#bestseller in the making

[gcballet]

Doctor Who as tweets/textposts pt.4

<- | DW | ->

[lazylittledragon]

ok so i'm like. overwhelmed

i'm having one of the shittiest weeks of my life and i was really worried my store was going to be a complete flop (honestly i expected my friends to order some stuff and maybe a few other people and that was it)

and then half the things sold out in 2 hours so i'm!!!!! in shock

also the best part: the fundraiser stickers sold out completely!!

[canonkiller]

do you consider your self made?

[aplpaca]

saw someone being like "lol every book is a bestseller, nytimes will call anything a best seller, whats the point of bestseller lists when every book is on it"

and like,,, bro ur so close to realizing that the publishing industry only pushes their already-popular and/or most predictable insta-hit titles to the point that everything else is drowned out and that if you only look at walmart or the front of the bookstore or what's popular on tiktok then thats all ur gonna see,,,

just a bit of critical thinking cmon you can do it,,,,

[creeps-and-pasta]

Laughing Jack continues to explore the wonderful world wide web

[bonefall]

post/734733274896809984/do-you-ever-worry-your-own-writing-might-come-off that makes sense. i was asking because i'm afraid of accidentally writing misogyny myself and i kind of admire what you do

Hmm... I wish I had better advice to give you on this front, but honestly, the only thing I can tell you is to consider the perspective of your female characters.

Women are people. They have thoughts and feelings of their own, so like... just let them have their own arcs. A lot of the worst misogyny in WC comes from the way that the writers just don't care about their girls (or, in the case of tall shadow, actually get undermined and forced to rewrite entire chapters), so they're not curious about their lives, or WHY they feel the way they do or what they want, or any direction for their character arcs.

Turtle Tail as an example. She'll often just end up feeling whatever Gray Wing's plot demands. She's gotta leave when Storm dumps him to make him feel lonely. She shows up again to love him in the next book. Lets her best friend Bumble get dragged back to Tom the Wifebeater, but is sad enough about her death to be "unreasonably angry" with Clear Sky, and then calms down and accept Gray Wing is right all along.

And then she dies, so he can have his very own fridge wife.

In this way, Turtle Tail's just being used to tell Gray Wing's story. They're not interested in why she would turn on Bumble, or god forbid any lingering negative feelings for how she didn't help her, or even resentment towards Clear Sky for killing her or Gray Wing for jumping to his defense. She isn't really going through her own character arc.

She does have personality traits of her own, don't misunderstand my criticism, but as a character she revolves around Gray Wing.

So, zoom out every now and then, and just ask yourself; "Whose story is being told by what I wrote? Do my female characters have goals, wants, and agency, or are they just supporting men? How do their choices impact the narrative?"

But that's already kinda assuming that you already have characters like Turtle Tail who DO have personalities and potential of their own. Here's some super simple and practical advice that helped me;

Tally the genders in your cast. How many are boys, how many are girls, how many are others?

And take stock of how many of those characters are just in the supporting cast, and compare that to the amount you have in the main cast.

If you have a significant imbalance, ESPECIALLY in the main cast, fire the Woman Beam.

It's a really simple trick to just write a male character, and then change its gender while keeping it the same. I promise women are really not fundamentally different from men lmao. You can consider how your in-universe gender roles affect them later, if you'd like, but when you're just starting to wean yourself off a "boy bias" this trick works like a charm.

Also you're not allowed to change the body type of any girl you Woman Beam because I said so. PLEASE allow your girls to have muscles, or be fat, or be old, or have lots of scars. Do NOT do what a cowardly Triple A studio does, where the women all have the same cute or sexy face and curvy body while they're standing next to dwarves, robots, and a gorilla.

Or this shit,

If you do this I will GET you. If you're ever possessed by the dark urge, you will see my face appear in the clouds like Mufasa himself to guide you away from the path of evil.

Anyway, you get better at just making characters girls to begin with as time goes on and you practice it. It's really not as big of a deal as your brain might think it is.

Take a legitimate interest in female characters and try not to disproportionately hit them with parental/romance plots as opposed to the male cast, and you'll be fine. Don't think of them as "SPECIAL WOMEN CHARACTERS" just make a character and then let her be a girl, occasionally checking your tally and doing some critical thinking about their use in the story.

(Also remember I'm not a professional or anything, I'm just trying to give advice)

[skunkes]

need to find more artists that make cute stickers now that I want some for non journaling purposes bc unfortunately etsy does not have a please filter out stickers with quirky sayings, from "aur naur" + "being mean to me is illegal" "no thoughts head empty" to "heckin trash gremlin dumpster fire knife duck be gay do crime" option

[ettawritesnstudies]

Assume you are interested in the book in question, and you could get which ever format you wanted in either situation. (Ebook, paperback, hardcover).

For the preorder: Everyone gets the same rewards regardless of what you order. There might be a larger giveaway that would be won by lottery.

For the kickstarter: You can pick your tier + rewards going up in value for larger items.

In general, the merch itself would be the same for both campaigns, for example, everyone in the preorder gets stickers, and everyone in the lowest tier on kickstarter gets stickers. The rewards would be exclusive to either the preorder or the kickstarter, so you wouldn't be able to get them afterwards, except at special events like book signings or something.

please boost!

[thekidsarentalright]

hey guys did u know that crowds are won and lost and won again but our hearts beat for the diehards 🥹

[sweetfirebird]

okay I stewed on it and I know it's a Stephen King miniseries from the 90s so who cares but having watched two King miniseries from the 90s this week (and who once watched The Mist as well), they have the same flaws but in Storm of the Century, the flaws are especially obvious and I need rant about it on the internet for a second. This is a mess of thoughts and I don't care.

I am going to ignore how the danger of the storm changed from moment to moment depending on what was convenient for the action. And I am also going to assume that a lot of the costuming and makeup decisions were a matter of budget and not character hints or anything. I know this production was not that deep. I know that.

That said (whew boy), this story does that thing that some King stories do where they are structured like a mystery (in fact, SotC and Rose Red are both set up like that, and a closed circle mystery at that). So there is horror but the mystery conventions are front and center--until the end, when King abandons them, and you, completely. Something that probably worked more in a 90s tv miniseries format where it was unlikely that people would rewatch it, or watch it all at once with other miniseries, so the issues would be less glaring.

Anyway. So because it's set up like a mystery, your brain is looking for clues like it's a mystery--and you are apparently given clues. Which is why the endings feel especially stupid and meaningless because all indications were that the ending and big reveal was going to matter!!

But then, JJ Abrams surprise! the endings do not matter and none of the clues mattered or were even really clues! And you feel stupid for thinking they were!! You fucking idiot, expecting competent writing!

This is slightly less the case with Rose Red, but it's still evident there. All the showy bits, all the references, all the details that seemed relevant because the story focused on them? Just window dressing to make the story seem deeper and/or cooler than it actually was.

Let's talk SotC because this set up several possibilities for the identity of the big bad and then it never really answered them.

Since part of his identity was his undefined threat hanging over the townspeople for most of the series, one would assume his threat was meant as a clue, right? And that all conversations about him and his threat were then also clues, right?

Wrong. None of it was relevant. He is just a bad demon guy or something and incidentally implies Christian Hell might be real but don't worry about it. Also he dresses like a wizard. A stupid wizard. Now, again, because every single story element has been about this guy and his motives, you would think this identity issue would be resolved. But no.

And then we get into the things specifically mentioned regarding this guy and how actual good storytelling would have used them better.

For example

In the beginning, the camera lingers on a sign for a daycare that is called "Wee Folk" so oh okay, are the fae involved?

no. red herring in the mystery that King had no interest in resolving. Because it's not a mystery it's a horror story. It's just written like a mystery until the end so shut up.

Then we get a Biblical story about Legion, so oh ok, is this about that?

Never mentioned again don't worry about it.

Hell is mentioned and he's called the Devil more than once, though he says he isn't. (Though the Devil would lie, I suppose, but would he dress like a stupid wizard?)

Roanoke gets mentioned, several times, in the corniest aspect of the whole thing, and is also never resolved but I guess the implication is that the people of Roanoke chose not to listen to the weird random bad guy who showed up there. And this is just a thing he does sometimes every few hundred years even though from what else he says, it sounds like there is a time limit, and also why wouldn't he try it elsewhere in the meantime? Fuck you for asking! This isn't a mystery, it's a horror! Just because it's structured like a mystery doesn't mean anything! Pay no attention to the man behind the c--

And then, and this one is the most egregious to me because it shows how little thought went into this story--they mention the Book of Job. I'm not going to explain Job here but that is.... not a book that I think should be brought up lightly if you are exploring why bad things happen to good people and/or asking where god is during dark times. (you heard me, season two of Good Omens, I said what I said). But if you are going to bring it up in a story like this... then you'd better fucking address it. It's not just a "clue" in the mystery that never was, it's fucking thematically relevant!!! Writing 101! What the actual fuck, Stephen King?

idk what Methodists in small-town Maine think of the Book of Job or the Old Testament in general, but how this book is perceived and interpreted by Methodists/Christians feels like an issue worth exploring in a story about god leaving you to suffer and taking your children. What would you expect the "good" Methodists on this island to think and do.

The Book of Job discussion also again sets up the idea that this entire thing is part of a divine plan or test. But I guess it wasn't!!! What kind of idiot would think it mattered just because they kept mentioning it! And showing shots of the small town buildings with quotes about god and faith on them!!!!???? You must be really stupid if you think any of that was important! Scary monster man! Wizard clothes! Sharp teeth! grrr!

Okay. OKAY and then, related to that subject. Outside of this movie, in like, faith circles, there is talk about possessions and angelic or demonic visitations are about how the possession (or visitation) is not really about the person it's happening to. It's about someone else. Or several others. It's about showing them something or testing them. And on this fucking island in this story, we are shown one person who is consistently mentioned as trying to be good, and to see the good in others. Despite all the crap around him. When horrible secrets are exposed, his worst secret is cheating on a test one time for something that wasn't even his major.

So clearly that is important too, right? This is maybe some Old Testament-esque test for the town, or for him, or the bad stupid wizard demon man is here to torment and test this guy specifically, right?

no.

he's just here to be evil, and dress like a wizard, and then leave, the end. and the good guy is like a little sad at the end but moves and gets a new job and I guess that is supposed to be some sort of Job thing? But then also no and everyone mostly on, the end.

And it was corny. Did I mention it was corny? Colm Feore tried though. The second they mentioned Roanoke, I groaned out loud. The constant CONSTANT use of children's rhymes to indicate scary things will happen? the nonsense couplets about sin???? implying he isn't evil maybe but instead a more Old Testament way of punishing sinners? Just there to sound cool. Ultimately meaningless. Fuck you again.

Oh and it definitely felt stretched. It got repetitive real fast, which--surprise! also felt like it was on purpose at first because the villain said outright, "Hell is repetition."

But it wasn't on purpose. It was just padding the run time.

I will stop now. This isn't even really a review. I just was not expecting to say, "This is so fucking stupid" out loud as many times as I did while watching this.

[canisalbus]

(a third anon has appeared) The Locked Tomb series is incredibly written, and the author started her existence on tumblr as a fanfic author in the late 00s/early 10s. Theres violence, teenage trauma, lesbianism, revolution, and space necromancy. the fourth and final book - Alecto the Ninth - will be released in October.

FWIW, if i was going to compare Machete to any of the characters, it'd be Harrowhark, who is introduced to us with a lot of austere importance and then is very swiftly revealed to be absolutely batshit and feral with devotions.

I do think you'd enjoy it, though.

.

[incogneat-oh]

Finally happened. After like 8 years, Amazon finally worked out I am not in the US and booted me off the cheaper, more extensive Kindle store 🪦

[phantomtrax]

seeing the price tag on this font is making me leave my body THIS IS HELVETICA. YOU ARE SELLING ARIAL TO PEOPLE

[miabrown007]

sometimes you just write 1k wholly incomprehensible words in 30 minutes and call it a day

[novemberthewriter]

i'm rereading Those Wizard Books bc it's the first time i'm looking at them as a bona fide english major; i been taking in a lot of lit criticism and seeing where i agree and disagree and have my own new viewpoints about how the stories are executed ... and it's funny cuz you'd think people would actually be dissecting them more on a platform like storygraph (where i've chosen to journal my thoughts) but nah it's the same sycophant stuff ... i should not have to be scrolling for ages just to find a handful of other people who agree that, for instance, book 5 is bloated as fuck ... i should not see people indignantly going 'i REFUSE to acknowledge the author! separating art from artist!' when the author's myopia and incurious nature directly affect how these stories are constructed ... i'm not even h8 reading i'm just rereading bc eye know these damn books are gonna come up in my popular fiction class [it's 3 modules dedicated solely to fucking YA lol]. one minute i'll be like 'hmm i see why this was cute when i was 8-11 years old' and the next i'll be like 'it's a reason why i primarily found this cute between 8 and 11 years old' lol.

[szollibisz]

been thinking about this a loooot recently (even if my "writing style" annoys the shit out of me now) but yeahw.. my little guy my favourite doomed gay.....