to pretend you’re the next literature Nobel and you’re going to revolutionize prose? Do it! Wherever you fall on the spectrum, take what is rightfully yours. And if you don’t know where to go yet, gosh how I wish I were you - the world is your oyster, so try! Read, and think, and scribble and plot and delete half of what you’ve written, experiment, figure out what makes you tingle, what’s your style, what’s your favorite tropes and genres. You can always let go and change. You have a universe of possibilities ahead of you, and don’t let things like popularity hold you back! I’m really excited to hear you’re starting. It’s all adventure from now on.

Sometimes it’s not that deep, but sometimes it truly is.

So I’ve been writing fanfic for 7 years even though I took 1.5 years of hiatus, dropped a fic then stopped writing for another 8 months, I’ve written 21 fics for 3 fandoms, I’ve been invisible and popular and right in the middle and I don’t know how to make popularity happen, and I don’t know how to get better as a writer - I don’t even know if my writing has improved in any way. All I know is that my experience as a writer has improved. I know what I’m doing now. I know what I want. It’ll happen to you too.

[genderpunktheo]

Do you have any advice on sticking with a WIP? I keep getting shiny new ideas and bouncing around too much to finish a draft…

Hi nonnie!

I struggle with this a lot too so i’ve developed a few things to help, hopefully something here works for you:

How To Stick With Your Story:

I’m sure plenty of us know this feeling: you get a new idea and its just the most wonderful exciting idea ever. It practically writes itself! Except of course, it doesn’t. And so slowly we begin to lose interest. Until a new oh so exciting idea pops into our heads and off we run with that one. But how can we avoid throwing the old story away?

Plan, plan, plan. I can’t stress enough the importance of planning before starting a story - now those wonderful people who can just write and follow through can feel free to ignore this, but for people like me and the asker a huge part of the reason why we might become disenchanted with a story is simply that it lacks direction. In our enthusiasm, we often sit down to write before we really know where this thing is headed or what we’re doing with it - so remember to sit down and work out the beginning, ending and all the wobbly bits that happen in the middle.

This next one is a bit unorthodox and certainly not for everyone but it works for me so I’m gonna drop it here anyway: don’t be afraid to write multiple things at once. I know, I know it seems like a recipe for disaster and it will certainly take longer to get any one project finished but hear me out. Sometimes, you’re going to want to follow through on a new idea even when you really shouldn’t give up on the old one so it can help to keep focused on both just so long as you make sure not to neglect one of them or let it fester. I keep things in order by making sure my projects are at very different stages in their development - so Noir is on its second draft (rewriting before editing), The Poet is on the first draft (actually writing) and Clarence Graves is in the middle of outlining (planning stage). Again, this won’t work for everyone so don’t worry if it's not for you!

Stop worrying so much. Remember that there is plenty of time to fix any problems in later drafts, you have all the time in the world. For now, just keep slogging on with the book in all its imperfect glory. Love it for its flaws.

Don't over research before you get started. Yes, I know I said that planning was super important. But there's a big difference between outlining the basic plot so you know where you're going and researching every tiny minute detail. Will it eventually matter if that particular expression existed in your time setting? Yes. But that is a problem for you to work out when editing. For now, simply make a note of it and keep on going. Nothing will turn you off a story faster than micromanaging yourself.

If you're the kind of person that hates to let others down then tell as many friends and family as possible that you're going to write a book. Get them hyped up for it. When you begin to lose interest, let them push you to keep going. I even had a deal with a friend of mine at one point that he was allowed to punch me in the arm if I gave up on the book I was working on - whatever works for you, but let your loved ones keep you going even when it gets tough.

Take care of yourself while you're writing. It's important to take breaks - have a snack, a drink, maybe go for a short walk or have a stretch. If you don't take care of yourself during your writing time, you'll begin to look on that as the time that gives you eye-strain and a headache from staring at the screen all day, and leaves you full of aches and pains from being slumped in your chair, and that's no way at all to encourage you to get back to it the next day. If you need advice on how to make your writing space nicer and more comfortable to help with this self-care, check out how to make a writer's nest.

Here is probably the most important piece of advice I can give for any writer: just say fuck it and break the rules. Part of the reason why you might be getting bored with your story, is you're not focusing on what you're passionate about but getting bogged down in other people's expectations of you / what you think the reader might want. It's time to just say, screw all of that and write what you actually want to write. Break the genre conventions, do things no one else has, write what makes you happy, write what scares you. Write the things that only you can write. I promise that your writing will be all the better for it.

Finally, there's something that you might not want to hear but is just plain true: sometimes you just have to force yourself to get your butt in your seat and start writing. If this is something you want to do for a career then its like any other job - you show up and put the hours in even when you don't want to. It's a battle of wills but sometimes you really do just have to be stern with yourself and write something that isn't as exciting as it was when you started.

How To Keep Your Excitement For A Story:

Okay,  I know I literally just said that sometimes you have to force yourself to put your butt in your seat but as true as that is, it doesn't mean that you wouldn't much rather be writing something that really excites you, something that you can be passionate about. The rule about sod the rules above is a great way to do this - if you're doing something only you can, its hard to get bored after all - but what else can you do to keep your motivation going?

The first thing is really very simple: remember that this is meant to be fun. Don't treat writing like a chore. Remember why this story filled you with joy and why you wanted to write it. Then focus on that. Was it the monsters? Give them more page time. Do you love world-building? Write a world centric story. Are you a tiny bit in love with your characters? Write a character driven story and give them all proper development arcs. Love description and poetic prose? Practice to your heart's content. Of course, you might have to edit these things back down when you're down in order to make it publishable. But the fist draft is allowed to have as many flaws as you want so just do what's fun as long as you keep making progress.

Browse the motivation tag right here on theinkstainsblog.com. There you'll find posts on everything from how to take small steps while beginning your novel to ones on remaining focused during your writing time, that should help you up your productivity and stay interested.

Again, chat to people about it! But this time, instead of getting them to push you to keep writing, just chat to them about all of the things that excite you or them about your story. Hearing what your readers, friends and fans think can really help to keep the story fresh in your mind and remind you what was exciting about it to begin with. Remember that it may seem boring to you because you're the one who knows it inside out so get an outsider perspective!

Which brings me onto the next tip: remember to keep your story fresh. When you've been working on something for a little while, it can be easy for it to seem boring to you. So when you're excited about it, right down all the tiny ideas that make it exciting. Keep those notes in a little notebook. Have a playlist of songs that fit the atmosphere or characters. Watch a new show that fits the genre of your idea and might give you inspiration. Anything you can to keep it fresh and exciting.

How To Know If This Is The Right Story For You:

Most writers will have many plot bunnies bouncing around in our heads, each more cute and fluffy than the last. But how we know which one is The Story, the one that we're destined to write at a given time in our lives? Short of personal tragedy inspiring something heart-breaking and poignant, there are a few things you can do to test if this is the right story for you.

Before you begin to write (I mean it! Not one single word on that page buddy!) you need to spend some quality time with your story. This is similar to planning and outlining since it will help you get to know your plot and characters but it will also let your story evolve beyond just the basic concept that excited you so much. Daydream about it, picture all the most exciting parts. Let it evolve into a whole story rather than just an inkling. If it still seems exciting (and yes, just a little intimidating) then this might be the story for you.

Reflect on why it is you feel that you need to tell this story. Is it just for fun? Is it going to give you a sense of catharsis about something going on in your life right now or help you process something? Are you trying to tell a message? All of these things are equally valid but you should figure out if you have a reason for telling it and what that reason is. If you don't have one, that's okay too, but it might explain why you're getting bored so easily. It might be better to wait a little while until you get a story that you have a burning need to tell.

[annemariewrites]

Walt Whitman

Research Paper

Walt Whitman, considered to be one of America’s greatest poets, was born in New York on May 31, 1819. He was self-taught and became a printer at twelve years old and this helped him understand the written word and be familiar with the works of Shakespeare, Dante, and the Bible. Whitman wrote many prose and poems, though he is most known for Song of Myself from Leaves of Grass.

The first copy of Leaves of Grass was published in 1855 and he continued to revise it for the rest of his life. This book had many renditions with numerous poems ranging from 12 in the first publication and over 400 in the last. His poems are often characterized as having long lines, little to no rhyme scheme, reflection on nature, and repeating first words. Whitman used a number of poetic forms in his writings. In the essay, "Poetic Form as Meaning in Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass," written by Nigel Fabb, the poetic forms used by Walt Whitman are observed. Fabb uses an excerpt from a poem in Leaves of Grass. He states, “… the following five lines which form a stanza of one of the component poems of the book, reproduced here as closely as possible to copy the layout (e.g., line-breaks) on page 67 of the first (1855) edition.

‘The sky continues beautiful…. the pleasure of men with women shall never be

sated.. nor the pleasure of women with men... nor the pleasure from poems;

The domestic joys, the daily housework or business, the building of houses - they

are not phantasms.. they have weight and form and location;

The farms and profits and crops.. the markets and wages and government…. they

also are not phantasms;

The difference between sin and goodness is no apparition;

The earth is not an echo... man and his life and all the things of his life are well-considered.’

Here we see various poetic forms. The most obvious is the line. Next, it has been argued that the poem is divided into ‘rhetorical groups.’ Third, there is parallelism between the parts. Fourth, there are small rhythmic sequences. In this section of the paper, I consider each of these in turn and argue that they are attributed rather than inherent. I conclude by commenting on the unusual line-internal punctuation, in particular two dots, four dots and a dash, which have relevance for the form of the text.” (Fabb 107-108) He goes on to use another example, “…most of Whitman’s lineation is attributed, though there are occasional examples of inherent lineation, as in the following example of lines written in iambic pentameter (Whitman 1881: 296):

‘Out from behind this bending rough-cut mask.

These lights and shades, this drama of the whole.’

Like all iambic pentameter lines, these lines are subject to subtle generalizations, which can loosely be summarized by saying that there are ten syllables in each line, and a stressed syllable within a polysyllabic word must be even-numbered.” (Fabb 109)  This shows the numerous poetic devices that Walt Whitman used in his poems. These techniques were used by many poets that inspired and were inspired by Whitman.

Whitman was a part of the transcendentalism movement which was a literary movement that occurred in the early nineteenth century. Ralph Waldo Emerson was also hugely involved with this movement and the two poets are compared by Kelly Scott Franklin in the essay, “’Without Being Walt Whitman’: Vicente Huidobro, Whitman, And the Poetics of Sight.” Franklin writes, “Ralph Waldo Emerson (1836) described feeling ‘uplifted into infinite space’, which allowed him to see everything at once, and he described becoming a ‘transparent eyeball’ (Emerson, [1836] 1996: 10). Whitman himself would write in 1855, in what would later become ‘Song of Myself’:

My ties and ballasts leave me [. . .] I travel [. . .] I sail [. . .]

I skirt sierras [. . .] my palms cover continents,

I am afoot with my vision. (Whitman, 1855c: 36) (Franklin 285)

Franklin then goes on to compare Walt Whitman to Vicente Huidobro, who was a creationist poet, stating, “…both Whitman’s and Huidobro’s speakers can also see the ongoing exploration and travel of the globe. Whitman celebrates this exploration in a lengthy passage:

I behold the sail and steamships of the world, some in clusters in port, some on their

voyages,

Some double the cape of Storms, some cape Verde, others capes Guardafui, Bon, or

Bajadore,

Others Dondra head, others pass the straits of Sunda, others cape Lopatka, others

Behring’s straits [. . .]. (Whitman, 1982b: 290)

‘Others,’ Whitman’s speaker continues, ‘sternly push their way through the northern winter packs, / Others descend or ascend the Obi or the Lena, / Others the Niger or the Congo [. . .]’ (Whitman, 1982b: 290). But if the expansionist Whitman celebrates those who ‘sternly push their way’ into other lands, Huidobro’s speaker sees that same exploration in terms of the multiform violence of imperialism (Whitman, 1982b: 290):

“The bravest captains Captain Cook

On an iceberg went to the Poles Hunts the Northern Lights

To leave his pipe in the lips In the South Pole

Of Eskimos

Others stab fresh lances in the Congo

The heart of sunny Africa

Opens like pecked figs.” (Huidobro, 2003e: 494.69–75) (Franklin 287)

This quote shows the inspiration that Vincent Huidobro gained from Walt Whitman, despite the former being a creationist and the latter being a transcendentalist.

One of the most notable trends in Leaves of Grassis that of spirituality. In Ernest Smith’s essay, “’Restless Explorations’: Whitman’s Evolving Spiritual Vision in Leaves of Grass,” Smith explains the change in Walt Whitman’s spiritual image. He states, “In an uncollected manuscript fragment, Whitman terms spirituality “the unknown” (Leaves 612), and despite various pronouncements of certitude, especially in the 1855 and 1856 editions, as the poet more deeply engages his personal contradictions and his envisioned democracy’s various failures and compromises, his poetry comes to challenge its readers to conceive of spirituality more broadly, but less conclusively.” (Smith 229) This quote show that Whitman had a change in his thoughts of spirituality in Leaves of Grass. This is entirely understandable seeing as how he continued to add to and revise this great work for many decades until his death. It would only be natural to change his feelings and beliefs in some way. Smith continues by pointing out what Whitman’s earlier writings showed about the spirit by saying, “The personal pull of Whitman’s early poetry is undeniably powerful, a proclamation of the agency of the individual that at the same time invites us to “follow” the poet toward enlightenment, claiming deep insight into the nature of the soul.” (Smith 229) He then describes Whitman’s last poems, “While the major works of Whitman’s final productive decade demonstrate what Erkkila terms “a more traditional religious faith,” by the final arrangement of poems for the 1881 edition, the reader of Leaveswill move through poems supremely confident of immortality and a mystical oneness of humanity, other poems where the spiritual core of the text seems more based in phenomenology, Civil War poems that recognize the ability of death’s sheer physical carnage to at least momentarily eclipse spiritual hope, and the later meditative mode of poems such as those in the “Whispers of Heavenly Death” cluster.” (Smith 229-239) This accurately demonstrates the shift that occurred all throughout Whitman’s life to change the various aspects of how he reflected on spirituality in his poetry.

In addition to the use of religion and spirituality, Whitman also implemented numerous social issues into his poetry. This is outlined in the essay, “’Song of Myself’ and the Class Struggle in Language,” by Andrew Lawson. In this essay, Lawson notes, “Charles Hliot Norton, an early reviewer for Putnam's Monthly Magazine in September 1855, found Whitman's poetry monstrous in its ‘self-conceit,” its contempt for ‘all usual propriety of diction.’ For Norton, Whitman’s impropriety stemmed from his continual crossing of linguistic boundaries, by joining of the ‘gross’ with the ‘elevated,’ the ‘superficial’ with the ‘profound.’ An example would be the single line in which Whitman describes himself as both ‘one of the roughs,’ meaning, according to Webster, ‘rugged, disordered in appearance, coarse,’ and ‘a kosmos,’ an apparent invention of Whitman’s, meaning ‘a person who[se] scope of mind, or whose range in a particular science, includes all, the whole known universe.’” (Lawson 377) This shows one man’s view of Whitman’s poetry. Another is, “R O. Matthiessen, in American Renaissance (1941)… deplores Whitman’s ‘curious amalgamation of homely and simple usage with half-remembered terms he read once somewhere, and with casual inventions of the moment.’ Whitman's mixed diction is particularly irksome to Matthiessen because it smacks of the inauthentic; rather than using a ‘folk-speech,’ the language of the people. Whitman exhibits only the ‘happy pride of the half-educated in the learned term’ - he is using a language ‘not quite his own.’” (Lawson 377) Lawson then goes on to explain how opinions such as these about the poetry may also be influenced by social norms. He states, “For Norton, Whitman’s language is an unaccountable compound of class accents; for Matthiessen, Whitman is all too recognizably a lower-middle-class aspirant to the title litterateur, his choice of words marked by petit bourgeois pretension.” (Lawson 377-378) These quotes show the way some people felt about social classes in regards to literature and language.

Closely related to poetry, the use of music can be found in many of Walt Whitman’s poems, especially with Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, a free verse, 32 stanza poem.An article that shows this is, “The Idea of Music in 'Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,'” by William F. Mayhan. The article states, “By linking his poem so closely and specifically to music, Whitman offers a vital clue not only to the poem's unorthodox structure, but also to its meaning.” (Mayhan 113) The themes of this poem include the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. The poem itself is about a young boy who stands by the ocean and watches a couple of birds sing to each other. One day the female of the couple goes missing and the male tries to find her. He searches for his mate but can never find her and accepts that she has died. The symbolism of the musical structure of the poem highlights the song of the birds when they are together and the male singing alone. Mayhan explains this by saying, “…music plays not only a structural role, but also a symbolic one. …Whitman blends his experience of music (as heard) with his philosophical conceptions of the nature and meaning of music in a marriage of matter and form that is itself the essence of music.” (Mayhan 113) Understanding the musical form of the poem can help understand the meaning of it as well. It is important to note just how important music was to Whitman and is noted further in Mayhan’s article. He quotes, “He admits as much in his conversations with Horace Traubel, recorded later in his life:

‘My younger life was so saturated with the emotions, raptures, up-lifts, of such musical experiences that it would be surprising if all my future work had not been colored by them. A real musician running through Leaves of Grass-a philosopher musician-could put his finger on this and that anywhere in the text no doubt as indicating the activity and influences I have spoken of.’” (Mayhan 115)

This quote shows the importance that music held in his life and how it shaped his poetry. Again, the idea of music helps one to know and understand the meaning of the poem. This is further stated, “Layer upon layer of meaning begins to accumulate until, at the end, as we shall see, the effects of infinite interrelatedness (harmony) will affect not only the poem's structure, but will be, in itself, an embodiment of its meaning.” (Mayhan 122)

One of the many things that influenced Walt Whitman’s writing was the Civil War. This is discussed in the article, "Union and Disunion in 'Song of Myself'," by Herbert J.Levine. The article states, “One recent study has argued that the escalating crisis of the Union allowed Whitman to discover the healing role so central to "Song of Myself." Another has argued that the economic downturn of 1854, which put Whitman out of the housebuilding business, allowed him to discover his role as celebrator of the artisan…” (Levine 570). This shows the different thoughts others had about how the buildup of the Civil War may have influenced Whitman. Levine goes on to determine why Whitman wanted to unify the country, perhaps with his poetry. He states, “Where political rhetoric was failing to preserve the Union, poetry, Whitman saw, could attempt an alternative discourse of union based on the unity of a representative American self. With respect to such a unified self, the experience of his own body and soul, his land, its animals, people, occupations and history, the earth, its evolutionary past and cosmic future—all was to be portrayed as a vast seamless web, within which differences could be accommodated without dismembering the whole.” (Levine 576) This shows that Whitman wanted to keep the country whole and attempted to do so by writing poetry.

In conclusion, Walt Whitman is considered to be one of America’s great poets for a number of reasons, ranging from his use of poetic devices to how he wanted his poetry to shape the people and the world in which they lived.

Works Cited

Fabb, Nigel. "Poetic Form as Meaning in Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass." Journal of Literary Semantics 41.2 (2012): 105-119.

Franklin, Kelly Scott. "'Without Being Walt Whitman': Vicente Huidobro, Whitman, And The Poetics Of Sight." Comparative American Studies: An International Journal 12.4 (2014): 282-300.

Lawson, Andrew. "'Song of Myself'and the Class Struggle in Language." Textual Practice 18.3 (2004): 377-394.

Levine, Herbert J. "Union and Disunion in 'Song of Myself'." American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography 59.4 (1987): 570-589.

Mayhan, William F. "The Idea of Music in 'Out Of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking'." Walt Whitman Quarterly Review13.3 (1996): 113-128.

Smith, Ernest. "'Restless Explorations': Whitman's Evolving Spiritual Vision in Leaves of Grass." Papers on Language and Literature: A Journal for Scholars and Critics of Language and Literature 43.3 (2007): 227-263

[ellipsesarefun]

for @linabeanwrites for the @keitorexchange event!!!

I”M SO SORRY I”M LATE... I tried a domestic AU for this fic from one of your prompts... the blade of marmora au is only mentioned... I took so long to finish this... I’m really sorry..

Six in the morning seems like the best time to be up and about, Lotor muses as he prepares himself a warm cup of tea. He settles down on the table by the It's the city's silence blending with a gradual wave of sunrise that alerts his mind yet soothes his nerves. But that's probably also the tea, he snorts to himself. 

He gets up from his seat and ambles to a small alcove where the light caresses his face and his mind blesses him a sense of serendipity. This planet seems to have quite the resources. Far off from the star quadrant Daizabaal resided, this one seems to have its own mixture of hell an paradise. Though-

 His ears catch light footsteps from behind and he smiles.

 -mostly paradise.

 Lotor had known Keith for awhile, being a de facto Commander for some time in the Blade of Marmora during the war against Zarkon. That delegation amongst the Galran Empire and the Altean allies was where he found a lone Blade of Marmoran skulking in one of the small balconies. It was quite an awkward night, him and Keith, but after then Keith had been assigned as one of his Generals and they stayed in touch since. 

And now, they're here.

 "How long have you been back?" His companion yawns as the footsteps come to a stop by his side. Lotor casts a dazed look at the black bedhair, sleep-glittered eyes and rumpled clothes. He never imagined that he'd found the time to be here. With Keith. At this deca-pheeb where the border duty and paperwork lighten enough for him to sneak away for a seven quintant cruise beyond his star quadrant. 

"A few vargas ago." Lotor replies, snaking his arm around Keith's waist. The firm build of muscle beneath his embrace reinforces that the this long-awaited reunion is a reality. That they have the freedom to do whatever they have been wanting to do for so long. These months of only seeing his face on a virtual screen bares no comparison to this. He listens to their hearts thrum together and his grip around his lover's waist tighten. Keith reciprocates with his own arms around Lotor's waist and a small kiss on the shoulder. 

"M'glad I came..." Lotor whispers, nibbling his lover's earlobe between his teeth, "It's been far too long..."

"Yea." Keith finishes for him, dropping another kiss, this time on his cheek. Their foreheads meet, lavender irises adoring one another. 

"Wanna help me make breakfast?" Keith asks.

Lotor smirks, "With pleasure."

  Sigh.

 They had merely began the day with breakfast and a varga of sparring but he's already returning to his procrastinated paperwork. He had only outlined most of the documents but he had forgotten that there's some that he needs to submit a final draft at the end of the seventh-quintant vacation. He has an idea on the middle and last portions but-

Agh. He should've known to at least check thrice if he had brought all his notes on the allocated sources between the warring races in Daizabaal without before slipping away to his own castle ship. Lotor rarely is careless, and he always makes sure he's steps ahead, makes sure he's quintants away from the deadline, but the moments where his infallibility slips in is one that he cannot fully tolerate. 

He squeezes his fists into his eye-sockets. Emperors don't make slip ups. Especially emperors who still needs to gain the loyalty of many warring races; especially the one warring race he grew up as.

A heavy thump on his shoulders disrupts his wallowing and he looks up to a pair of lips pecking his cheek. Immediately, Lotor softens and deflates under his lover's touch and he gives a kiss of his own on Keith's nose. Suddenly, the paper is almost forgotten and his lover's face is pure bliss.

He looks down, however, and pauses, searching through his written prose and finds the ridiculousness that he's using Keith's spare fountain pen to draft such an important document. He hasn't had to before, not unless he forgot his virtual documents back in Daizabaal--which he did...

 A hand smaller than his own suddenly grasps the fountain pen he's holding. The hand then gently pries the object from his and sets it on the table, replacing it with his own bare hand. He gasps at the warmth it emanates, realizing once again how long ago since they've shared a room this wide and have talked politics in his briefing room when the generals were out to who knows where. 

"Relax." Keith's smooth sultry voice tingles his entire body. Lotor feels his tension receding. "You have seven days to finish it. You've been here for three vargas already." The warm palm around his hand gives a reassuring grip. Fingers start to uncurl his, now lacing them together.

"But-" Lotor tries to protest but his lover is already pulling him out of the sofa. Keith turns the knob of the door and continues to haul Lotor out of the apartment. They stop by the balustrade, where the sun gleams down its morning glow and the people and the vehicles hustle and bustle about the streets. Lotor stares, in awe for a moment, imbibing the view beneath them. He turns and he can't help but gaze at those gargantuan shimmers in his lover's violet eyes.

 What gorgeous eyes. 

 "Let me ride you." Lotor blinks but curls his lips at the admission. One of the things he loves this man is his straightforwardness. 

"Well, we haven't done THAT here today so-" Lotor leans in and strikes out his best suave look and puckered lips. It garners a guffaw of laughter from Keith and Lotor preens at his own little accomplishment. Many occasions he's seen Keith pull a frown and it's always a wonder to hear such a beautiful laugh. 

"Well sure, but what I mean is," He grins, "Let me ride you around. There's an open field not far from here."

"But," he pauses, leaning in as well, "We could do it while-"

Lotor giggles and pulls Keith close by his shirt, "Later." He whispers, planting a kiss on his nose. Keith nods, cheeky grin still apparent. 

 "Later." He agrees.

  The motorbike zooms past the blur of buildings, pas the light traffic of a Sunday afternoon and out to the open road. The wind smoothly blows against them as Lotor feels his white locks stringing along the breeze. He shuffles his grip around Keith, settling his chin on the  shoulder. The sky blazes in a shade of violet, dappled down into a mixture of brown and red-yellow. They clash against the rolling fields of green and oak yellow brushstrokes and violet hazed hills, where a small house not far from where they're driving.

The first time Keith had strung him along like this was months after the delegation they first interacted in. He had been burning himself out on his new position as Emperor, as there had been a tremendously larger amount of disapproval than he anticipated. With Zendak looming over Daizabaal in hopes to take over the throne and civil war propagating in planets everywhere, there didn't seem to be a time to breathe and indulge in recreational activities. 

It was then on a mundane night where he was busily rummaging through his files did someone knock by his door. Puzzled, Lotor paused his reading and opened the door to a black tousled hair, bright violet eyes, and Blade of Marmoran armor. It took only a smooch and a few dobashes of playful convincing before Lotor was ushered out of his own quarters and onto a motorbike by the gardens below. They had spent the night in clandestine dalliance beneath the teeming violet sky, whispering sweet nothings of each other until the sunrise spilled through the horizon...

 "We're here." The statement snaps Lotor from his stupor and releases unwinds his arms from Keith, roaming around the meadows surrounding the cabin. He steps foot into the open space, indulging the cotton-soft grass as he ambles towards the front porch of the cabin. Twilight air filters through his lungs, luring him into blissful relaxation.  

Keith is already laying a carpet on the grass, arranging two baskets full of, what he supposes, food and drinks. He beckons Lotor over with batting eyelashes and an elated grin. Shaking his head in a mixture of amusement and exasperation, Lotor approaches. What this outing entails he still has no clue. It was only halfway there did he notice a black dagger aiming towards him.

Lotor immediately catches the dagger with ease, throwing it right back at his lover. Keith jumps off a few ticks after, the dagger barely missing him as it hits the grass, and draws out another blade from his pocket. Lotor mirrors the movement, bringing out a dagger of his own. They begin to circle around each other, letting the ticks pass by. 

They both take first move, their swords clashing with one another. They simultaneously paced backwards, dancing around each other in a flurry of parries and offenses. In the early days of war, Lotor had taken joy at beating Keith and the other new recruits during training. Now however, Keith can endure the blows, even to the point where he was able to triumph over Lotor at least more than twice. It was great pride as a mentor to see his student flourish.

 But doesn't mean he's letting Keith earn his triumph with ease, Lotor muses as he twirls the dagger out from Keith's grasp and into his palms. 

"I win." He says, still twirling the dagger as a sign of victory. Keith narrows his eyes at him for a tick or two before smirking again.

"There's still tomorrow, anyways." Keith obligingly relents, returning his dagger back into his pocket. Lotor doesn't restrain his ebullient smile at his lover's admirable perseverance. Keith responds with his own as they gravitate into their warm embrace. Lotor exhales a long breathy sigh, a smile still on his face. They walk back to their safehaven and settle down on the carpet, where they converse over a billion things as random as the twinkling stars above.  

 Keith is a bountiful of surprises today. Kisses everywhere and anywhere at anytime, having breakfast together, a spar for a varga or so, Keith listening to Lotor's complaints while helping with his procrastination.. and then this.

 This breathtaking landscape; empty of civilization yet vibrating with life and color.

And of Keith.

Keith when he's in ruffled clothes and bedhair after a nap. Keith with the Earthy breakfast of bacon and eggs and a cup of coffee. Keith with his avid concern and motivation while Lotor drafts his treaties. Keith with his motorbike and firm build that Lotor holds onto while the wind rushes through his face. Keith and his elegance with the dagger under the sunset. Lotor is struck with the realization that wherever he goes, no matter how many lightyears he travels, an essence of Keith will always be present, a comfort to his own heart.

 Daizabaal is still his home yet here, where his lover scintillates brighter than the star-light canvas draped upon them, is his also his home on its own.

The Inspiration I’ve used is the picture on the bottom right.

[azalzalsramblings]

I don’t read enough

Says man who’s about to list the 52 books he read this year

In an insignificant order bellow the cut.

1.The Steerswoman  by Rosemary Kirstein

Fun Adventure, mildly generic but refreshing.

2. Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente

Holy fuck this book is absurd, it’s great.

3. Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

Portal fantasy where sex is the portal, it’s great.

4. The Refrigerator Monologues by Catherynne M. Valente

Can you tell I like this author? If you like comic books you should read this.

5. All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

This book has some of the most interesting magic I’ve ever read and the best depiction of modern culture I’ve ever read.

6. The Tombs of Atuan By Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin is amazing, the “protagonist” of this series doesn't’ show up until half way through this book.

7. The Farthest Shore By Ursula K. Le Guin

The Protagonist in this book shows up in the beginning but he’s mostly being Gandalf and the focus is on his companion.

8. Tehanu By Ursula K. Le Guin

Revisiting characters and pointing out the problematic elements of a book that came out 20 years ago, bravo.

9. Who Fears Death  by Nnedi Okorafor

I need to learn more about African mythology.

10. A Closed and Common Orbit  by Becky  Chambers

Really fun ride, great companion piece to current QC, well Antho PC focused elements of QC.

11. Ever Fair  by Nisi Shawl

Interesting if not greatly carried out book.

12. The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin

Read this fucking book. (It’s the Sequel to “The Fifth Season” Read that First)

13. The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin

This better win the fucking Hugo (mostly so N. K Jemisin gets the first hat trick in Hugo history)

14. Woman On the Edge of Time  by Marge Piercy

I can’t decide if this should be read as companion piece to “Slaughter House 5″ or “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest” probably both.

15. Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

OH MY GOD I GET IT, IT’S ABOUT SLAVERY! Still good though.

16. Minaret by Leila Aboulela

Good book, it provides a compelling immigrant story.

17. Northern Lights (I read the UK Version)  by Philip Pullman

One of the best YA books ever written, re reading this series was an excellent idea.

18. The Subtle Knife  by Philip Pullman

See above.

19. The Amber Spyglass  by Philip Pullman

SPOILERS: Prepubescent sex saves the multiverse. Also there’s like, four or five lines that are different between the UK and US versions, I had too look up what they were.

20. Who Could That Be At This Hour? by Lemony Snicket

Different enough from “Series of Unfortunate Events” to be necessary, still has nice call backs.

21. When Did You See Her Last? by Lemony Snicket

Good book, probably not as strong as “Series of Unfortunate Events” but worth the read.

22. Shouldn’t you be in School? by Lemony Snicket

Uh, there will be a spoiler tag on the next book.

23. Why Is this Night Different from all Other Nights? by Lemony Snicket

SPOILER: Having an eco terrorist as the main villain in a children's book is fucking brilliant. The end is telegraphed but then again I’m probably a decade older then the expected audience for this book.

24. The Children of Hurin by J.R.R Tolkien

Interesting book, it’s probably has the most direct evidence of Tolkien stealing from other mythology (As you only have to mildly well read to see exactly what he’s stealing).

25. Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

It’s just good. It’s nice to have a modern version of all these legends. I hope he continues to rewrite legends, especially lesser known ones. ((This is elaborating on the last point) Yes I know having a white man write a book about African Mythology is can be somewhat problematic but I’m sure he’d do it respectfully) Also saw him read from this.

26. Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy

Favorite factoid about this book, Tom Clancy played table top war games to help outline some chapters. That said it is kind of hard to get though and problematic at times. It does have a female fighter pilot who shots down satellites so that’s cool.

27. The Iliad by Homer

SUPER GAAAAAAAY

28 The Odyssey by Homer

The famous part of this is like, four chapters in the middle, mostly it’s “Where fuck is Odysseus and how do we deal with these dickwads in my house?”

29. The Symposium by Plato

See note for The Iliad .

30. Dragons of Spring Dawning  by Margaret Weis , Tracy Hickman

Fun adventure book, not 100% satisfying end to the series (I would have preferred a huge show down with I’m not looking up the name for Dragonlance Tiamat)

31. Dune  by Frank Herbert

There’s a reason this book is legendary, it’s that good, also read relatively quick if you read it while you’re taking a week off work.

32. The Lurker at The Threshold  by H.P. Lovecraft, August Derleth

It’s Lovecraft.

33. Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Not about tiny pigs, still good though. I’m probably still not smart enough to understand all of it.

34. The Prose Eda by Snorri Sturluson

Read this after/before/with Norse Mythology, seeing the various versions of the tales is interesting. Also the version I had went into a lot of the Norse literary elements which is fun (Viking is a kenning I think, it might be a synecdoche )

35. The Library at Mount Char by Scott  Hawkins

Holy fuck this book is amazing, it might be my favorite book I read this  year.

36. The Quran by Muhammad/ Gabriel/Allah 

My favorite part of this book is the part where Muhammad throws shade on his Uncle. 

37. Women Without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur

This is one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever read.

38. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy  by Douglas Adams

Timeless classic, I don’t know how many times I’ve watched/read/listened to this work.

39. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe  by Douglas Adams

Not as good as the  first, but still good, the Zaphod plot doesn’t 100% work in my opinion idk.

40. Life, The Universe and Everything  by Douglas Adams

Apparently started life as Doctor Who script, it’s a departure from the others b/c of this to some extent.

41. So Long and Thanks for all the Fish  by Douglas Adams

I’ve read this is considered rushed by some people, and I’ll admit it’s certainly different but I think it’s as good as any of the others.

42. Mostly Harmless  by Douglas Adams

Multiverse stuff is crazy in this. Also Elvis is in it.

43. How the Marquis Got His Coat Back by Neil Gaiman

Fun little romp in the Neverwhere world. The Neverwhere world is really great. I heard form his mouth he’s working on a sequel so that’ll be great.

44. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

MY FUCKING COPY WAS ABRIDGED, still, it has its moments, I should reread it one day. I think I liked “A Tale of Two Cities” better.

45. A Portrait of the Aritst as a Young Man by James Joyce

Good book? I don’t think I’m smart enough to get this book. It’s certainly worth the time, I wish I understood it better.

46. Beren and Luthien by J.R.R. Tolkien

Holy fuck this book. First it has Christopher Tolkien giving very interesting commentary (is probably his last book he’s in his fucking 90)  second Luthien figuratively fucking bitch slaps Morgoth (Tolkien’s Satan), it’s great.

47. Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer

I’m convinced the author wanted to write an 18th century court drama or a science fiction book and decided “Por que no los dos”

48 For Whom the Bell Tolls  by Ernest Hemingway

Fuck Fascists (Note: This book is about killing fascists, I’m not implying anything about Hemingway although he’s basically the definition of an alpha male although he has some progressive moments like advocating for the elimination of fascism apparently, also has both a bad ass women and a one dimensional women)

49. Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

Compelling read, I can see why it was controversial in its time but it’s tame by modern standards. It has its issues but is still a fun read.

50. Venus in Fur  by David Ives 

Sexy, funny, commentary on the above, can be read in like, 2 hours. If you don’t wan to read “Venus in Furs” at least read this.

51. Her Smoke Rose up Forever by James Tiptree Jr

If you read one thing from this read “The Screw-fly Solution” it’s on of the most effective short stories I’ve ever read.

52. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

This book isn’t about why playing god is wrong, in my opinion that view is 100% indefensible by the text. It’s about why men need to take responsibility for the life they bring into this world. 

[ba1bphoebeowen]

Writing your way into animation - Notes

Write Your Way into Animation & Games – Christy Marx

I have heard that a very important part of getting into animation, especially when it comes to being a showrunner, is comedic timing. For this reason, I decided to look into some material that talks about this topic to gain a better understanding of it. This book also helps with basic script writing and narrative, which is part of this unit. 

Script terms:

Slugline: Typed in CAPITALS. Immediately informs the reader that this is a new scene or shot. Needed for every shot in an animation. Shouldn’t be more than a few words, just needs to establish who, where and what. Includes transitions between locations (e.g. EXT or INT). 

Action: Occurs immediately below the slugline. Describes the setting, character actions in the shot, sets the mood or tone, indicates sounds, camera movements. Needed to establish a scene. 

Angle on, Angle: Calls out an individual shot that indicates to the storyboard artist what to focus on in a shot / who is in the shot. 

Beat, A beat: Set in () to indicate a pause in dialogue to convey hesitation, a moment of thought, a point of emphasis etc.

Close up, Close on:  Used in the slugline to indicate to a story boarder that in this shot the camera should be on a close to the person or object. 

Cont’d (Continued): - Used at the bottom of a shooting script to show that it continues. - When a long bit of dialogue is broken across 2 pages (Centred in the middle of the dialogue column at the bottom of the page). - After a character’s name in () to indicate the character is continuing speech begun in another piece of dialogue. 

Transitions: Positioned along the right margin and is followed by a colon. - Dissolve to: Indicated when a scene ends & we’re cutting to a new scene with some time passing between them. - Cut to: Indicates a scene has ended and that we are cutting to a new location or setting. - Fade in / Fade out: Used to start or end a script / each act. Fade in is in the left margin, fade out in the right – fade in has a colon but fade out doesn’t. Fade in leads directly into the slugline.

Favouring: A way of calling out an individual shot in a script once a setting is established, would be at the start of the slugline followed by an emphasised character or object. 

O.C and O.S: Off camera and off stage. Used to the right of someone’s name in the dialogue when they speak but aren’t in shot. 

Parentheticals: - Indicated a specific tone, emotion or inflection for a voice actor. Discouraged in live action scripts but commonly used in animation ones. - Indicated a voice needs filters or modifications in editing. - Describes a sound for a voice actor to make. 

Sotto voice / under their breath: Latin for ‘low voice’. Something a character says that they don’t want others to hear. 

WALLA: Written in (), indicates basic background noise. 

Bumpers: Short pieces of animation that are inserted at the ends and starts of acts in between adverts to indicate the difference between it and the adverts. 

Character Arc: How the character begins and develops over time. Ending an arc too soon before the end of the show can lead to them becoming useless, unless you give them something else to do. 

High Concept: The underlying concept being pitched has a strong/ quirky/ good enough hook that can be summed up in a sentence. 

Sides: Sample dialogue for casting a character that captures the personality and speech patterns for the character. 

Tag: A short scene used to wrap up the end of a TV episode. Occurs after the final set of adverts, before the closing credits. 

In animation, background is different from location – each shot, if from a different angle, will require a new drawing for the background. 

Creating the story

Act 1: Introduce the problem (25% of the script) Act 2: Conflict due to the problem (50% of the script) Act 3: Resolution (25% of the script)

Who’s the protagonist? What do they learn by the end of the episode? At the beginning, what do they want? Who is going to stop them? What’s the catalyst for their wants and how are they planning to achieve them? The hero can fail time and time again, and they hit a crisis moment where they could be faced with a hard choice. 

Sometimes you won’t yet know the characters, and in this case, you start with the theme / lesson and create a hero that is best to learn that lesson. 

Longer stories might also have b-plot or in some cases, c-plots. One could be action-y and the other character driven, but both must advance the story.

The lesson the protagonist learns is used to recognise our own flaws, problems and needs. A theme could be thought of as a value meeting another and winning, such as forgiveness being better than revenge. The character might have a few that gets in the way of their happiness, and the story changes the way they look at life – their arc. 

“A theme is felt, not indoctrinated or preached”

Values should be expressed through action. 

Springboard: No more than a few sentences, very basic concept idea. Quick episode concepts that introduce a quick premise and conflict. All written in the present tense. 

Premise: Contains the beginning, middle and end of a story concisely but with enough detail to make it interesting – to sell it. For a pitch, unless told otherwise, you should come with 3-6 premises to submit. For a 30-minute show, a premise shouldn’t be more than a single-spaced page. 

Outline: A beat by beat description of the script, broken into acts with sluglines. You might need to write descriptive prose, depending on what the story editor wants. Should involve everything needed for production, like locations and backgrounds. Outline for a 30-minute show by be 5-8 pages and doesn’t have dialogue. 

Script: 

Sluglines / scene headings

Action description

Dialogue

Parentheticals

Transitions

Double spaced for everything except for dialogue and action description. 

12-point courier font, only underline for emphasis, don’t use bold or italics. 

Margins 1.5” on the left for binding, 1” for the right, top and bottom. 

Sluglines and action on the left margin, character name is 2” from the left, parentheticals are 1.5” from the left. Dialogue is 1” from left. Transitions are lined up to the right margin, numbering is in the top right. 

When working on a show, the cover page will have the name of the series, your name, the title of the episode and its production number. 

“In animation, the artist only knows what to draw when you tell them”

Dialogue in animation is expected to be minimal, concise, strong and punchy. Each piece should be 1 or 2 sentences at the most. Characters shouldn’t need to converse a tonne to get to a point (loads of back and forth can make for ‘soft’ dialogue). Utilize visuals in place of dialogue as much as possible. 

Live action script: 1 page = 1 minute

Animation script: 1.5 pages = 1 minute

Writing Characters

Fantasy characters are more realistic, despite their magical world. Usually have a limited number of traits, and their physical differences can play into their character. 

Nonhuman character usually represent certain human traits, such as hunger, fear etc. 

Symbolic characters are used in basic stories, such as myths and fairy tales where they represent basic traits and qualities. 

Does the character remind you of a real-world person that you know? Could this relation help to develop the character more, to make them more funny or realistic? Avoid characters that have been done before, make the character unique. Juxtaposing traits gives interesting results, and this can be done by merging traits from two different people. Characters should have some inconsistencies (they’re this, but also that!) even if it’s illogical. 

Exaggerate the character once you ‘get’ them. 

Use behavioural tags – what do they do repeatedly? (e.g. Tai Lee from Avatar would look for the perfect describing word for an action (poof!))

Make relationships believable, how they bounce off each other, whether they would want to be around each other realistically. 

Keep the character’s choices consistent with their core values. 

Characters need a story function or there's no point in them being there. What part of them affects the plot? They should always be motivated by their essential characteristic. 

“What event/ circumstance/ decision in the past is still affecting the hero today, making them who they are and driving the plot of the story?” anything not relating to this doesn't belong in the story. 

Writing for comedy

The stereotypical comedic character saves time as it allows you to know how a character is going to act without having to develop it much. 

“Comedy stemming from character allows for sustained humour, and it’s remembered long after the gags and situations.”

Comedy Types

The Blockhead – A “dumb” character. 

The Naif – The kid that always gets into trouble. 

The Fish out of Water – A misfit, a character in a situation where they don’t fit in. 

The Naïve – A character that’s oblivious to mature themes, ‘forever innocent’.

The Conniver 

The Zany

The Poor Soul – An underdog, works best when it’s a child or an animal. 

The Coward

Avoid negative stereotypes when designing a comedic character as it will need to have mass appeal. Consider what you write when you write about things that you’re not experiencing, such as about another sex, age, someone with a disability etc. Think about these characters as characters, such as what do they do in their spare time?

To make a comedic character memorable, they will need to be more complex than the basic comedy types. 

A comedic character needs to have a flaw to make them funny – human mistakes that make us laugh. Animated comedic characters should be loveable and larger than life, and they participate in slapstick. 

In comedy you set up a situation, increase tension and it's stopped by something unelected,  relieving tension. You twist a stereotype, drawing a contrast between two consistent frames of reference and linking them in an unexpected way. 

Comedy has a link to fear and aggression, fear might be combined with affection. Shock works well to demonstrate this.  Repression is another link,  referring to things that society looks down on that we find funny (like kids liking fart jokes because it's something they've been told to not do).

Kids naturally laugh at boasting and cruelty, but characters should still be good role models. 

Comedy in animation: must focus on the visual aspect, timing is important. Comedy is exaggerated and may be illogical. Never write down to kids! What jokes can appeal both to adults and children? 

Use a characters mannerisms, attitude and dialogue to increase the comedy of the character. When writing a scene, think about what would really happen, how does the character feel realistically and how can it be made funnier? 

Pinpoint what the comedy aims for in the product, and how it's gotten (through visuals or smart writing?)

Make the script fun and fresh, put a spin on a classic idea. Juxtapose ideas and sprinkle gags throughout. 

Misuse props for gags.

Set up gags with the basic information of the joke, maybe mislead them With a false setup, but keep this short. Exaggerate everything, build the gags. 

C's and K's sound funnier?

Let the audience bridge the gap to understand the joke, you don't need to explain it all. 

Pitching

Know the company your pitching to, and whether they’re looking for your product and will like your idea. 

If you call a company, set up a meeting with ‘Animation Development’, and have a logline prepared. Have a good relationship with people you speak to, including the assistant. 

Rehearse your pitch, but don’t memorise it.  Start with the title, genre, brief concept and pitch the goal of the hero. Pitches should stay short, 2 minutes ish. 

Have back up ideas for episodes.

Make the pitch fun - make eye contact, use hand gestures etc. 

What’s the basic concept, who’s the star, who’s the main villain, why is this series different, how does this relate to the child viewer etc. 

Another way to break into the industry is to write for pre-existing shows, and to apply for this you would write a spec script - speculative script that might not be used (you don’t expect it to). For these scripts you want to make sure you’re familiar with the characters and the show’s concept - don’t contradict past episodes. You shouldn’t make a script that details a major plot or character point either, and you shouldn’t introduce new characters. 

[ecotone99]

[RO] A Distant Daydream

It is necessary for the sake of both narrative consistency and authorial vanity to start this recollection by explaining the exacting and tedious circumstances under which I rediscovered the muse for this little story.

One cold November night as I was wasting away amidst the gaudily floral décor of my University Reunion, surrounded by mundane faces and half-empty glasses, I saw her again. There is a long running cliché in the Romance genre where after the protagonist sees his old ingénue (or femme fatale depending on the story) after a long period of time has elapsed, he immediately drops everything to talk with her. Don Quixote was its victim when he clasped eyes on Dulcinea (del Toboso), great Achilles fell to it when he was with Patroclus again in the underworld, and that night I also fell to it. (Albeit with less literary significance)

The shadowy glitter of the tawdry lights illuminated the outline of her body against the faded backdrop of the Reunion. Nervously, I watched as we orbited the various old-acquaintances and older-ex-professors that stopped us to talk as we made our separate ways around the room, drawing closer until we were face to face. After the awkward introductions had been made, the meaningless pre-prepared platitudes voiced, and the small talk talked we got down to the serious business of remembrance. We started with the fates of friends, whose minor heartaches and tragedies fortified us to go deeper into the catacombs of memory. We compared our lives since University had finished and after a time it became clear to me that she had become an adult. We both had. Finally we arrived simply, on time and on budget, at our old relationship.

“At that time, if I am remembering things correctly, I was quite pleasantly in love with you.” I said. (The universal laws of literature dictates that Romance stories must always start with, in some shape or form, a declaration of love)

Her eyebrows rose as if in surprise before forming a perfectly indecipherable mask, “That must be I think the first time, or at least the first time I can remember, when you said you were in love with me. And it’s now when we’re both married!”

“Oh well maybe if I had said it more we’d still be together.” I said, “Good thing I didn’t!” (Slight awkward pause for comedic timing on her part then cue laughter.)

The flow of the conversation moved on to more extravagant and ostentatious reminiscences and by the end of it, it was clear to me that any dregs of past attraction that I had been savoring had long since been drained by her. Nevertheless, I want to capture in frozen prose the remnants of my past emotion, to prevent it as long as possible from dissipating like so much barren smoke amidst the fogs of time. Now, having described both my muse and my intentions there is little left to do except begin; a task that I am both excited and nervous about.

***************

In literature’s best beginnings the author (after a sufficient amount of pre-amble) starts by describing a meeting between two characters. As I was studying literature at that time I might endeavor to reproduce the same effect now, having done the pre-amble above I can get right to it. In this story, I (playing the “Noble Byronic Hero”) was sitting bored and alone amidst a sea of empty chairs and chattering people waiting for the lecturer to arrive. Instead of opening my workbook and preparing for the copious amount of notes that are required for true learning to be achieved, I was staring idly out the window at the assorted people walking between classes.

The lecturer entered the auditorium like he was about to receive an award and was greeted with a heavy silence underlined by the whispers of continued conversation. He made a small throat clearing bark while he was adjusting the lectern’s positioning and the silence became total.

He began reading from a loose collection of pre-prepared notes, speaking in a unique blend of French, Russian, and English accents, “Russian Literature as a notion, an immediate idea, this notion in the minds of non-Russians is generally limited to the awareness of Russia’s having produced half a dozen great masters of prose between the middle of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth…”

Despite the mesmerizing rhythm that the trilingual blend lent to his speech I (or the arrogant little shit I was) soon lost interest in the subject, having already become familiar with the half dozen great masters over the break. After nearly 2 hours of quite condescension on my part the lecture concluded and those students who had scheduled tutorials afterwards gathered around the lecturer while the others left. We were dissected into groups then turned outside armed with some tedious readings and pressing assignments. My group consisted of me (smug and self-satisfied), her (bored and busy), and one of her friends (forgettable and not really part of the story).

A straightforward and bland conversation was struck up as we debated the best approach to our shared homework. In protest of the tedious nature of the discussion, and since I was feeling somewhat bashful in new company, I spent most of my time trying to come up with the opposite answer to any question asked. (Sample: What is something that you are thankful for in modern society? Clean drinking water. Cue laughter.)

“Come on man, take this seriously. There’s no point if you’re just sitting there taking the piss,” her friend said.

“Fine, what’s the next question?” I asked.

“It says here to outline the role that the various cultural, social, and theological influences have played on the development of Russian literature throughout the 19’Th century,” she said.

“Alright, I trust that we are all aware of the cultural and social influence that my boy Pushkin has had?” I said. “By the way have either of you read Eugene Onegin? It’s fucking good.”

“Of course I’m aware of Pushkin and I’ve read Eugene Onegin,” exclaimed her friend.

“What self-respecting person who when studying Russian literature doesn’t read Pushkin?” she said. “My only regret is that I couldn’t read it in Russian. I’m confident that what makes his style so beautiful is lost in translations.”

As I continued to expound my “unique” theories about Pushkin and his influence on literature my reservations began to drop away and soon we started having a real conversation. I’ll spare you the details I was in my twenties my comments weren’t profound. However, after I finished talking the discussion moved away from the assigned work and we started to get to know each other as we told jokes, made fun of classmates, talked about exams etc.

Soon I discovered that I shared most of my classes with her and we began walking together on the way between them. I watched as our relationship grew in the broken time between lecture and tutorials and like any functionally hormonal teenager as soon as we started to spend any regular amount of time I became quite enamored with her. We smoked cigarettes outside in the sun, we worked on essays together in dusty library halls, and I told lots of bad jokes. I savored every moment that we were together and when we weren’t I was thinking about ways to make her laugh.

One bright evening as we were returning from a particularly trite lecture delivered by a particularly trite lecturer we stopped at a University Bar in order to do the only thing that people who go to University Bars do, forget the lecture that they just sat through. We sat down in a corner booth drinks in hand, there was some god-awful student band hammering out a cover of For Whom the Bell Tolls (a classic bar anthem), but we ignored them.

I started throwing out a bunch of half-baked observations and I noted that despite not being drunk my voice came out in a sort of slurred mutter, “Oh no, your other friend in literature is definitely at least a little bit gay. He has the accent. It’s a peculiar phenomenon I’ve noted, when you’re gay you get assigned a new accent.”

“Shut up! He is not!” she said. (Author’s Note: the friend in question came out earlier this year. A bit late but vindication! After 20 years I told you so!)

Reflectively, leaning back like an elder statesman confronted by a new scandal, in a slow voice I muttered, “If he was, I’d hit that.”

“Oh my god!” She laughed.

The conversation continued in a teasing jocular style for the rest of the evening. The band changed and instead of Metallica we were treated to Billy Joel. Time (and by proportion drinks) sped away and soon it was closing time. We ended up taking a cab back to her apartment and under a shared fantasy became lovers. I shall not describe with sensual derision or racy brags the details of our first night together that would altogether cheapen it; I shall keep it locked privately inside an ever receding tomb of memory.

***************

How is it I can describe, with so short a story, the thousand moments and reveries that make up a relationship? Should I describe our first date? How after a while we spent every waking moment in each other’s company? Perhaps I could keep using rhetorical questions as a device to further a floundering paragraph while I try and think? I could describe the general contentedness that fell over me, I could even spend the next few pages describing the time we spent laughing over nothing. But I think that, that description would ultimately be meaningless, cheapening the experience, and reducing the emotions I felt to mere words on a page to be read and forgotten. That time has become in my mind like a fine fabric and pulling at the stands to recall a few parting moments might cause the whole thing to unravel. Perhaps I’m wrong, I don’t know, but I feel any such descriptions would make her seem less real, just a nameless character in the dark who when described is never seen again. I’m going to move forward to the conclusion as I could well be rid of those memories but I’ll take with me the knowledge of what I felt.

After the initial glow of our relationship faded what remained solidified into a concrete routine, a useful habit that slowly suffocated. We would meet in class to ingest the readily forgettable inanity of the lectures, then move onto a quick lunch, and after sneaking cigarettes outside we went back to the classroom to wait for the time we could retire to an apartment somewhere and be alone. This rapidly became unbearable, that magic intimacy I had felt during our first night together was gone, and I began to fantasize about ways to escape. I spoke to some friends who had more experience in these matters than I did and they convinced me that the best course of action would be to come clean and break things off like a mature adult, which was what I did.

I was lounging on a bench thinking about the little speech I had prepared and listening to her complain about some essay that we were meant to be working on. Amber rays of light where broken between the trees, inciting warm shadows to drift across the park, and causing her eyes to look even more like gleaming gemstones. Eventually she ran out of things to say and the moment stretched out awkwardly as I worked up the courage to speak. I started talking about our relationship and from my tone it would have been clear to anyone listening what I was about to say. Nevertheless, I continued my way through my muddled thoughts until the final inevitable words fell with all the weight and severity of a Judge’s gavel. After I had finished she got up and left leaving me alone with my reflections.

We continued to see each other throughout the last few weeks of the semester but the connection that had existed between us was gone. After the course ended we agreed to schedule next year’s classes at different times so that we wouldn’t be together. Occasionally I would see her walking through the campus, sometimes with friends sometimes alone, and after a while we stopped even acknowledging each other becoming two strangers passing each other in an empty corridor.

***************

I left the reunion and sped off into the darkness. I said goodbye to her, again, for perhaps the last time and watched as she walked away with her husband. Now that I have emptied my emotions out onto these pages I am already starting to think clearly again; the tarlike memories that have been circulating inside my chest have been scooped out, properly analysed, and the findings reproduced here in print. In a way I feel like I have relived an entire chapter of my life and as a consequence my muse has lost the nostalgic charm that made this project seem so appealing in the first place. In the morning I am going to incinerate this manuscript and watch the ash dance on the wind like so much fiery decay, as these memories slip quietly away.

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[streetcartoonist]

Archive II

Parmenides is without a doubt the most influential Pre-Socratic philosopher and his ideas serve as a dividing line in the Pre-Socratic period. He lived in what is now southern Italy after Heraclitus and likely a generation or two before Socrates. According to Plato, an elderly Parmenides and a middle-aged Zeno of Elea met Socrates when he was a young man in Athens. Jonathan Barnes and Bertrand Russell hold the opinion that this meeting likely happened, despite whether or not Parmenides actually traveled to Athens the fact that Plato went so far as to mention Parmenides met Socrates is only a slight indication of how important Parmenides was in Plato’s mind. The fact that he wrote a dialogue where Parmenides won a debate against Socrates should say the rest.

Parmenides according to tradition was a student of Xenophanes and was a Pythagorean, he even built a shrine to Pythagoras. Historians strongly doubt that he was a student of Xenophanes but having lived in the same region, Parmenides was likely aware of his beliefs and writing. The same could be said of Heraclitus, and many historians of philosophy write about Parmenides in the context of Heraclitus. The views of Parmenides are often portrayed as a reaction to Heraclitus, which will be written about further in the article. Recall that Pythagoras was prominent in the same region and that the Orphic mystery religion, as talked about in a previous post, was greatly influential on the displaced Ionians living in the area. There is also some evidence that Parmenides was more influenced by the epic poems from Ionia and the religious practices of Attika than his predecessors. Although the prominence of Parmenides is not universally agreed upon, the great degree to which Parmenides deviates from his predecessors is mentioned in every secondary source I have read.

The ideas of Parmenides are preserved mainly in his poem titled On Nature which is available with extensive translation notes in Jonathan Barnes’s The Pre-Socratic Philosophers and John Burnet’s Early Greek Philosophy. Unlike the Milesian school and Heraclitus, Parmenides wrote in hexameter instead of prose, and Pythagoras does not have any surviving works. Although Xenophanes wrote in hexameter too, his status as a philosopher is contended and he was not well regarded by his contemporaries or immediate predecessors. The poem is often broken into three parts; a prologue sometimes referred to as the “proem”, the Way of Truth, and the Way of Opinion. The names and parts of the poem are not settled, and some sources refer to the sections differently, but these three parts are the most common way of dividing the poem. The prologue is where the Attic influence becomes apparent because Parmenides asserts that a goddess revealed to him the information in the poem and the goddess refers to him as a young man, despite the fact he was likely not a young man when he wrote this. People who are familiar with the epic poems or the Oracle at Delphi are quick to draw this connection that when the Oracle is revealing something to someone, she refers to them as young man, and the epic poems start with an invocation of a Muse. The use of hexameter is also an additional connection with Greek religion because the epics were written in meter while more profane writings were written in prose.

Barnes also goes out of his way to point out that translating On Nature is difficult. Consequently, it makes sense that there are several different understandings of what the poem means. In general, the use of hexameter and invoking a goddess can be confounding in that we do not know what Parmenides’s intentions for this were. Some writers have stated that the use of Greek religion were allegorical and only speak to how important he thought his own work was. While other writers argue that he literally believed a goddess told him these things, and that Parmenides should be understood as a mystic figure like Pythagoras. Most scholars agree that in the section titled the Way of Truth Parmenides outlines his world view after the experience of speaking with a goddess or with the allegorical view his later more developed views. There is no fundamental description of the Way of Truth but there are a few prominent interpretations of his work. In fact, there are a great deal of interpretations on Parmenides’s teachings and their effect on Greek culture at large. In a later article we will discuss Parmenides as portrayed by Plato and Aristotle.

A more traditional reading of Parmenides that has become to be seen as rudimentary in some circles is the strict monist view. The strict monist view is that Parmenides saw the world as a homogenous sphere devoid of space and time as well as being eternal and unchanging. The argument against change is generally accepted in most interpretations but it is the meaning of this changelessness and how to interpret the other portions of the poem that people disagree about. The argument against change is why many scholar including Plato often portray Parmenides as an antagonist to Heraclitus.

Parmenides’s argument against change is as follows

1.) Being is and not Being is not, this means things exist or they do not there is no in between

2.) Something cannot come from nothing

3.) Something that exists cannot not exist

4.) You cannot know what is not

5.) In order for something to change its current form must cease to exist and the new form must come into being; which is impossible.

Barnes is quick to point out that contemporary readers need to consider that Parmenides did not have calculus or the idea that something can be immaterial. Parmenides did not believe in empty space because that would constitute not Being, and in the context of the strict monist view Parmenides did not believe in time, in the sense that time is just the perception of instantaneous change from moment to moment. The strict monist view would hold that all of reality exists in a single moment for eternity and that movement, change, and the plurality of what we perceive is falsehood. The second part of the poem, the Way of Opinion is clearly meant to be representing false beliefs. Which in this interpretation can be understood as representing what Parmenides believed before what he spoke with the goddess or as a polemical passage about his contemporaries. The strict monist view would also result in a person believing that all subsequent pre-Socratic philosophers to be reacting against Parmenides, moving away from monism because they see that it leads to Parmenidean monism.

A shorter description of the strict monist argument would be that Parmenides thought that the arche did not differentiate into other substances because for it to do that it would have to cease to exist and things that exist cannot not exist. As a result, Parmenides believed we existed as a single Being that never changes or differentiates and that what we see is an illusion. This description is coarse and even so, the strict monist interpretation is not the most popular view of Parmenides.

Patricia Curd, an expert on the Pre-Socratic period and professor at Purdue University, advocated the novel view that the poem does not preclude the possibility of their being a plurality of Parmenidean Beings. This view is called predicational monism which does affirm that Parmenides viewed change is impossible for the same reason that a thing cannot cease to exist and consequently cannot take on new forms. Curd states that Parmenides did not view the universe as being a single undifferentiated thing, he just thought that things don’t change randomly, Parmenides would see a rock and think that is a rock, it cannot cease to be a rock or pop in and out of existence. Predicational monism results in the view that the later Pre-Socratics such as the Pluralists and the Atomists were affirming and supportive of Parmenides. I agree with Curd because I don’t think Plato would think so highly of someone that made such absurd claims and took an idea so far that everyone abandons the core principle of it. It is more likely that Parmenides offered a critique of the idea that matter changes and that resulted in people abandoning the idea of an arche.

Parmenides is often viewed as viewed as a turning point in the Pre-Socratic period because of how later philosophers started to move away from monism in response to his ideas. Whether it was in objection or in affirmation is unclear, I strongly encourage you to do your own reading and explore some of the additional interpretations to decide for yourself. The ideas of Parmenides will be revisited in subsequent posts.

[swipestream]

An Interview with Brian Niemeier, Part II

Brian Niemeier is a best-selling science fiction author and a John W. Campbell Award for Best New ‘Writer finalist. His second book, Souldancer, won the first ever Dragon Award for Best Horror Novel. He chose to pursue a writing career despite formal training in history and theology. His journey toward publication began at the behest of his long-suffering gaming group, who tactfully pointed out that he seemed to enjoy telling stories more than planning and adjudicating games.

Released this week, Brian’s newest book, The Ophian Rising, concludes his groundbreaking Soul Cycle series. Recently, I sat down with Brian to discuss The Ophian Rising, the rest of the Soul Cycle, and more. Part I of our interview focused on the Soul Cycle. Let’s now find out what is next.

*     *     *      *      *

Returning to how layered your storytelling is and the wide sweep of authors and works that you’ve mentioned as influences, what authors have been most influential to your storytelling?

Frank Herbert. I’ve mentioned before that I read and fell in love with Dune in high school. In fact, it saved my love of reading from being smothered.

Also, Neil Gaiman. I loved the Sandman in its original comic run, loved Good Omens that he did with Sir Terry Pratchett. Neverwhere was okay. I really haven’t liked a lot of his solo stuff since but Sandman was a big influence.

Kevin J. Anderson’s and Timothy Zahn’s Star Wars novels from the mid to late 90s. The Thrawn Trilogy, Jedi Academy, and Dark Saber.

During one of our previous interactions online, you mentioned the importance of reading to an author’s development. What are you currently reading right now?

Right now, I am going back to fill in my Larry Correia collection. I have my copy in paperback of Monster Hunter Vendetta right here and I’m about a third of the way through.

Have you read Son of the Black Sword yet?

Yes. I took an interesting approach to Larry’s work, which is kind of unintentional. I’ve read the first installment of each of his series. So I’ve read Monster Hunter International, Hard Magic, and Son of the Black Sword, so now I’m reading the second book in each one. Hopefully by the time I’m done with Spellbound, House of Assassins will be out.

You are also an editor. Can you describe some of the challenges compared to writing?

Sure. In terms of the challenges, editing is a whole different animal. When you’re just composing original prose, the field is wide open. You know that you have this huge blank canvas that you can put anything you want on there, so you’re really free of restrictions. You can always come back and revise it later.

Editing is a far more technical process. It differs from proofreading in that I mainly provide three services, which is line, copy, and content or development editing. I don’t do what your junior high English teacher does. I’m not going through with the red pen and pointing out, “Well, this is a comma splice. This is ‘it’s’ not ‘its’ so it should have an apostrophe. You want to use ‘whom’ instead of ‘who’ here because it’s in the object.” I mean, if I find those mistakes I will correct them, but mainly I am the last line of defense between the readers and an unsaleable book. I’m there to give suggestions that, if followed, will make your book professional and make it saleable.

The questions I ask myself are: Is this prose easy to read and understand? Is it readable? Do the mood, tone, and themes that the author wants to get across come through clearly? Is the plot advanced? Is every page, paragraph, and sentence doing at least two things? Like advancing character, advancing plot, conveying mood and tone, developing a theme? Is this book structured correctly? Do the pinches and turns and climaxes and, you know, the peaks and valleys come at dramatically appropriate moments to maximize the audience’s emotional impact? Those are just a few of the challenges and, of course, so is doing all of that without killing the author’s voice.

I’ve always got to be on guard to make sure that I’m not editing this book into a book that I would write. It’s got to still be the author’s book because the author is still the ultimate authority. The author can take all of my notes and say, “Go pound sand. I’m not going to take any of this advice.” It’s the author’s call. So I’ve got to make sure that at the end of the day, even if he does take all of my advice, it’s still his book, not mine.

Can you mention some of the books you’ve worked on?

Of the books that have hit the market, I edited Justin Knight’s second book. I’m looking through my list of stuff I’ve edited to make sure I get the title right. That one underwent a title change– that was Praxis.

I also edited a short story for JD Cowan, who you may be familiar with, called “In the Eyes of the Demon”, and, just recently released, Vigil by Russell Newquist.

What’s your next project?

Well. I’ve done my passion project. I’ve done the Soul Cycle, and in terms of indie authors, it was a success. It exceeded my expectations. I was hoping to break even on it and I’ve actually been able to earn a living through that, sometimes supplementing it with the editing. It’s been critically acclaimed, it has gotten some great reviews, so I’m pleased. Well done, good and faithful Soul Cycle. Thanks to all the readers who supported it.

Now that we’ve got the more complex, layered, I don’t to say inaccessible story, but there is a curve you’ve got a surmount to get into Nethereal. I think you’d agree it’s kind of a tough nut to crack. You have to figure out how to approach it. I chalk that up to, one, being the first book in a series that tells a rather complex story, and that’s just how the story is. I mean, I simplified that thing as much as I could. And two, Nethereal is the midpoint of the whole saga.

I do at some point plan to go back and do a four book prequel trilogy that explores the life and times of Almeth Elocine and his rise and fall. We see him in the prologue of Souldancer and he shows up one more time in that book. Then he shows up a couple times in The Secret Kings near the end. Really, as has been hinted, everything is really his fault. The Guild itself, the purge of the Gen and other non-human races, and their defeat. It’s kind of all on him, which will be made clear. Nethereal is very much the echo of what he did before he got to Kairos at the beginning of Souldancer. I think he’s my most compelling character. You’ll get to see a bit more of him in The Ophian Rising. He’ll actually get to see him take the field and do stuff this time, so there’s a little tidbit for you. We’re going to examine him, but that’s not my next immediate project

So again, we’ve done the heavy stuff, we’ve done the more literary stuff, and you guys have been good. It’s time to give you a treat:

The next project is giant robots.

Let’s have some fun. Let’s get in our giant mecha and let’s blow up some space colonies. Let’s shoot the big laser straight down the middle of the approaching squad of enemy mechs and just watch them blossom in sequence into Christmas lights.

Like Macross or Gundam?

Remember when Nick Cole and Jason Anspach first launched Galaxy’s Edge? Before they had the title, they just called it #StarWarsNotStarWars. This is #GundamNotGundam. I say Gundam all the way. I mean, I like what I’ve seen of Macross, but I’m a Gundam fanboy. I love it so and I’ve got to be really careful because Bandai is super uptight even more than Disney about protecting their IP. I will probably not be able to use #GundamNotGundam in marketing. I’ve already got five books outlined for it.

There has already has been a short story published in that universe It’s called “Anacyclosis”.

Is that the story hosted on Sci Phi Journal?

Correct. So anybody who wants a foretaste of what’s coming next can go check that out. There’s quite a bit of the lore of that series contained in that story. It’s a good jumping on point.

Earlier this summer, you released a novella, “The Hymn of the Pearl”. Could you tell us a bit about it?

Anyone who signs up for my newsletter–which you can do through my website Kairos at BrianNiemeier.com–gets a free copy of my first novella “The Hymn of the Pearl” for free. It’s been described as a sort of historical fiction but in a version of Late Antiquity that never was. There are two competing magic systems practiced by two competing orders of priests. It deals with the fate of humans and gods and how they can’t be created or destroyed, just moved around. There’s a redemption story. There’s an attempt to start a war. It’s good, clean, wholesome fun.

Is this a setup for a future project or is it self-contained?

Right now, its self-contained. I do have ideas where I might go with it. There’s enough demand for an entire series. I have had people who’ve read it saying how much they want a sequel, but just as many have told me, “No, no, this is perfect as it is. I wouldn’t want to see you cheapen this with a sequel. I wouldn’t want to see you water it down.”

Let’s just say that there might be a sequel to “The Hymn of the Pearl” someday, but it’s on the back burner. I’m going to focus on my mecha series next.

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Thanks again to Brian Niemeier for his time and for writing the genre-bending Soul Cycle series.

You can get the final book of the award-winning Soul Cycle today, and complete your collection by picking up the other captivating books in this supernatural space adventure series.

An Interview with Brian Niemeier, Part II published first on http://ift.tt/2zdiasi