#Text is placeholder- I struggled with both making it in-character and making it fit in the 3 lines

[sapphire-code]

Deitree's Daylight: Prerelease showcase

A tool to greenify Furrowfield, like the Deitree's purifying power, but encompassing all of the island.

Here are the results:

[greater-chungus-of-nurgle]

Once More with Purpose

Names and flavor text are an important and tricky part of custom Magic design. Countless times, I’ve seen someone post a card, ask for FT for it, and get no response. It’s something that most everything needs, and a lot of creators struggle with.

So how do you write these, then?

It’s simple. Names and FT, above everything else, need a purpose. Does it tell me something about the creature depicted? Good! What about a character? That’s also good! The world itself? Sign me up! As long as your writing is about something, and that thing is interesting, you’re going to have a strong start.

“But what if I don’t have anything interesting to talk about on my cards?” Then you should go brainstorm some cool things. If you don’t have anything you want to share, then you should rectify that before you write.

Make it Cool

I trust that you have cool ideas. But most people aren’t so trusting! In order to get them to care about your ideas, you have to convince them that they’re cool. Or interesting. Or, at the very least, not boring, and definitely not lame.

The good news is, by having a card with art, typeline, and abilities, you’ve already set up the fishing rod- all you need to do is cast your hook.

Do you have a creature? What’s it doing? Why is it doing it? Why is what it’s doing important? If you can capture the sense that this card is a part of your world, and its part matters, you’re going to do well.

A common pitfall is to make the card seem unimportant or ineffectual through flavor text. Now, there’s nothing wrong with making jokes on your cards, and there’s nothing wrong with the joke being at the expense of those depicted on it. But if the joke is “This sucks”, that’s going to influence how people view your cards.

Goblins have had so many lame FTs that it’s become part of their identity.

Answer Your Own Questions

You’re in charge of your worldbuilding (usually). If you’re struggling to name something... why not create something in your world where that thing fits? Ideas are only as good as their execution, and your vision should be malleable- both for your worldbuilding, and the card itself. If the art isn’t giving you inspiration, if the typeline seems bland, don’t be afraid to change them.

Drawing a Blank

Okay yeah, sometimes you just can’t make an interesting name or flavor text to save your life. Happens to the best of us. If you really want to get feedback you can work with, the number one piece of advice I can give is to make the job of helping you as easy as possible.

When you post a card, I strongly suggest having a placeholder name or flavor text that tries to capture the theme or idea you’re going for to the best of your abilities. Doesn’t have to be good, but it has to be clear what it’s meant to be. Something like “Snarky Pyromancer” works.

Next, in the post with your image, provide as much relevant information as you can. Who is this pyromancer mouthing off to? Why are they snarking off? Where might they be from? What are some other terms for pyromancer or snarky?

This works better for flavor text as opposed to names, admittedly, but giving people anything to go off will not only help inspire them to write, but make it more likely that they’ll provide something that works for you.

TL;DR

You have cool ideas. Make your ideas seem cool. If you don’t have cool ideas, make some. If you don’t know how to make them seem cool, remember that people are better at helping you when they know what you want.

[sugarcomatosed]

i love your stories so much!! and was wondering if you can give some writing tips perhaps? 🥺👉🏻👈🏻

Breaking this up into sections for you + putting it under a cut cause I went overboard. 😅

General Writing Tips

These work for both academic and creative writing.

Make an outline.

It doesn't have to be a formal one, but having at least a general idea of the scenes you want to include is helpful. If I know my fic is going to be a longer one (like Don't Hesitate was and my current WIP is), I break down the larger story beats i want to hit on a piece of paper or my iPad.

It's good to know what you're planning to do, in a any piece I usually have a single specific scene I want to do and depending on what it is, I might either just do the scene I want to or turn into something longer.

Draft, draft, draft.

I cannot stress the importance of going through and reviewing your work. This is a big part of any sort of writing.

Your first idea isn't always your best idea. As you work on a piece you might find your original idea is holding you back, focus shifts! Don't be afraid to let your work change as you go. It's not always easy to let go of your original idea but if you find it's not working, you have to let it change. Sections will need to be rewritten, things have to be readjusted to fit with later sections. Reread for clarity while you're drafting and look to see if this makes sense to you, or reads well to you. If you can't follow it and you wrote it, chances are your reader can't either. Did you use the same phrase again and again? Find and search it on your doc to double check.

Sometimes you have to cut things you really like because they just don't contribute to the fic anymore. Save those bits and use them somewhere else!In a lot of my longer pieces I will write a paragraph, realize that's not where it should go and cut/paste it into another part of the doc because the pacing/scene doesn't make sense where I had it originally, but it works somewhere else.

If you're stuck, skip around, come back and then stitch the bits you have written together.

Don't Focus on a Word Count

This might be controversial, but I'm of the opinion just because something is longer does not make it better. Some works are short, and that's okay! I very rarely try to aim for a specific count of words unless it's for a prompt exchange or a personal challenge. I write till I feel the piece is done. Some stories require more words, some require less.

Don't Hesitate is a great example of this again, because all I wanted to do was a bittersweet first kiss fic, but jumping write into the kiss wouldn't get the full effect I wanted. Meanwhile, with Old Habits all I wanted to do was write dumb comedic kisses, we didn't need a 2k preamble.

Get Someone You Trust to Edit

My go to editor for the past six years or so is one of my good friends. She has edited everything from college papers to my fics for me before I post them to read for clarity, find any funky phrases or misspelled words I missed, and I do the same for her when she asks! A fresh set of eyes makes a world of a difference. Find someone to trade fics with or ask a friend! They might have good suggestions you never thought of, or be able to tell what you were going for when you don't even know yourself.

I also rely on my friends a lot to brainstorm and talk my ideas out before I start because it helps me think and figure out what I need. It's super common for me to text someone and say "im gonna spitball at you, that okay?" and then spend twenty minutes chatting through my ideas.

Have Reference Material

For my 13sar fics, I regularly go back and review/screenshot videos of the dialogue to make sure I am staying consistent with story events, character nuance and small details. You don't have to go crazy, but it is really helpful to have your source material to go back to and check yourself against. In non creative writing I always had a pile of papers highlighted with my own notes on the margins.

Take Breaks/Pace Yourself

Know your own limits, and if you are working and working on something and it's not coming out leave it alone and come back to it. I'm really bad at this personally because when I get an idea in my head I want to see it through but sometimes you gotta step back! It's not healthy to keep working on things and overwork yourself. Stretch, get up go for a walk.

Write What You Want to Write

Don't focus on what people want to read. Focus on what you like. Find a topic, a scene, anything that you are passionate about and the rest will follow. The only time I write fic for other people is when I am writing for a friend. Even prompt requests I only take open ended ones, if I am not interested in writing it it's not gonna happen. I know it's super hard and I get really anxious sometimes about letting people down now, or worrying people won't like something but then I step back and remind myself this is a hobby and I'm doing it for fun.

Play to Your Strengths

You shouldn't try to write like me, you should try to write like yourself. Find what skills you have and use them to your advantage!

I can't give you a step by step list to write like me, because nobody in the world has my background! We're all unique. Everything I've listed so far I know because I'm not a beginner anymore! I'm in my twenties and have come from a strong academic writing background.

I took on an intensive course load in high school, and then went onto college for a sociology degree. I very rarely had test based finals and at the end of each semester would have five 10-15 page papers to submit. Straight up some of my skills come from having read and studied the works of anthropologist Clifford Geertz. I am not saying you should read anthropology/sociology texts. Unless you like that sort of thing lol

I also have 6+ years of theater experience (acting & directing), I use this all the time for my writing. When I think about a scene, I think about how I would work through it as an actor, how the character would move, and how would things read to an audience. The GOTE ("Goal, Obstacle, Tactics, and Expectation") method of acting by Robert Cohen is really useful hear if you want a more technical breakdown of what I mean by that.

This leads to a lot of what we called "business" in acting, doing small tiny things while you talk or move around on stage to give the sense you're a real human. I don't have to think or try on these sort of things because they're in my skill set already!

Things I do Personally

As in, these are not transferable skills this is just the stuff I do while working on projects.

Find a Vibe™️

I come into any fic with usually a goal I want to hit, a line of dialogue or something I want to capture. Just like, the general idea of a feeling a song even if the lyrics don't match up. Make a mood-board, a playlist, just find something you wanna do. It's less about the actual words on the page and what you're aiming to do.

Look to things that inspire you

Don't Hesitate got written because I wanted to write a fic that captured the same vibe as a scene in Macross Frontier, where two characters have a bittersweet kiss before the final battle and that scene still has me fucked up six years after watching it.

My current WIP is doing the same thing but with the song All I've Ever Known from Hadestown. Two characters working through loneliness, the sudden feeling of falling in love and the frustration that feeling can bring on sometime.

I don't plagiarize them word for word, but these are scenes that inspire me! I also patchwork quilt ideas together. Using Don't Hesitate again, I also ended up pulling from a bunch of shoujo anime, Toradora, Sailor Moon, Yona of the Dawn, Princess Tutu...specific scenes I enjoy to blend and create something new.

Goof Off While You Write

I name my documents stupid things, I write dumb placeholder dialogue or vague sentiments like "insert better word here", I make memes when I'm struggling and roast myself and my predictable tastes.

I spent twenty minutes texting a friend Juro's name with different letters spelt out and then the "fuck your chickenstrips" vine saying it was Juro during destruction. Just have fun with it!

Listen to J-POP On Loop for Hours at a Time

i am not kidding I do this all the time. Perfume, AKB48, anime idol osts, Sailor Moon's OPs/ED, vocaloid songs. I like technopop and Japanese is good because it usually doesn't distract my brain since I only know random phrases, but still know what the meaning og the song is.

I love music, it helps me vibe out.

Thank you so much for enjoying my work ;o;

I hope this is useful to you in some way! I'm so sorry it's so long winded but I am overly thorough and love to teach people ;w;

[duskyvision]

philippe georget - summertime all the cats are bored

yet another french novel review, yeehaw. this one took a ridiculously long time to read (i think exactly a month, actually!), mostly due to life stuff, and also because to be honest, it was slow to get through. so much so that i had to use text to speech stuff to finish it or else i wouldn’t have been able to actually finish reading it. oddly fitting considering the work’s context, but still.

again, origin story as to how i picked that book up: i noticed that i could borrow ebooks on kindle and i kinda just went ahead and borrowed this book first because the title caught my attention, and then because i thought the idea of a crime fiction set in perpignan of all places sounded funny as fuck despite having never stepped even once in perpignan. i’m the derogatory french you’ve been warned about.

anyway, onto the review, with a good old trigger warning list as usual:

abduction (entire plot is based around this)

themes of adultery (common through the novel)

suicide (two of them: one about 25 or so chapters in, and another in the final chapters of the book)

--

okay so, first of all, when i say this book is slow, i really fucking mean it. the first 15 chapters or so you’re being juggled around all of those different povs and characters and you’re both like “what the fuck who are those people” and then at the same time it’s like “why the fuck is this shit so slow paced”. it feels like a summer day but all you have to keep yourself fresh is a water bottle and your AC is broken so you have to use your grandma’s 30 year old fan barely working. it’s a narrative blueballing process. and while that’s all done in order to better layer the final intrigue and the mystery of everything surrounding the abduction of this one woman and the cat-and-mouse game between the abductor and the police to save the woman, it’s also a very, very painful process to get through. things slowly start picking up around the halfway mark of the book, and then by the last third of the book everything comes at you like a train rushing at full speed and you’re like “holy FUCK?” at some moments. 

the worst aspect regarding the book’s pacing to me is that for a very, very huge chunk of the story, i was just like “oh my godddddddddd i can’t stand this protag can we go back to [insert other character’s pov] please. can we” because a lot of time was spent detailing sebag’s personal life and stuff rather than the juicy details of whatever kind of mystery lies before the police. narratively it does make a bit of sense, but at the same time, the sebag pov chapters felt like a drag, not to mention that some of his internal comments were just very. er. questionable. then again what am i expecting from a french policeman in his mid-40s, you’d say, and you’d be correct. anyway, it’s much later on that i found myself actually enjoying sebag’s character, as he reveals more of his investigative spirit rather than be just some random ass guy with a wife and kids who likes jogging or whatever and doesn’t want to do his job most of the time like most of his colleagues. i guess he’s just not my type of character, which is fine i suppose.

now, as for the plot itself... well, the entire thing feels like a goose chase, and that’s both a good and infuriating thing because it’s literally what made me wanna push further to know what the fuck is going on and push through the drag of the first half to get to the second half of the book which, in my opinion, was much stronger as it felt like an indirect chess game between X [obviously this is just a placeholder due to spoilers] and the police. it’s funny because not only is the reader pissed, the police is too, and i’m kind of an asshole who enjoys seeing policemen struggling and being forced to do their jobs properly. some things about the entire thing did throw me off though because like... what the fuck was up with some stuff they uncovered near the end of the book which were simply left unexplained

also, i’m a bit disappointed that the narrative relied on two suicides as ways to end “arcs” of sorts. while it made sense for one of them, despite how tragic it felt and how it made me feel down for some time (yeah i guess you can tell which character i was more attached to in general), the other one felt like an easy way to avoid writing someone getting what they deserve. then again, if that 2nd suicide didn’t take place, i suppose it would have resulted in either a slow drag of consequences which would have taken away from the experience, or it would have only gotten like 2 or 3 lines which would have been very underwhelming. oddly enough, i also felt oddly underwhelmed by the character of the criminal themself. i feel like if there had been less details on sebag’s routine and daily life and more focus on establishing a parallel between the one ol policeman v the criminal (perhaps through the use of pov chapters that felt less... criptically horny) it would have been more entertaining for me overall. but that’s just my personal preference

despite my qualms though, i did appreciate how the author took the time to describe the setting and just like regional things, which is especially helpful for someone who’s never stepped around the area of perpignan (or if you want a travel guide, i guess), and i liked some of the banter between the cops. it’s like dudebro level banter at times to be honest but eh sometimes it was entertaining so it made things a bit more lively when it wasn’t just straight up tasteless comments about x or y thing- and again, i really enjoyed the cat-and-mouse game between the criminal and the police picking pace up, i feel like it’s one of the strongest parts of the book. also, gotta applaud the author for being like “oh yeah, maybe i should portray my protag as an actual human being with like a family and stuff and not being dedicated 24/7 to his job” even if i feel like that took up a bit too much of the screentime in my opinion.

all in all, i think my general opinion is that the novel could have benefited from a slightly faster pacing and less dilly-dallying for me to enjoy it from start to finish, and i would have initially rated it a 2 stars on goodreads if it weren’t for that last third of the book being the juiciest and getting me fired up as i wondered what could happen next, so 3 stars it is!

i’m not sure if i’d recommend it as again, the pacing is the main issue i have with the book, but it holds itself up in terms of mystery, i feel.

... also, i really need to have better luck with my random book picks. i’m tired of adultery being a common theme in there

anyway, that’s about it for summertime all the cats are bored! peace