#and she used to write short stories and often have them published like when i was little

[cruelsister-moved2]

"the truth is she did it alone, and remembered it all her life."

[fictionstudent]

Why even "show, not tell"?

You must have heard the famous advice “show, not tell” around a hundred times by now. It’s one of the most used writing tools today, I’d argue. Recently in a blog post, I’d even talked about what it actually means and how you could execute it.

But now you must be thinking why it’s even such a thing, you know. Why do we follow this advice? What’s so advantageous about it? Why do even people care? Or do people care?

After much brainstorming, I have the answers to these questions. I hope it can spark some discussions on the issue.

***

#01 - Why yes

So, why you should “show, not tell”? Classic authors didn’t use this technique often. Most of the literature at the time was written in third-person omniscient narration technique, and that means the authors had no means to actually describe how the characters felt or what they thought.

There were a lot of classics that used first-person narration, but maybe those were the only times we could notice the advice actually in use historically. Third-person limited was non-existent, perhaps. Personally, I’ve never read a classic novel that’s in third-person limited narration.

Anyway, time began passing, and people noticed that somehow, this “show, not tell” thingey kinda works. It can convey emotions and information in a lot more efficient way. So editors began searching for stuff like that.

So, one reason can be that it’s simply a superior way to convey emotions. Taking from the example I used in my last blog,

I was angry at Sara. But she didn’t care.

It’s a lot worse than,

She couldn’t believe this. Was this for real? Was this… really happening? Really?

Her fists clenched hard. Her arms were trembling. And her eyes… They tried hard to fight back those tears. But the dam could break any moment now.

How could someone do something like this? And… And to her? What had she done to be betrayed like this?

The latter one actually makes you feel what Sara is feeling—you feel like you are Sara. You can understand her feelings on a much deeper level—you do not just know that she’s frustrated, you know how frustrated she is at the whole ordeal.

Another reason—it’s immersive. Reading in detail how the character is feeling is really a lot more interesting than just reading what they feel and understanding it on an intellectual level. This way, you can relate to the character on an emotional level.

And because it’s immersive, the readers would love the novel. And if they love it, they’d buy more of the author and publisher—and that’s more profits for both of them. So why not?

A third reason—the world is changing. And so are our forms of entertainment.

Today, most of our entertainment is in the form of visual media. When we read novels, we do not always imagine them as someone speaking to us—as readers a century or two ago used to. But rather, we try to create mental images based on the information we’ve gathered. Why?

Because most of our entertainment now is visual. Comics, social media, films—all these widely consumed media are visual. So subconsciously, we all agree that story means visuals. And visuals—along with monologues—are a part of “show, not tell”.

Readers today have a set of expectations that the stories they consume in novels would be visuals, based on happenings. Yeah, there are monologues and narrations, but they sit on top of the foundation that the visuals create. Most commercial fiction does not stand on monologues alone—they need visuals.

Now, I’m not saying that all novels are like this, or all readers are like that. No, far from the truth. I’ve read Murakami’s short-stories that are certainly based only on monologues, with little to no visuals. Or even dialogues, for that matter. And believe me—these stories are just as immersive.

So we can argue that not all fiction needs visuals, but most do. And it’s the same for monologues—read McCarthy.

***

#02 - When to “tell”

Yeah, you heard it right. There’s time you absolutely need to ignore this advice. Writing is subjective, after all—every rule and advice has instances where it needs to be ignored. Exceptions form a big part of learning the application of any sort of rule or advice.

Firstly, time-skip. If you’re writing a scene where you need to have a time-skip, but you also need the reader to kinda know what happened in that time, you can just tell instead of showing.

For example,

And we crossed the seas. The journey wasn’t long, but those days we had nothing to do. We were bored the heck out of our brains. Those days felt like an eternity. Until today, when we finally found what we were looking for—a piece of land in the middle of the Pacific. The Hirohoto Islands.

It's completely fine to write stuff like that if whatever happened in that time phase has little to no relevance to the story whatsoever. If you want to, you could have expanded a chapter or two out of this little paragraph, or even a whole full-length book (lol, really). But if you feel that expanding it would provide no extra meaning to the plot, and you can just skip to the better part, writing like this is extremely fine. In fact, adventure novels are filled with this sort of telling narrations.

Secondly, you can’t show the monologues of the other characters that your narrator is interacting with. Yeah, you can still make use of the visuals, but not the monologues, which is half of the “show, not tell” advice. So you’re heavily dependent on the visuals in terms of showing. But in such cases, remember that you can tell—it’d be the narrator’s interpretation of the emotions of the other characters. It’d be better than head-hopping, I mean. Not recommended, but definitely correct if executed well.

Thirdly, action scenes. You may tell during action scenes because remember that action scenes are supposed to be quick-paced and punchy. This doesn’t really leave you enough space to show the narrator’s emotions and monologues—or the scene would turn up to be slow. And you don’t want an action scene to be slow.

An action scene relies heavily on visuals, though. But if, by any chance, you need to describe anything other than the actual action, you can just tell at that moment to make sure you don’t break the flow and pace of the scene.

Fourthly, you can use tell literally anytime, anywhere. You can use it without restraints. Remember, there’re no hard rules about where you can show and where you can tell. There are gonna be instances where you feel you can apply any one of them—so do apply any one of them. It’s your novel, write it the way you want.

But don’t just keep on telling. It’d be boring. But sometimes, it’s necessary. And sometimes, it’s just a shorter, better thing to do. Use “show, not tell” as many times as you can, but don’t overuse it.

***

Conclusion

I’d said in a recent post that I wanted to talk more about “show, not tell”. And now that it’s over, I guess I’d be doing something else with my life lol.

Anyway, explore the blog if you want more helpful content about writing like this one. Love you guys.

[the-ellia-west]

INTRO POST!!1!!!!!1!

Hello! I'm Ellia! Welcome to my weird-ass writeblr blog! Here's some things to know about me:

I am an Aspiring author and Devoted Christian Woman. I live in the USA (CDT time zone) I am a minor, and the only other language I know is some very spotty spanish.

I mainly write Fantasy, and I'm working on four main projects (Listed Below)!

I like: Jesus, Bright Colors, People, Writing, Reading, Cats, Music, Warm Weather, Rain, Flowers, Dresses, and my Moots!

I Dislike: The texture of wool, Heavy Lifting, Baked Beans, Sin, Satan, Demons, and the Time Travel Trope

Hey! Pst! Before you continue! I have a side blog! Check out @jakkon-and-rose-topic if you want to read some stuff!

Tags:

Ellia Writes - Any talking or sharing of any aspect of any of my WIPs

Ellia's Construction Company - How I make stuff, tutorials, ect.

Ghost Party - Chatting and geeking out with my friends/Moots

Ellia answers - Answering questions

Ellia's Rambling - Me talking about stuff (a little too much)

Ellia's Haunted house - Any posts that I could slot into my story and character/world building. And my pile of creations (Including shitposts)

Ellia's mind palace - Stuff I'm adding to my mental Library :]

Ghost gardens - Aesthetic Pictures and stuff

Ghost scribbles - Art/Drawing Practice

My Wips:

TCOT - (The Cursed One's Throne) - TCOT is a low fantasy Novel Series I have been working on for 5 years, and I hope to publish in the next year, and the Main Wip I will work on and talk about on this blog (Tags: #elliatcot, #ellia tcot, #ellia's tcot, #the cursed one's throne)

J&R - (Placeholder Title) - High fantasy Adventure with Sass, spunk, and a heck of a lot of conflict (To be turned into a comic one day)

StF - (Steel and Feathers) - StF is a High Fantasy project about a Chosen one And stuff (Tags: #stf, #elliastf, #ellia'sstf, #ellia stf, #ellia stf)

Fallen - (That's the title) - A High Fantasy Romance between a Runaway Noble and a Disgraced (probably Criminal) (Tags: #elliafallen, #ellia'sfallen, #ellia fallen, #ellia's fallen, #rustpearl)

StF Short story Masterpost!

Alkain - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Raavas - Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 3.5

Old Pinned post Copy-paste below (followed by my moots)

------------------------------------ Hey there! Hi! You! Tumblr user!

Are you a fan of epic fantasy? Want a story with romance, action, and sassy heroes and villains? How about some good old-fashioned ANGST?

If so, you're in luck! Get ready for the upcoming release of The Cursed One's Throne (TCOT for short), coming... well, eventually!

A story of trauma, war, recovery, trust, and love intertwined with curses, magic, sacrifice, and a few too little hours of sleep. Who needs a release date when you've got me, the very entertaining author, right?

------------------------------------

Wtf is TCOT?

TCOT sneak Peek

Worldbuilding

Music

TCOT Ships

Post this comes from

✨️Moots✨️💫

@agirlandherquill - HER WORDS ARE ART, GO FOLLOW NOW

@aredeemantagonist - Fun to talk to! AMAZING IDEASSS

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@bigwipscholar - Yes

@bloodmoonloveletter - Slay

@blue-kyber - READ IT ALL

@corinneglass - Why is she so amazing and sweet?!??!? I do not deserve her 😔

@cosmolumine - Extremely Creative with wonderful ideas you can't help but get hooked on :]

@cybercelestian - I don't talk to her as much as I'd like to, but I live her <333

@darkandstormydolls - AN AMAZING WRITER, Her research on medieval clothing and settings is really cool and useful too! <3

@fantastictrashpolice - I need to talk to her more often too because she is very sweet and wonderful <3

@homelessnerdwrites - Very kind and wonderful, and I don't think I've seen any of her writing yet but she still ROCKS!!!

@i-hate-happy-endings - A wonderful author with FANTASTIC ideas that you all should check out!!

@illarian-rambling - ALL OF HER IDEAS MAKE ME WANT TO SCREAM, I WISH I COULD BE THIS CREATIVE AND WONDERFUL

@lunaeuphternal - A wonderful friend who I don't speak to often but is an amazing person you should check out!

@pastellbg - A Wonderful artist and friend all of you Need to follow!!!! (Slay Queen)

@phoenixradiant - His ideas and writing is amazing and poetic in EVERY SINGLE WORD he chooses

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@sunflowerrosy - Why does she follow me, I am so LAME?!?@?@?

@sunglasses-in-the-bentley - My beloved adopted daughter who deserves all the attention :]]]

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If you made it all the way to the end, have a wonderful day, don't forget to drink water, have a little snack, sleep, take a walk, and Don't forget that I love you :] <3333

[veliseraptor]

April Reading Recap

Stars of Chaos vol. 2 by Priest. I'm not quite grabbed by this one yet. I'm not not enjoying it, but the main relationship doesn't quite have me compelled, and the politics aren't quite sharp enough to get me either. I'm not totally sure I'll keep buying the published volumes, at least not at this time, and just read the rest online to see how I end up feeling about it as a whole before making the financial commitment.

Medea by Eilish Quin. Listen, I'm a Medea apologist, but I'm a Medea apologist who is very much of the "she absolutely did all the awful things she's accused of and she is valid" and the author here is going "she did all the awful things she's accused of but it's not as bad as you thought it was because she didn't mean it!" and I'm just. I'm not mad, just disappointed (again). I was so hoping for a book that would do something interesting with a Medea retelling but I probably should've known better than to think it'd be this one. Why, you may ask, do I keep reading myth retellings about my problematic faves when all I do is complain about them? Hope springs eternal, I guess.

She Who Became the Sun and He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan. Exceptional. Might be my favorite books I read in April. I'd already read She Who Became the Sun back when it was first published and knew I'd enjoyed it (was rereading to refresh my memory for the sequel), but I felt like I enjoyed it more the second time around, and I might've liked He Who Drowned the World even more than its predecessor. If you're looking for works of just-barely fantasy with delightfully fucked up queer characters, come get 'em here. I won't say most of them are happy (they're not) or that things end well (they don't), but boy is it good reading.

The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling. Decent horror but not particularly outstanding, in my opinion. I liked The Luminous Dead more.

Untethered Sky by Fonda Lee. I continue to struggle with novellas. This was a perfectly good novella but it felt like it could've been a stronger short story, which I guess is better than the other way I usually come out of novellas, which is "this was a fine novella but it should've been a novel."

The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler. I really liked this. It has more of a thriller-ish edge than I expected, but for all that I think it's a thoughtful book with some interesting things to say, and I feel like it's one I want more people to read so I can talk to them about it. It's set in a sort-of spooky, near-future dystopia, but a lot of it is about, like, the nature of thought and consciousness. Anyway, I found myself compelled.

Islands of Abandonment: Nation Rebounding in the Post-Human Landscape by Cal Flyn. I found myself reading this thinking a lot about The World Without Us, a book I read many years ago and would kind of like to reread, and which I think I liked more than this (at least in my memory). I was hoping for more analysis than I got from this book, which was beautifully written but more nature/travel writing than science. One thing I did appreciate was the attention paid to the human cost of the "abandoned" places examined in this book - the pain that abandonment often signifies, and the trauma it indicates, in spite of the beauty that may come after.

Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World by Mary Beard. I really liked the way that Beard chose to do this one - namely, taking it by theme rather than by emperor, and breaking down different areas of the emperor's life over time rather than trying to tell a linear narrative. It also let her do some of the better "skeptical" reading of sources that I've read in a popular book on ancient history, where she was actually digging into the "rather than what this says about what this person may or may not have actually done, what does it say about expectations, beliefs, and tropes that people had" kind of reading. And after some of the other popular histories of Rome I've read, thank god for that.

Metamorphoses by Ovid, trans. Stephanie McCarter. Continuing on with my "reading new translations (by women!) of classical epics" run (started with The Odyssey, The Iliad is on my list). It was fun to reread Ovid! As usual one of my favorite parts of this was reading the translator's note and introduction, and I wanted about 500% more of that through the text (tell me about the assonance you're preserving in the Latin!) but did get some of (thanks for the information on the penis/pubic hair puns!). Overall would recommend as a good translation of Ovid that very much does not flinch away from - and makes/keeps appropriately uncomfortable - the sexual assault.

Dark Rise by C.S. Pacat. Slightly more YA than I usually like, but I enjoyed it! I was a little :\ about it for a while, very much feeling the YA cliches of it all, but the late hour twist got me interested again, and I will be picking up the sequel. Did miss the full balls-to-the-wall iddy joy of Captive Prince, though, since I probably wouldn't have picked this book up without the author recognition.

Subversive Sequels in the Bible: How Biblical Stories Mine and Undermine Each Other by Judy Klitsner. I really liked this one, particularly for its commentary comparing and contrasting Eve, and the other women of Genesis, with later Biblical narratives. I don't know how much I buy all of her arguments when it comes to intentionality of all of the comparisons she's drawing, but it certainly makes interesting food for thought, and a good sampler for me of what literary-based Biblical scholarship can look like (and an indication that I'm interested in trying more of it).

Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks. I read most of my way through this book continuing to really appreciate what Banks does with the Culture novels and planning to continue on reading the next one, but not enjoying this specific one as much as I did The Player of Games in particular, and then I got to the very end of it and went "hang on what the fuck???" but in a decidedly good way. And I'm still kind of thinking about That even though it's been a while, which I think is a positive. Anyway, I don't think I'd recommend this as a starting place for anyone to read the Culture novels, or as a must read, but it was on the upper end of a three star rating.

Juniper & Thorn by Ava Reid. I wanted this to be more gothic horror and less romance and it ended up being more romance and less gothic horror, was my feeling. Not necessarily the book's fault, but if anyone else is eyeing it wondering...now you know.

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik. I really enjoyed this one! I was kind of skeptical going in - I'm not a big magic school person, as a rule, and the more I feel like something is hyped to me the more I tend to drag my heels about it - but Naomi Novik is really good at what she does and she clearly had a lot of fun here. It's tropey for sure, but I enjoy the narrative voice (very important, in a first person narration), and the action moves along with what I felt was pretty good momentum. The other thing I was worried about - that it'd feel too much like this was just ~commentary on/against Harry Potter~ without saying anything for itself - didn't materialize for me. I'm looking forward to reading the next ones.

The Monster Theory Reader ed. by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock. I'm so rusty on my academic/theory reading and I felt it reading this collection, some of which was definitely better than others. Kristeva's essay on abjection was particularly rough as far as "I'm reading words and I know all the words but something about the order they're going in is just not making sense to me." Overall...it was a decent primer? There were a few very interesting essays in there; my favorite might've been the one on tanuki in modernizing Japan's folklore, but there were a couple on "monstrous" bodies that made me wish I had someone to discuss them with. That's probably my main problem reading academic works these days: I want a seminar to dissect them afterwards and I just don't have that.

The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man by Abraham Joshua Heschel. I'm trying to read something Jewish on Shabbat now and finally getting around to reading some Heschel after years of meaning to. I thought "oh, I'll start easy with something nice and short" - yeah, no, Heschel's got a very particular style of writing and there's a lot of theological depth packed into a very short volume. I'm looking forward to reading The Prophets, though.

The Husky and His White Cat Shizun vol. 5 by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou. I think we're juuuuust about caught up now with the official translation to where I started reading the machine translation, so I'm very excited for (a) things I don't remember as well (b) reading it not in machine translation. Also looking forward to everything about what happened with Nangong Liu and Nangong Xu making more sense this time around, on account of not reading it machine translated, because I didn't follow it so well on my first read and I feel like I'm already doing better. (Though that could also be because it's a reread, no matter how different an experience of one.) Still feel real bad for Ye Wangxi, on so many levels. Mark that one down for 'characters I'd love to know more about what they're thinking.'

The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang. I really enjoyed S.L. Huang's other work with the Cas Russell series, and I liked this book a little less than those. It felt like an almost winner, for me. Certainly I read through it quickly enough, and I can say I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure I'd give it an enthusiastic recommendation. It falls somewhere in the middle between "a fun action/adventure story" and "something I can sink my teeth into" in a way that didn't quite satisfy either itch. Still, it did make me curious about the source material, which is one of the Chinese classics (Water Margin) and I might go and find a place to read that, if I can; if I'd had that background going in I wonder if my experience of this work would've been more edifying.

--

I'm currently rereading A Memory Called Empire so I can (finally) read the sequel (A Desolation Called Peace); I also checked out from the library the next two Scholomance books so I'll be reading those. I'm going to try to throw some nonfiction somewhere in there (maybe The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman, which I also have out from the library, but maybe something else), but I've still got the sequel to The First Sister sitting on my shelf (also from the library).

Outside of that I've got no big reading plans - I'm working my way through some of the unreads on my own shelf (despite what it may look like, about the library books) and eyeing The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky or a reread of Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett so I can continue that series.

[docholligay]

Do you think having such a personalized and detailed headcanon makes it harder to enjoy fic about the show/game that's written by others?

I mean sure, probably.

But unfortunately things I adore, for people named Doc who are me, fall into one of two buckets:

The character work and plot in this show are incredible, I find myself turning it around in my mind like a rotisserie chicken. I constantly discover new things about the show/book/game or the characters in it. I do not read fic about this, because why would I? Every answer I search for is in the text. I want to talk about this with someone, but about what is THERE, not what could be there. Ex: The Haunting of Hill House, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Piranesi, Bioshock:Infinite, Watership Down, Yellowjackets, among others.

The concepts of this could be amazing but are handled so fucking badly so consistently, in a shocking contrast to how INCONSISTENT the character work is, that all I want to do is steal it and make it better. All i want to do is turn it into something that doesn't suck ass when you look at it too hard. So I am going to take it SO seriously, and I am going to develop the rich inner lives for these characters that they lack, with intense backstories and families and motivation for how they got to be the person we know, or know sometimes, in certain episodes or shorts. Ex: Sailor Moon and Overwatch are the biggies here obviously, this is actually not an emotion I feel very often. I don't have intense backstories and extra-textual feelings and ideas about most of the stuff I read and watch, these two are just my Spiders Georg.

So! The odds on me being into something in the correct way to make me want to Seek Treasure Elsewhere but also I have a chill enough attitude about how the characters are that Any Dream Will Do is almost nil. I do not in ANY way mean this in a shady way, but I mostly read published adult fiction for entertainment and not fanfic. I am very picky about my fanfic. So, "plus these two new red and blue girls into Starbucks" often won't work for me, because the reasons to have Haruka and Michiru meet in a coffee shop are completely different from any of the reasons Fareeha and Angela might meet in a coffee shop, and so many of those types are archtypical plug and play stuff. Honestly, I have skated the idea of making a cheat sheet of fanon archetypes of various characters and buying a typewriter to sell 100-200 word 'quick fic' at cons with my sister. That's how common it is to use these archetypes. This is not a criticism! At all!

But, to take the two couples above, I have read so much BORING SHIT about both HM and FA that I could throw up. Lesbian couples have a lot of very milquetoast writing about them, and a lot of meet-cute which isn't really my bag.

But there are authors I love! @oathkeeper-of-tarth was and is one of the best harumichi writers out there and we don't even have all the same headcanons. The rare occasions @verbforverb decides to grace me with "Jewish Mercy I don't Have To Write" I pop a can of bubbly in the tub. And on both fields of battle @keyofjetwolf has stuff I've had bookmarked for years, and there are some things even within Rei's backstory and history that we disagree on.

Actually, to that point what I like is good writing. You can write me into believing nearly anything. There are things I believe about Amelie when I'm reading @lemon-embalmer's stuff that when I go back to my own world, aren't true, but when I'm in her world who the fuck cares, I'm having a great time. EVEN MORE to the point, I read @moonlight-frittata's stupid sun and moon lesbian League of Legends shit and I would rather shoot myslef than know ANYTHING about the game, but unfortunately she has a beautiful turn of phrase and plot flow to her work that I just....read anyway, because it is good. Fucking @tallangrycockatiel had me like 25 pages or so into a story before I was like, "OH SHIT, IS THIS SLASH??? WAIT I DON'T WANT TO READ ABOUT BOYS' LOVE!! NO!!" *hits next page* And I still could not care less about that podcast and would never listen to it, and if I did I would be massively disappointed because to my mind, her John and Arthur are the actual article, and whatever the fuck is going on in the source material can eat my dick.

So, yes, I DO think that having a very particular point of view is going to mean I back out of a story where like, "Lena stepped out of her Chelsea flat, custom leather high heels clicking against the step" sometimes, or, you know, "Haruka put down her copy of War and Peace, each meticulous note codified by a color-coded tab. Blue was for historical references to research, green for character analysis, yellow for themes, blah blah blah*" But I am actually shockingly open minded in what I will read, often to the point that I'm reading stuff from SHIT I DO NOT LIKE OR CARE ABOUT, because the quality of the writing is excellent. So, also no.

*I met someone who read books like this and I suddenly realized what the literary equivalent of 'knowing someone is a serial killer' was.

[vinca-majors]

Yangsze Choo in conversation - St. Louis 2/21/24

Yangsze Choo is one of my favorite authors (The Ghost Bride is one of my favorite books ever) and last week she came to STL for her The Fox Wife book tour! I wrote up a little summary of the things she said about herself and her novels for anyone interested.

Her name is pronounced Yong-shee

She was warm, humble, funny, gracious, relaxed, and genuinely kind

She is very petite (I'd be surprised if she clears 5') and has a lovely, precise British accent reminiscent of Julie Andrews because she attended British schools when growing up

While she currently lives in California, she is Malaysian and spent parts of her childhood in Germany and Japan

This was her first time visiting Missouri and she only had the kindest things to say about it (this was heartwarming to everyone in attendance since flyover states get no love)

She is a slow writer and her drafts always have an excessively large word count

She never uses outlines "because I don't think like that" and blames her slow writing on this; her husband says if she would use outlines maybe there would be "less howling and rolling on the floor"

"There are thousands of good books that people could be reading. I am honored that people choose to read mine."

The Ghost Bride

One of her favorite scenes is the first chapter

She wrote a trial scene in the Courts of Hell but it was cut for wordcount

Pre-publication, she figured only her "mother and her hairdresser" would read it

Her older sister's feedback on a draft was that there wasn't enough romance and that what there was "is creepy"; her father's feedback was that it didn't read like classic literature; "With a family like this, who needs critics?"

She wanted to be the audiobook reader because many of the Malaysian words in the book have a specific pronunciation; she had to audition to do it "because usually voice actors do this unless you're Neil Gaiman"; the audition was in a studio in New York the day after Neil himself had been there ("I was like 'Can I touch everything that he touched?'")

She was in Trader Joe's when she got the call from her agent that Netflix wanted to make a screen adaptation - "'Give it to them! Give it to them!'"

She wasn't interested in writing the screenplay for the Netflix adaptation - "Novel writing and screenwriting are very different things."

She didn't have a problem with the book's ugly villain being played by a handsome actor - "That's Hollywood"

The Night Tiger

Her audiobook recording was an Audie Award Finalist - "My publisher says I should tell people that more often."

The Fox Wife

It is a story about "others", "what's on the other side of the door", first love, and is "a love story for old people"

Her favorite Austen is Persuasion and that inspired the elements of "regret and do-overs"

She said most ancient Chinese myths about foxes are about the human men who subdue the beautiful, wily female foxes and bear sons by them who pass the Imperial Exams; she wanted a story from the fox's point of view

She wrote it practically in the order that it reads and wrote the two timelines concurrently

The margins are wide and include footnotes because ancient Chinese scrolls had margins for readers to write notes in, which were incorporated into rewrites of those scrolls; this was also a way for women to engage with other female readers in a time when only men could gather to discuss literature and philosophy

She loves the footnotes in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and was inspired to include asides/short stories in the footnotes of her own novel

Her first draft was 240,000 words long - she had to cut the bulk of the footnotes, a whole character, an entire arc, and "another murder"

She calls herself 'an old auntie' and doesn't know who the hot Asian actors are today, but her fancast for Kuro is Toshiro Mifune

If she could spend the day as any of her characters she would be Snow because she's "always wanted to run along rooftops and along garden walls"

Her favorite scene is—(looking at my bookmark at the halfway point) "Well, I won't spoil it for you. I love the last scene."

4th novel

It's about plants because she loves plants - she regularly listens to the NPR gardening podcast

She has always thought that ginseng root looks like a human baby; this book will be about a ginseng root that is a fairy changeling

At heart it's about parenthood

[saturnine-saturneight]

Writerly Questionnaire

@davycoquette posted this up and it looks fun :)

About You

When did you start writing?

I started writing poetry somewhere in my early teens, then expanded to short snippets when my school had a creative writing workshop as part of a week long retreat. I did some minor roleplaying on the [Country redacted] version of Facebook, then started roleplaying on a fandom specific forum at 17... Started running with a group on Discord and Tumblr and learned how to write well with a dictionary always open in another tab. It's how I learned the majority of both my conversational and my writing English!

Are the genres/themes you enjoy reading different from the ones you write?

There are themes I really don't like to watch or read, but love to write, for example medical horror and body horror. I get squicked out when I'm not in control of those. I also adore detective fiction, especially Poirot, but don't have an interest in putting together a murder mystery myself.

Is there an author (or just a fellow writer!) you want to emulate, or one to whom you’re often compared?

I think the way I write is very conversational and very stream of consciousness. I'm a child of the internet, and you could make an easy comparison to other people writing indie online, but I'm not sure the comparison is as easy when you're looking at bigger, traditionally published authors. I think about the way I write in comparison to the Realism art movement sometimes. I want to emulate how people really talk, and I want to get deep into the nitty gritty of a psyche.

Can you tell me a little about your writing space(s)? (Room, coffee shop, desk, etc.)

Laying down ✌️

What’s your most effective way to muster up some muse?

Daydreaming! Dozing, napping, taking a walk, doing the dishes; anything that lets my mind wander.

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and places you write about?

Not really. See above, child of the internet, but I'm also not sure I can capture what my country is really like. I never feel all that informed or all that "with it" here.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing, and if so, do they surprise you at all?

Come back with a warrant, lmfao.

Your Characters

Would you please tell me about your current favorite character? (Current WIP, past WIP, never used, etc.)

This is hard for me to decide because I really do love most of my characters equally when I just spend enough time with them. Of course it's Ron right now, I'm writing his story and he's living in a bigger corner of my brain than usual. I never really figured out what he had to say until pretty recently, he's always been a very taciturn narrator and loathe to talk about his feelings in dialogue. Throwing him into a fully moving plot and inflicting The Horrors on him really makes him react, and it's endearing him to me a lot.

Which of your characters do you think you’d be friends with in real life?

Matcha! She's goofy and sweet and she has a lot of things to talk about. We'd just need to set boundaries early because I'm not a fan of being flirted with. I also think I could get along with most of the rest, at least on friendly terms.

Which of your characters would you dislike the most if you met them?

Nat is an amalgamation of the worst traits and tendencies that I see in other people and myself. They're also a bully, which is something that personally makes me see red. They can go be a sympathetic villain somewhere else.

Tell me about the process of coming up with of one, all, or any of your characters.

So the very first one of the bunch was Teo. He was originally a pirate, and I made him to be weird and angsty and complex, but also kind of a liar who'd just boast about things unfounded. I thought this was easy to figure out, but I started noticing people taking him at his word, so I made Haru to call him out on his shit. These two were good foils, but didn't talk that much, so I made Rabbit who can never shut up to deliver some exposition.

When I make a character, they fill a niche in a dynamic, and/or have behaviors and beliefs that I want to write about. The rest is vibes.

Do you notice any recurring themes/traits among your characters?

I try to make them pretty diverse from each other, but there's always a general sense of overcoming and survival that I think is fascinating and write a lot about.

How do you picture them? (As real people you imagined, as models/actors who exist in real life, as imaginary artwork, as artwork you made or commissioned, anime style, etc.)

I don't have 20/20 vision in my imagination, things are pretty fuzzy. Real people, but stylized, I think.

Your Writing

What’s your reason for writing?

To create a space where I can really dig into the things I like and the things that are on my mind. I'm also pretty competitive towards myself. I always want to be better at something than I have been so far.

Is there a specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating coming from your readers?

I love comments that really pinpoint which moments or beats a reader enjoyed...

How do you want to be thought of by those who read your work? (For example: as a literary genius, or as a writer who “gets” the human condition; as a talented worldbuilder, as a role model, etc.)

Just some guy, please.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Character depth and dialogue.

What have you been frequently told your greatest writing strength is by others?

Dialogue also, and a certain sense of... chaos? Urgency? My longer form stuff has been described as 'one long rollercoaster'.

How do you feel about your own writing? (Answer in whatever way you interpret this question.)

Eh. I'm happy when it turns out well.

If you were the last person on earth and knew your writing would never be read by another human, would you still write?

Oh that's a mean question. I do have a little bit of a "what's going to be my legacy" thing going on. Yeah, I think I would still write, though. I really do it for the fun of it as well. It's just a lot less fun when I can't bounce it off other people and see what it turns into where it meets their lives and their experiences.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely what you enjoy? If it’s a mix of the two, which holds the most influence

On a line by line basis, I have an issue of trying to write to a worst faith reader that I'm trying to work through, but the larger picture is completely just what I enjoy and not written to a specific genre, reader, or market.

I am tagging @marlowethelibrarian @fortunatetragedy @paeliae-occasionally @lychhiker-writes @rotting-moon-writes and YOU 🫵

[one-idea]

Speaking of Deuce I know in my heart that when it got out that Ace is Roger's son the WG tried to change his bounty poster to Gold Ace, like not even writing it the correct way. And I know that Deuce has the biggest vendetta against that shit, like "IF THEY DO THAT IS JUST REWRITING THE PUBLIC NARRATIVE TO FIT THEIR IDEALS OF COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT AND DISMISSING HIS PERSONHOOD". Ace's poster still says Portgas D in the timeskip because Deuce, Olivia and Sabo kept getting rid of all of the Gold ones and the Marines got fed up with having to print new ones every time

I love this!

No chosen names are such a big thing for Deuce and Ace.

I can imagine Deuce siting there worried about his friend. Knowing he just lost his little brother who he loved so much. And there is nothing Deuce can do for him. He’s paper that he’s so proud of couldn’t sway the public in time to save Luffy. (He had such short notice, there was no way he could have, but that doesn’t matter to him) he doesn’t know where Ace is, he can’t support him.

And to top it all off someone spilled Ace’s closest secret to the world government.

Deuce is sitting there feeling like all his work is meaningless if he can’t help the people he cares about when someone (probably Olivia) slams Ace’s new bounty on his desk. Normally he’s trilled when Ace’s bounty comes out. He knows Ace loves when his bounty goes up. (And he totally doesn’t have a collection of Ace’s bounty posters)

But this one is different. Ace is still standing there with the same smirk as always (it’s the same picture as always) but the name is wrong. Gold Ace is brazenly printed across the poster.

“If they’re going to be blatantly disrespectful, they could at least spell it right.” Olivia says with a sneer. But it’s white noise to Deuce because, How. Dare. They. How dare they put a name on Ace he obviously didn’t want. How dare they use a name Ace had worked so hard to distance himself from.

Deuce is furious. His true name isn’t known to anyone. Not the Revs, not the reverse crew, not even Ace (he didn’t want to know after Deuce told him he rejected it) Ace is the one who dubbed him Deuce. Who created his new name Masked Deuce. The name the world knows. It’s his name! He would be livid if the World Government tried to tie his brith name to his current life. He rejected it and his family.

Ace did much the same. He chose to go by Portagas because he loves his mom. Deuce knew the name was important to Ace. Whether it was a decision made to hide his connection to Roger didn’t matter to Deuce. No one had the right to make Ace go by a name he didn’t want.

Add on to that it’s to fit the world’s government’s narrative of punishing sons for the sins of their fathers. That it puts Ace’s life in jeopardy for something he didn’t do.

Oh Deuce is hopping mad.

“So what are we going to do about this?” Olivia asked as she watched the rage build across Deuces face. He turned to face her with nothing but righteous furry.

He thought of the brilliant orange flames that often danced around Ace. “We’re going to burn them to the ground.” This he can do. He couldn’t help Ace at Marineford and he can’t be with him in the aftermath. But he can do this.

He’s publishing story after story highlighting PORTAGAS D. ACE and his accomplishment. He’s doing research about what Gol D Rogers was actually like (incase Ace ever does want the name) Sabo and Olivia help him destroy every copy of that stupid wanted poster. (He keeps one, 1) because it enrages him and reminded him what he’s working to prevent, 2) incase one day Ace wants it, even if it’s just to burn it himself)

He figures out where the World government is printing them from and raises it to the ground. No more posters for them! The world government finally relents when he sends them the correct poster (same increase bounty right name) and offers to stop burning all their bounty if they will just print the right one. They have to give in, he’s destroying all of their bounty poster, how are they suppose to bring in anyone if no one knows who to look for.

It his the price on Deuces own head but he’s more than pleased with the resulting new bounty that reads Portagas D. Ace. It’s worth it.

He hopes Ace never had to see the Bounty with the wrong name, no reason to add that to his plate when he’s already dealing with enough.

[misslavenderlady]

My name's Bree. How can I help you?💉📒

Shoutout to @hypocriticaltypwriter for the inspiration!

REF/INFO BELOW CUT 💜💜💜

𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞: Bree 

𝐀𝐠𝐞: 25

𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫: Female She/They

𝐇𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭: 5'8

𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬��𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲: ISFJ 

Though very shy around others, Bree has a good head on her shoulders and a kind heart. She values the work she does, making sure to help others as best as she can. Not only does she care about her patients, but she also likes to help out her friends and coworkers. Being useful for a greater good is something truly valuable to her, though it can sometimes get the better of her.

Bree struggles quite a bit with stress. She tries to push herself to a point where burnout is inevitable. All she wants is to be helpful, but it can cause her to feel tired and depressed after the long days of work. She feels guilty about the idea of leaving her field of work, as so many patients count on her care. It makes her feel a bit stuck and frustrated. Her biggest dream in life is to become a writer, becoming the next Bram Stoker or Mary Shelley.

She’s fascinated with romance and monsters, inspired to bring such two complex things together. During her free time, she enjoys writing down short stories that she hopes to get published some day.

Bree is used to blending into the background, not really one to get attention from boys in her teenage years. However, she has blossomed into a beautiful young woman, and others are starting to notice her more. Since she’s not used to such affection and attention, it makes her quite bashful~

𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞: Bree is often in her work uniform. As a nurse, she wears a light blue work dress with a white collar, cuffs and belt. Outside of work, she prefers to wear more soft and loose clothing. Usually she wears fun sweatshirts and stretchy jeans with converse sneakers. A special accessory she wears every day is her silver key necklace. It has an amethyst gemstone in the center. 

Her skin is quite pale, as she has to stay out of the sun, lest she want a nasty sunburn. She’s got a dusting of freckles on her face. Her makeup is plain, often just mascara and chapstick. She can’t do a full face of makeup every day, as it would just end up on her face mask whenever she puts it on. 

Bree is more chubby in her features, making her insecure compared to the thin, toned bodies she sees on the Santa Carla boardwalk. However, she’s got several beautiful features and a shapely body. Her hair is flowing and thick with brunette color. She’s got some natural highlights from the rays of the sunshine. She often hides behind her long hair, sometimes too shy to show her face.

𝐉𝐨𝐛: She’s a nurse at Santa Carla Medical Clinic. She works night shifts, as nobody else wants them. Bree is a natural night owl, so it ends up working in her favor. Most of her job is front desk admin work, but she also provides checkups and vaccinations/blood draws when need be. 

𝐍𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐲 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬:

B (Michael, Sam, coworkers)

My dear, Darling, Beautiful, Sweetling (David)

Baby, Babygirl, Little lady (Dwayne)

Mama, Sugar, Pretty girl (Paul)

Bella, Bellisima, Angel (Marko)

Babe, Baby (Michael)

𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞?: Bree is in your typical multi-roommate-in-small-apartment setup. She moved out to California with her friends so she could start fresh, and was able to get set up in the basement of the condo they found. Her roommates are usually asleep whenever she’s awake due to their different work hours, which she doesn’t mind. She finds peace in the night time, though she does tend to get lonely. 

Though their home doesn’t have a lot of space, Bree has worked hard to make it cozy. It’s not far from the boardwalk, meaning a lot of shops are within walking distance.

𝐁𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲: 

Bree has always been a bit of odd girl. Growing up, she found herself in the school library quite a bit. She was too shy to talk to other kids, and was afraid of bullies that would pick on her for being extra sensitive (not to mention they were quite unkind to her and her chubby features). She would often switch back and forth between romance novels and scary stories, finding equal interest in love and darkness. The two began to blend together, and she became attracted to the monsters that were supposed to frighten her. She found sympathy in these creatures, as she knew what it was like to feel isolated and tormented for simply being different. 

A passion for writing her own stories was born, and every chance she got, she would eagerly write down stories of these monsters in her journal. Ones where they would get happy ending rather than tragic downfalls. It fueled her dream of becoming a writer someday, and even when she pursued a career in the medical field, she never forgot her true passion.

She became a bit more confident in herself when she got older, and ended up making close friends. They were very supportive of her work, and were there for her when her mother got sick. When she finished school and got her degree, Bree found out her friends had their sights set on California. The complete opposite side of the country. She was scared of such a massive change, but her family encouraged it, as she would have more opportunities for her writing to get noticed in such an environment. Touched by their support, Bree took the jump and moved cross-country with her friends.

Until she can fulfill her writing dream, she’s working hard as a nurse. Not only does she provide for herself, but for her beloved chocolate labrador as well.

𝐂𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐡: She’s torn at the moment. On the one hand, she is infatuated with Michael. He’s kind and gentle and very responsible. She admires the dedication he has to his family and appreciates his sweet nature keeping her spirits up. On the other hand, she can’t stop thinking about the mysterious pack of biker boys that she sees in her office now and then. There’s something about them that draws her in. Something dark and mysterious. It’s like a siren’s call, and she’s powerless around them. 

(She wouldn’t mind a poly relationship, but she does have somewhat of an extra fondness for Dwayne, given how good he is with Laddie)

𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐝 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐡: Bree was able to use her degree to get set up at local primary care doctor’s office. It was there that she so happened to meet Michael Emerson, a handsome guy who decided to pursue physical therapy as a study once he got his GED. He worked part time in between night school, and Bree was completely smitten whenever they had the same shift. He was so doting and kind. A perfect gentleman who never failed to put a smile on her face. Sometimes his mother and little brother would stop by for a checkup or to simply say hello, and Bree found herself adoring them too. 

Michael explained to her at one point that he had a devastating breakup with a runaway girl he met during a past summer. He didn’t like to talk about what led to their breakup, but Bree never forced him to tell more. She was simply happy to be there for him, and she had a feeling that he was starting to open his heart up to her in return. 

However, he wasn’t the only man in her life.

During quieter nights, Bree started to get visits from four mysterious, yet very sexy bikers. They would ask for a walk-in appointment. A cut here, a sprain there, usual stuff. Normally, the office didn’t take walk-ins, but she was happy to examine them on her own. She suspected something was off about them when she found that their bodies weren’t exactly….normal. The stethoscope she used never could pick up a heartbeat. The blood sample she collected looked sparkly in the light. The thermometer always said their temperature was far below what it should have been. 

She was frightened at first…..but soon became intrigued. 

They were all so mysterious and unusual. The four of them watched her with hunger in their eyes. They’d coo sweet nothings to her, offering to take her out for a date or a ride on their motorcycles. Ask her back to their place for a drink. The more she got to know them personally, the more tempted she felt to listen to their call. Bree had the same fascination in the boys as she did with the monsters she read about growing up.

Little does she know that her indecision between Michael and the Lost Boys is more akin to a fight between good and evil~

[stillresolved]

Dissect your own writing style. What do you do most often? What do you want to take away from other writers (tag them if you want)? What is something you want to break out of?

@eternasci / unprompted.

HI SYNNIE!! I WANTED TO ANSWER THIS FOR THE LONGEST TIME ( and i also looked at your analysis and that is *chef's kiss* i'll be using a format similar to that though i can't guarantee the length :'D )

ironically, tumblr roleplay is actually one of the reasons i began pursuing writing professionally; beginning of my writing journey on here began back in our lord and savior year 2014 :'D i was writing oc x canon short stories ( we called them oneshots teehee) back on quizilla and even did do a stint of rp thru the shitty messaging. lucky for me, almost all traces of my writing before 2021 have been deleted so i will never have to go through the cringe of other people reading my shitty characters and writing back then :) but let me actually answer the questions here!!

WRITING STYLE

this was pointed out to me by one of my writing professors and something i've come to realize more and more, but i don't describe human bodies. i don't like to either ( i have some suspicions on the root of this too ), but perhaps this is why i like tumblr rp so- we are able to use a faceclaim to represent a character; there's no need give a physical description if a picture can do it for you. for me, if there is description, it's going to be more intentional as is the action itself.

to connect with that point, my writing tends to lean more towards exploring character interiority: how the action of the other muse or even just the presence of the other muse will affect their opinions, their perception. i'm most comfortable with beginning from the interior before branching out into the character's exterior/actual interaction in the moment. this might be the reason why sometimes it feels like my replies are drawn out.

i used to wish i could write metaphorically and lyrically the way say, oc.ean v.uong does. however, i've learned that while i can admire that style, it's not one that comes easily for me. my writing tends to be more on the literal side. if a metaphor or a simile slips in, it was unintentional but it feels right. i think figurative language comes in for me when it comes to describing emotions or sensations my characters might be feeling ( ex. one & two ). i don't like to simply state emotions or intangible concepts; there's only so many ways to state a character is in love, but there are a thousand ways to describe a character in love ( ex. one & two ).

these days and my dear lenlen also pointed this out!! but i also tend to use...parentheses generously ^^' of course this draws out mixed reactions from my readers. here, i assume it's okay, but in my prose when it happens, my critique partners tell me to get rid of it :'D i personally love using both parentheses and the strikeout as it lets me play around with thoughts that my muses perhaps don't want to admit to themselves.

i like to think i've managed to weed out some bad habits that tend to be rampant among tumblr writing. when referring to characters, i will only use either their name or their pronouns. unless it adds to the voice of the muse itself, i'll never use epithets ( 'the female', 'the japanese', etc. ) as they really aren't used in say, published writing. when i was younger, i also used to have a bad habit of using 'she looked'/ eye direction. sometimes i do end up writing those things but i manage to catch myself and cut those sentences out. unless it's a significant action, i always usually assume the reader knows the general eye direction ^^'

CHARACTER VOICE.

one thing i know my mutuals and my critique partners tend to tell me about my writing is that my characters are well-developed, each having their own distinct voices. i do notice that my style/how my response is written does differ depending on which muse i'm writing. below are trends in my writing of certain muses:

annie: lots of imagery and metaphorical language involving water and aquatic life. since she is the mad girl, the idea of 'madness' and 'being good' comes up a lot too. tone is a tad more innocent and there does tend to be a bit more metaphorical language as well; to process her trauma, it's easier on her to think metaphorically or about her childhood than to think literally and to be in the moment.

ga-ram: sentences are shorter, less flowy as they are quite curt. responses of them will also be on the shorter side as they don't usually have as much to say in comparison to some of my other muses. also since they devoted like the last 10 years of their life to helping judge kang, unfortunately, they will think of him and make comparisons.

nell: her replies end up on the longer side, mostly because when she talks, she talks a lot. to reflect her never-ending train of thought and her anxiety, the narration in her replies and her dialogue especially tends to consist of long sentences with lots of dashes and interruptions.

suki: i think i've said this before, but the use of dramatic (and situational) irony comes out the most here. because she's quite set in her ways, but also has a tendency to (majorly) misinterpret a situation, i've found that breaking the fourth wall on occasion helps to contribute to the humor and the light heartedness of her threads. you'll see a lot of declarative sentences and exclamation points here.

patrick: unfortunately, he is a man of literature and therefore, has a tendency to ramble. literally- his responses are almost always like 500+ words. his narration is much more formal, much more...sophisticated? i guess just think of british english ( or at least my best interpretation of it ^^' ) also more metaphorical language here in comparison to the others and plenty of allusions to greek and roman myths since he's well read in both.

OTHER WRITERS.

i'll just start off with saying that i don't think i'd be nearly as good of writer if not for my writing partners. one of the best things about roleplay is that writers here aren't in competition with one another; they have to collaborate if they want to be fulfilled here. that being said here's my list of tumblr writers i would say i learned something from:

cyan ( @bloodxhound ) is one of the first people on this hell*site that i like to think really challenged my writing. there's an elegance and a rhythm to her prose (her word choice specifically) that reads so well...reading her stuff made me want to expand the vocabulary in my own writing, going beyond what is used colloquially in american english.

lenlen ( @ptternminds )'s writing always gives me BRAIN FOOD so you have anyone to blame for me going off the deep end when it comes to character interiority, they're the culprit :3 okay but seriously, their character metas and headcanons go HARD and the fact that they're able to incorporate that kind of analysis of both their own muse and of their partner is incredible. it makes want to figure out how to interpret and incorporate the other muse into my replies.

lynnie ( @geaesaekki ) has a different writing style from mine and i appreciate that. rather than showing everything, it's sometimes more effective to simply tell the reader what they need to know. whereas my writing can get roundabout, lynnie's writing style is more direct, straight to the point. it makes her writing accessible to her partners and that directness is actually something i'm trying to work on here ^^'

WEAKNESSES.

honestly, i feel pretty confident in my writing style on here ( my prose is a very different story ); it's not perfect, but it's mine. That being said, i have a tendency to take too long to get to the action of my threads or even to the main point. because i prefer to show most things rather than tell, it can bog down the pace of my writing and also the speed at which i get my writing done :'D

this goes hand in hand with point one, but i also have a bad habit of overexplaining my character's interiority out of fear of not giving enough context. this is something i've also noticed in my prose ( though i do manage to cut it out of my drafts ^^' ) and am working on. trusting the reader more to pick up the details i want them to.

i also think i might need to get more comfy with describing bodies/physical description? it certainly would make writing sensual scenes a bit easier ^^' as of right now, writing appearances, etc. has always been something i've turned off by. but who knows if that'll change one day.

[lia-land]

Winter by Marissa Meyer

5/5

What a beautiful story. I have nothing bad to say about this book. This might actually be the first time.

This is the sixth book I’ve read this year that was over 800 pages, but this is the first one that didn’t feel like it. It was perfectly paced and the plot didn’t feel overly complicated at any point. With books this long, the characters or plot or both can sometimes feel tedious, but this was so good.

I thought I might find this series too childish, but I didn’t at all. It’s a great story that didn’t rely on shock value through random and underdeveloped plot twists, as many YA books tend to do these days. I really like how she introduced characters throughout this series. For example, we met Thorne in book 2, and then he ends up being the main love interest in book 3, similar to how we met Jacin in book 3 and he’s a main character in book 4. They were subtle introductions where we could form opinions on the characters prior to knowing that they were love interests. I would give this book 5 stars just for this alone.

I immediately noticed from Chapter 1 that we are getting more detailed descriptions of surroundings. I’ve found Meyer to be an author who mostly relies on dialogue, which I personally prefer, as some authors tend to overdo it with the descriptions (Sarah J Maas' interior design book aka Tower of Dawn). Meyer strikes a great balance of both in this book. I often find with YA series that quality of writing tends to decrease as the series goes on and publishers rush things, but this was the complete opposite. I enjoyed Winter as much as Cinder and Cress, and much more than Scarlet.

In YA, authors tend to simplify wars. Often, huge wars happen and they end in a matter of days. That is not entirely realistic (not that fantasy has to be realistic, but this specifically tends to be skipped over lazily). Of course, wars can and have ended in a matter of days in real life, but that’s very uncommon. Here, Meyer maintained that battle element, while also not turning into a full on war, so that she could end the actual battle in one night. This is also beneficial for us as readers because action scenes in YA are not always popular, especially when they’re only introduced in the final book of the series. The main fight in this book was contained to one night and it was on a smaller scale, so it remained more realistic while also not adding a bunch of action scenes. My expectations were low in this regard, so I was expecting for there to be a huge war between Luna and Earth contained into this one book, bur Meyer made the right decision in not doing that.

The ending was perfectly done. I would like to read more books about the characters lives following the events of Winter, but I don’t absolutely need it. (Update: I've since seen that Meyer has written non-canon short stories in this world. This is the best way to do it for this ending. Veronica Roth should take notes). The ending didn’t leave any obvious unanswered questions, in my opinion. It was a very well written story from start to finish. Even though I didn’t enjoy Scarlet, I can appreciate that it was a good story that tied into the rest of the series well and Scarlet as a character became very likeable in this final book.

The length of this book is interesting because it’s more than twice as long as the previous books in this series. I wonder if this was for contractual reasons or if she just wanted to keep the theme of naming each book after a different character, and didn’t want to ruin that by separating this story and making it a 5 book series or introducing a fifth fairytale.

My favorite aspect of this book and this series as a whole is how Meyer integrated all the stories, while still maintaining their importance as independent characters. Perhaps this applies slightly less to Wolf (and Scarlet until the second half of Winter). With this many main characters, it would have been easy for some of them to get lost in the background, but it was very well executed here.

Overall, this entire plot was so unique. This is a take on fairytale retellings that will be very hard to beat. I can’t understand why this series is not more popular than it is. It would also be such an amazing TV show, although expensive. I hope this story gets the recognition it deserves one day. I’m really going to miss these wonderful characters, even Wolf

[authoralexharvey]

INTERVIEW WITH A WRITEBLR — @broodparasitism

Who You Are:

Lottie || She/her

I’m Lottie, and I’m currently doing a master’s in creative writing. I mostly write things in between historical, literary and horror about postwar Britain, and other than writing I’m a bit of a music nerd!

What You Write:

What genres do you write in? What age ranges do you write for?

Historical Fiction, Horror, Paranormal, Psychological. Adult.

What genre would you write in for the rest of your life, if you could? What about that genre appeals to you?

Literary, if only for its room to be experimental and weird.

What genre/s will you not write unless you HAVE to? What about that genre turns you off?

Romance - I’m just not a romantic type of person!

Who is your target audience? Do you think anyone outside of that would get anything out of your works?

I don’t think too much about it, but I think other young queer/neurodivergent women would be the biggest readers of my work, particularly if they’re also British. But I hope that anyone from any demographic would be able to get something out of my work! It’s for anyone who wants to read it.

What kind of themes do you tend to focus on? What kinds of tropes? What about them appeals to you?

Motherhood is something that always creeps up in my work. Hedonism and moral masochism as contrasts is also very important to me! Feminism and class tensions tend to have a big presence in my work as well. It’s harder to say with tropes but if the central themes are there the tropes don’t matter too much to me. I couldn’t get into why they’re important to me without getting much too personal for writeblr, however.

What themes or tropes can you not stand? What about them turn you off?

Something entirely fluffy and comforting or something entirely cynical and hopeless, albeit the first is more annoying. I need some degree of light and darkness or the story feels too uncomplicated to me. For something very specific, I’m not keen on premises where every type of fantasy folklore is incorporated: there’s often too much that isn’t fleshed out enough. I also hate stories that use weight loss as shorthand for positive character development, because that’s plain old fatphobia. And stories without women. There’s no excuse for that.

What are you currently working on? How long have you been working on it?

I’m working on a manuscript for my MA so I prefer to keep vague on it, but it’s a small town horror about four people in the early 80s coming to terms with a recent death of someone they all had a wildly different relationship with and the way the town becomes increasingly haunted. I’m quite attached to it now. I began working on this at the end of August 2022!

Why do you write? What keeps you writing?

It simply brings me joy to do it. I want the stories in my head to exist on paper, because that’s such a rewarding feeling!

How long have you been writing? What do you think first drew you to it?

On and off since I was very young. I can’t remember what drew me to it: it was just something I knew I wanted to do for as long as I can remember (cliche, I know). I say that I began seriously writing in November 2013, when I started what would become my first completed draft of a manuscript.

Where do you get your inspiration from? Is that how you got your inspiration for your current project? If not, where did the inspiration come from?

I get my inspiration from my local area, and from researching history - and very often, music with connection to that. I think that the starting point of inspiration for my current project was the band Xiu Xiu, but what nonfiction I’ve read since then has fleshed it out into an actual narrative.

What work of yours are you most proud of? Why?

A short story called ‘Minutes’ that helped me get into my MA in the first place. I just struck gold with the plot, and it’s naturally one of my most “polished” pieces of writing. I would ideally like to do something else with it!

Have you published anything? Do you want to?

Not yet, but absolutely in the future.

What part of the publishing process most appeals to you? What part least appeals to you?

The publishing process doesn’t appeal to me at all - I’m not yet familiar with it. I am afraid of having to water down my work for “marketability”, however.

What part of the writing process most appeals to you? What part is least appealing?

It’s quite hard to say. I like the feeling of when an idea comes to you just as you’re typing. That’s always a godsend. The part least appealing…it can be quite intimidating when things are workshopped, definitely.

Do you have a writing process? Do you have an ideal setup? Do you write in pure chaos? Talk about your process a bit.

I don’t have much of a process. I have to be able to write almost anywhere and at any time of day in order to get things done.

Your Thoughts on Writeblr:

How long have you been a writeblr? What inspired you to join the community?

My currently blog is under a year old. I was peripherally involved from about 2018 to 2021, after which it became my primary tumblr community.

Shout out some of your favorite writeblrs. How did you find them and what made you want to follow them?

Some of my favourite are @queenslayerbee, @aninkwellofnectar , @ryns-ramblings, @dallonwrites! Tumblr either suggested I follow them or I found their blogs via discord.

What is your favorite part about writeblr?

I like a lot of the tag games - especially find the word.

What do you think writeblr could improve on? How do you think we can go about doing so?

In the nicest possible way, a lot of the writing advice is really, really bad. I am begging writeblr to realise not everyone needs to post writing advice and that is okay!

How do you contribute to the writeblr community? Do you think you could be doing more?

I could be doing more, but I have reservations about sharing my own work and I’m not qualified to be giving advice so all I can do now is help promote others.

What kinds of posts do you most like to interact with?

Posts that ask a question to the community as a whole about their creative processes, tag games and excerpts also.

What kind of posts do you most like to make?

I don’t know! There’s not a lot of writeblr posts I can make. I do like making silly little jokey posts about what I’m writing that only make sense of me, I suppose.

Finally, anywhere else online we may be able to find you?

I am on storygraph as @/fortunavhs, Instagram as @/absinthiumwriting and discord as malcontent#7884!

[cartoonistcoop]

ShortBox Comics Member Interview: Niv Sekar

Throughout the month of October, the Cartoonist Cooperative will be sharing interviews with members of the Co-op who have a new comic available at the ShortBox Comics Fair 2024! 

NOTE: The Cartoonist Cooperative is not affiliated, associated, authorized, endorsed by, or in any way formally connected with ShortBox.  

Today’s spotlight is Niv Sekar and their new comic for ShortBox, Wednesday's Child

We’d love it if you could introduce yourself and tell us about your background in comics.

Niv Sekar: I was one of those kids who loved to draw and I like to think not too much has changed since then. I write more these days, and I work in animation, but I love comics and it’s one of my favorite mediums. Most of my stories are about queer Indian women in diaspora, often in a world that is both familiar and speculative in some way.

Tell us more about your new comic?

NS: Wednesday’s Child is a short comic about Pihu, who’s kind of been sad her whole life. After a night out, she wakes up feeling … not sad! Life seems a lot easier. Has she been blessed, or cursed? 

The comic is about feelings, of course, and my eternal question of how to navigate them, and there’s some loving attention paid to the idea of going out to a bar and getting drunk and dancing with a stranger, which just seems so foreign to me now as Covid circulates (not that I was much of a partier pre-pandemic either!). 

Tell us about your creative process; how did you develop this comic and what are the steps you took to bring it to the final stage?

NS: This was an odd process for me! For the first time in years I didn’t have a new short comic idea brewing when I applied for the fair. I kept waiting for one to arrive or coalesce, but eventually I had to admit what I most wanted to do was finish a short comic I had started in early 2020 and never published anywhere. I thought I could just use what I had, pretty much unchanged, and make it longer, so I resisted starting from scratch for way too long.

Finally I rewrote it, changing the narrative from second-person to third, naming the character Pihu, and giving her more time to experience the absence of her feelings. That really freed me up to draw what I wanted and to shift the narrative into a new place. At 18 pages, it’s still short, but I like the story much more now. 

What other work are your comics in conversation with? Could be any medium, inspirational or bad work that you’re kind of responding to

NS: This is a hard question for me to answer, but I’d love to share some comics that have inspired me this year! Firebugs by Nino Bulling, Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed, The Gulf by Adam de Souza, Portrait of a Body by Julie Delporte. Last year I spent a lot of time reading through Lynda Barry’s Mullen family series.

What helps you get through creative anxiety?

NS: I think doing is often the best antidote to anxiety, creative or otherwise; get into the thick of it and find your way out. I do really believe it’s better to start than to worry endlessly over how to begin, or what medium to choose, or how to get your story into the hands of readers. Make something! Then tell people about it! Learn from the experience and talk to other people who are doing this kind of mad thing of making art in this world and remember you’re not alone in it. All of this is much harder to do than to suggest; I really do get the paralysis of anxiety. When I’ve been most stuck, I try to start small, keep it low-stakes, and trick myself by writing or drawing in a new space (even if that’s just the kitchen table vs my desk). 

Read the rest of the interview HERE! And dont forget to check out the Shortbox Comics Fair to support these lovely creators!!

[heyimdove]

It’s been about a month since I finished Drinking Buddies and Diaries, so I have a quick story about writing it and how COOL fanfic readers are:

I don’t live in the UK, only been there once, and my short stint in London happened to coincide with a terrorist attack about a block from where I was, so my memories of it are tinted a bit off. When I think of London now, I mostly associate it with tons of low-flying helicopters (also one fantastic leek soup)((and public toilets that cost money))(((and a ferret on a leash I saw at St. James Park))).

So all the places referenced are almost entirely googled. And I spent FOREVER looking through various pubs near Soho/St. James Park/Berkeley Square before finally deciding to use the Goat Tavern (mainly because the big golden goat that stares down at you from the road). It just so happened that the pub had a controversial history and some neat secret underground tunnels- basically the kind of place I could see demons hanging around. Goats are so often associated with satanic stuff thanks to Ol’ Baphomet, so it really seemed to fit perfectly in a never-been-there-but-I-hope-this-works kind of way.

Well, actually, it turns out there are TWO Goat Taverns. Not far from each other. One has a golden goat, the other has a goat stonework thingy. The one without the golden goat had the murderer and tunnels, I think? Regardless, wtf London? Couldn’t one of you have been The Ram? The Alpaca? Some other even-toed ungulate?

Anyway, it’s too late to change it now, so Muriel and Crowley go to the Goat Tavern, meaning they go to both at once, meaning it’s one fucking pub in my fic, two pubs just mushed into one.

Despite this confusing development, a reader (egana) decided to make the trip over to the Goat Tavern (the Mayfair one). They said:

“I… shall be paying a pilgrimage to The Goat Tavern in honour of this fic later this week”

Obviously that was an extremely cool thing to say and I begged them to tell me what it’s like. It turns out they actually went!:

I have been smiling all day at this because it really makes the time I spent digitally trekking through all these little pubs and eateries to find the right one for Crowley to take Muriel to, when he couldn’t bring himself to dine at The Ritz with anyone but Aziraphale, entirely worth it. It sounds more angelic than I intended but I actually love that, because now it’s more believable that angels would enter it at all, despite that freaky staring goat.

Like bro are u kidding me

Anyway, fanfic readers constantly make me feel the warmest feelings towards the world and I love you all. I love that egana would take the trip out and even bother to follow up. The people I’ve been able to interact with since posting are just lovely. I was so afraid to share my writing with the world. As it turns out, the world is actually very, very nice.

Someone let me know recently that DB&D is the most-kudoed post-S2 fic (or was when she told me anyway, it might not be anymore), and that is so mind-blowing and heartening. I’ve been working on some personal novels lately, and it’s all thanks to the support and kindness from fic readers. So if you’re here because you read DB&D, you should know that you have helped resuscitate me. Thank you. If I ever get published, I’m dedicating my first novel to you!

And if I ever do get published, we can all take comfort in the fact that I would have an editor who will stop me from combining two real places into one. I still can’t get over that TWO GOAT TAVERNS exist on opposite sides of one fucking park

[jasper-book-stash]

February 2024 Reading Wrap Up

I finished off my reading challenge with time to spare! So let's talk about the books I've read this month. I'm making this up before the end of the month, because I don't foresee myself finishing up my current book in the next few days.

Religious Text

None applicable.

1/10 - Why Did They Publish This?

A Book of Pagan Prayer | Ceisiwr Serith

This book sucked ass. Fucking Robert Graves in the bibliography, treating any "non-Abrahamic" (meaning not Christian, Catholic, or Jewish in this context) as Pagan-with-a-capital-P, a baffling usage of Zoroastrianism, using "Indian" instead of "Indigenous"/"Native American", misusing "shaman", the baffling choice to have a prayer that you need to use to prepare yourself to pray, sloppy editing, self-contradiction without realizing the author did that, and, dare I say, an overly-Wiccan syncretic approach.

I genuinely have no idea how it got published.

Hands-On Chaos Magic: Reality Manipulation through the Ovayki Current | Andrieh Vitimus

I damn near threw this one across the room within the first nine pages. Why are you citing a WHITE WOMAN when talking about hoodoo? Why is J K Rowling's Harry Potter book in the bibliography? Why does the bibliography suck overall?

2/10 - Trash

None applicable.

3/10 - Meh

None applicable.

4 to 6/10 - Mid-Tier

Witchcraft For Everyone: A No-Nonstense Guide to Creating Your Own Magical Practice | Sam Wise

I wrote my thoughts on this one in a separate post.

7 to 8/10 - Good With Caveats

From Sanctity to Sorcery: An Author’s Guide to Building Belief Structures and Magic Systems | Angeline Trevena

This is a perfectly passable book talking about religion and magic systems. But I still prefer Timothy Hickson's "On Writing and Worldbuilding" books and YouTube series (under the YouTuber name Hello Future Me).

Zendikar: In The Teeth Of Akoum | Robert Wintermute [reading challenge]

I'll admit, this one was a dredge to get through. I much prefer the short-and-sweet version of the story found through the WOTC website (or, even better, MTGLore.com). But hey, Nissa at least gets time to shine! She deserves something nice.

Memories & Memoirs: Essays, Poems, Stories, Letters by Contemporary Missouri Authors | Sharon Kinney-Hanson

This wasn't for a reading challenge, but rather, it was my book club book for this month (our theme was "biography"). I chose memoirs instead of an actual biography because I genuinely don't care about a lot of people who have biographies written about them.

But there was something...nice about this. It was nice, reading stuff by people like you in the place you live (admittedly 24 years ago). It's an experience I don't often get - not a lot of people set their stories in Missouri, and even less are from Missouri themselves. The best we usually get is traveling characters stopping to appreciate the St Louis Arch. So it was nice to be...seen.

Diadem: Worlds of Magic: Book of Names | John Peel [reading challenge]

This book has been on my TBR list for ten years, and I've finally read it. And it's pretty good! You can definitely tell that it's made for a particularly young audience (probably preteen at most, as the main protagonists are 12-ish) and is a product of its time (the mid-1990s). Baby (cough, preteen) Jasper would have gone hogwild over this, if they had bothered actually reading it when they got it. But to Current Jasper, it doesn't hit how they would have liked.

9/10 - Very Very Good

Snow White with the Red Hair, volumes 13-20 | Sorata Akiduki

Volumes 13 to 19 were 9/10, and volume 20 hit 10/10, but I'll just bundle them all together here. Snow White with the Red Hair is an ongoing manga series about a romance in a fantasy world (though notably, one that doesn't seem to actually have magic, merely fantastical creatures and plants). The main romance is a woman on the run from her home kingdom after her prince became obsessed with her due to her red hair, and the second prince of the neighboring kingdom, though neither really know each other when they meet. At this point in the story, they're fairly dedicated to seeing each other despite the woman working hard to be a proper royal herbalist (following her dreams) and the prince dealing with the politics of his older brother (who recently became king) and his land along with a dedicated loyalty to the woman.

It's surprisingly sappy and adorable, despite the fact that I don't typically read romance. These two characters and their friends have wormed their way into my heart.

Hide | Kiersten White [reading challenge]

Kiersten White is an author I recently started reading, and I absolutely adore her writing. In Hide, she captures the exact feeling of being a broke queer person in a conservative small-town and the danger that comes with it. Along with a more supernatural danger.

Can't Spell Treason Without Tea | Rebecca Thorne [reading challenge]

This is a damn fine story with damn fine characters, a loving and already-established relationship (where there's no "will they break up" drama), and a fascinating set of magic systems. My only real complaint here is that the stakes are much higher than what I expected from something marketed as "cozy fantasy". The settings and vibes often were more cozy, but there were higher stakes than what I expected, what with the dragons and the queen and- Well, it was a good book. It was inspired by Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree, but don't expect the two to be the same.

10/10 - Unironically Recommend To Everyone

Well, everyone who's into the genre these fall under, at least.

Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe | John Boswell

This is an incredibly in-depth look at exactly what it says it is - same-sex unions in premodern Europe (stretching back to ancient Greece and Rome) with comparisons to opposite-sex unions of the times. If you're interested in one or both sides of those, pick it up. Just be ready for the long haul; this book is 464 pages long and has multiple appendices.

[darkherolovercroissant]

To Understand This

Short Story Series

Alejandro Vargas x Plus sized WOC Reader

This is a Bridgerton era style fic requested by @shadofireshinobi

This was supposed to be published in 2023, but Tumblr kept flagging it and crashing before I could save so I attempted this for the billionth time.

Warnings: Mature themes, mature language, smut, my writing, and anything I come across as I write this.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The hallways, once echoed the footsteps of happy children running while their father chased them while laughing himself.

Now, they echo the thousands of thoughts that have been circulating through my head as I walk down them. They used to hold such innocence and light, now it’s dark and full of fear.

The doors open and mother weakly smiled, she’s still grieving the inevitable pain of this family. It was no secret that father wasn’t in good health. He was dying slowly, I like to think he’s been trying to fight in order to see his family all in good hands first, but we all know that the illness takes its time. Dancing with its victims in a taunting manner.

Father had five children, but not one of them was a son, as such matters were obvious, father had no eligible child to pass the estate or fortune to. As such terrible laws, deemed us ladies unequal to a man, we couldn’t have been given much than the clothes on our backs.

Mother took my hand and her eyes were red from many unfortunate events. She guided me to father’s office, where my fate had been decided by a bunch of men that father knew, well before I was even born.

The doors open and the council of men had risen from their chairs and turned to welcome us as they handed mother the final papers.

“Colonel Vargas has agreed to your husband’s wishes. The colonel and your daughter will marry and the estate will be handed to him, as your husband wasn’t able to produce a male heir. Of course, no offence to you m’lady” one of the many men spoke with such professionalism.

“I hope my next words don’t carry insult towards you, but I’m on a quite busy schedule and unfortunately I must hurry this along so I can return to my men.” A deeper voice echoed from my left.

I turn to see who I gathered was the colonel himself. Much older than me, but still younger than the other men in this room. He was highly decorated and carried himself with such pride. The age difference between us was as obvious as the setting sun told us that nightfall was upon us. At least ten years to my current age, but it was common for older men to marry younger women, so they could give them as many children as they wanted.

Mother nodded and the men filed out of the once crowded room. Now, despite two remaining, it felt like I was alone in said room.

“I know this isn’t what you wanted, believe me when I say, that I begged your father to choose one of his other daughters, b-”

I raise my hand gently in a motion to stop her. I turn and I looked at my mother’s face very carefully. Taking in every small detail, maybe one day, this would be me and what I’ll look like. Full of pain and regret, just simply wishing it wouldn’t happen.

I nod my head and she sniffles before heading out to where father was laying no doubt. Probably to fill his final days with cursing him out for all the pain this has caused, but apologizing right after for ever causing him pain in his final moments.

————

The sunlight warming up the gardens as I walked through them, with my mind wandering as fast as my feet. So many questions about why this was happening. I was the one that refused to take in my duties growing up. Where my sisters all sought out company, I preferred to remain independent as I loved how peaceful the silence was. Father always said I was the most difficult to get through when it came to important matters.

He’d sit with me when I was younger and often told me what I should expect when I reached a mature age, but I simply couldn’t be more uninterested. I wasn’t interested in finding a husband and settling down.

I dreamed of having the biggest gardens, full of the prettiest flowers. I dreamed of having the biggest library, full of books that begged to be read. I dreamed of having that peaceful melody of sweet solitary playing in the background while I danced through life.

I dreamed of remaining independent until i finally came across someone that fit perfectly into my life.

I dreamed of having a choice, but atlas, I should’ve known better than to dream of things that could never happen. I was a foolish little girl, but the foolishness would end tonight, as tonight, my life would be made at the hands of others.