#but I used it regularly in prose!

[mikkeneko]

just remembering a while back (can no longer recall the context) when someone was complaining about translating yinhufu as the Stygian Tiger Seal because 'stygian' is an archaic Greek word not used in english. and I was like wdym. I use stygian all the time

[fictionstudent]

How to pull off descriptions

New authors always describe the scene and place every object on the stage before they press the play button of their novels. And I feel that it happens because we live in a world filled with visual media like comics and films, which heavily influence our prose.

In visual media, it’s really easy to set the scene—you just show where every object is, doesn’t matter if they’re a part of the action about to come or not. But prose is quite different from comics and films. You can’t just set the scene and expect the reader to wait for you to start action of the novel. You just begin the scene with action, making sure your reader is glued to the page.

And now that begs the question—if not at the beginning, where do you describe the scene? Am I saying you should not use descriptions and details at all? Hell naw! I’m just saying the way you’re doing it is wrong—there’s a smarter way to pull off descriptions. And I’m here to teach that to you.

***

#01 - What are descriptions?

Let’s start with the basics—what are descriptions? How do you define descriptions? Or details, for that matter? And what do the words include?

Descriptions refer to… descriptions. It’s that part of your prose where you’re not describing something—the appearance of an object, perhaps. Mostly, we mean scene-descriptions when we use the term, but descriptions are more than just scene-descriptions.

Descriptions include appearances of characters too. Let’s call that character-descriptions.

Both scene-descriptions and character-descriptions are forms of descriptions that we regularly use in our prose. We mostly use them at the beginning of the scene—just out of habit.

Authors, especially the newer ones, feel that they need to describe each and every nook and cranny of the place or character so they can be visualized clearly by their readers, right as the authors themselves visualized them. And they do that at the start of the scene because how can you visualize a scene when you don’t know how the scene looks first.

And that’s why your prose is filled with how the clouds look or what lights are on the room before you even start with the dialogues and action. But the first paragraph doesn’t need to be a simple scene-description—it makes your prose formulaic and predictable. And boring. Let me help you with this.

***

#02 - Get in your narrator’s head

The prose may have many MCs, but a piece of prose only has a single narrator. And these days, that’s mostly one of the characters of your story. Who uses third-person omniscient narrator these days anyway? If that’s you, change your habits.

Anyway, know your narrator. Flesh out their character. And then internalize them—their speech and stuff like that. Internalize your narrator to such an extent that you can write prose from their point-of-view.

Now, I don’t mean to say that only your narrator should be at the center of the scene—far from it. What I mean is you should get into your narrator’s head.

You do not describe a scene from the eyes of the author—you—but from the eyes of the narrator. You see from their eyes, and understand what they’re noticing. And then you write that.

Start your scene with what the narrator is looking at.

For example,

The dark clouds had covered the sky that day. The whole classroom was in shades of gray—quite unusual for someone like Sara who was used to the sun. She felt the gloom the day had brought with it—the gloom that no one else in her class knew of.

She never had happy times under the clouds like that. Rain made her sad. Rain made her yearn for something she couldn’t put into words. What was it that she was living for? Money? Happiness?

As she stared at the sky through the window, she was lost in her own quiet little corner. Both money and happiness—and even everything else—were temporary. All of it would leave her one day, then come back, then leave, then come back, like the waves of an ocean far away from any human civilization in sight.

All of it would come and go—like rain, it’d fall on her, like rain, it’d evaporate without proof.

And suddenly, drops of water began hitting the window.

You know it was a cloudy day, where it could rain anytime soon. You know that for other students, it didn’t really matter, but Sara felt really depressed because of the weather that day. You know Sara was at the corner, dealing with her emotions alone.

It’s far better than this,

The dark clouds covered the sky that day. It could rain anytime soon.

From her seat at the corner of the room, Sara stared at the sky that made everything gray that day. She…

The main reason it doesn’t work is that you describe the scene in the first paragraph, but it’s devoid of any emotions. Of any flavor. It’s like a factual weather report of the day. That’s what you don’t want to do—write descriptions in a factual tone.

If you want to pull off the prior one, get to your narrator’s head. See from their eyes, think from their brain. Understand what they’re experiencing, and then write that experience from their POV.

Sara didn’t care what everyone was wearing—they were all probably in their school uniforms, obviously, so I didn’t describe that. Sara didn’t focus on how big the classroom was, or how filled, or what everybody was doing. Sara was just looking at the clouds and the clouds alone, hearing everybody just living their normal days, so I mentioned just those things.

As the author, you need to understand that only you, the author are the know-it-all about the scene, not your narrator. And that you’re different from your narrator.

Write as a narrator, not as an author.

***

#03 - Filler Words

This brings me to filler words. Now, hearing my advice, you might start writing something like this,

Sarah noticed the dark clouds through the window. She saw that they’d saturated the place gray.

Fillers words like “see”, “notice”, “stare”, “hear” should be ignored. But many authors who begin writing from the POV of the characters start using these verbs to describe what the character is experiencing.

But remember, the character is not cognizant of the fact that they’re seeing a dark cloud, just that it’s a dark cloud. You don’t need these filler words—straight up describe what the character is seeing, instead of describing that the character is seeing.

Just write,

There were dark clouds on the other end of the window, which saturated the place gray.

Sarah is still seeing the clouds, yeah. But we’re looking from her eyes, and her eyes ain’t noticing that she’s noticing the clouds.

It’s kinda confusing, but it’s an important mistake to avoid. Filler words can really make your writing sound more amateurish than before and take away the experience of the reader, because the reader wants to see through the narrator’s eyes, not that the narrator is seeing.

***

#04 - Characters

Character-descriptions are a lot harder to pull off than scene-descriptions. Because it’s really confusing to know when to describe them, their clothing, their appearances, and what to tell and what not to.

For characters, you can give a full description of their looks. Keep it concise and clear, so that your readers can get a pretty good idea of the character with so few words that they don’t notice you’ve stopped action for a while.

Or can show your narrator scanning the character, and what they noticed about them.

Both these two tricks only work when a character is shown first time to the readers. After that, you don’t really talk about their clothing or face anymore.

Until there’s something out of the ordinary about your character.

What do I mean by that? See, you’ve described the face and clothes of the character, and the next time they appear, the reader is gonna imagine the character in a similar set of clothes, with the same face and appearance that they had the first time. Therefore, any time other than the first, you don’t go into detail about the character again. But, if something about your character is out of ordinary—there are bruises on their face, scars, or a change in the way they dress—describe it to the reader. That’s because your narrator may notice these little changes.

***

#05 - Clothing

Clothing is a special case. Some new authors describe the clothes of the characters when they’re describing the character every time the reader sees them. So, I wanna help you with this.

Clothing can be a way to show something about your character—a character with a well-ironed business suit is gonna be different from a character with tight jeans and baggy t-shirt. Therefore, only use clothing to tell something unique about the character.

Refrain from describing the clothing of characters that dress like most others. Like, in a school, it’s obvious that all characters are wearing school uniforms. Also, a normal teenage boy may wear t-shirts and denim jeans. If your character is this, no need to describe their clothing—anything the reader would be imagining is fine.

Refrain from describing the clothing of one-dimensional side-characters—there’s a high chance you’ve not really created them well enough that they have clothing that differs from the expectations of the readers. We all know what waiters wear, or what a college guy who was just passing by in the scene would be wearing.

You may describe the clothing of the important character in the story, but only in the first appearance. After that, describe their clothes only if the clothes seem really, really different from the first time. And stop describing their clothes if you’ve set your character well enough in the story that your readers know what to expect from them in normal circumstances—then, describe clothes only when they’re really, really different from their usual forms of clothing.

***

#06 - Conclusion

I think there was so much I had to say in this article, but I didn’t do a good job. However, I said all that I wanted to say. I hope you guys liked the article and it helps you in one way or the other.

And please subscribe if you want more articles like this straight in your inbox!

[snaggemon]

KING TAKES THE STAGE IN THE 'SNAGGEMON' LIGHT NOVEL!

Hey, all! Long time, no see!

To everyone who's been patient for new 'SnaggeMon' content, I thank you for your patience. To everyone who's joined us recently, I welcome you! Obviously the last two years since we released the first demo have been slow and quiet, and I want everyone to know we've been working very hard to keep things going and earn the time we have to spend making the 'SnaggeMon' game better and adding new content. But the time we have to spend doing so is pretty hard to come by as we work through several major commitments and responsibilities that dominate our time and our lives, on top of our day-to-day work and studies.

But, I have better news about the light novel version!

As I mentioned in my last Itch.io update in February, I have a strong background in fiction writing, including in prose. And to that end, in order to keep the wheels turning I've been writing an updated, more in-depth and linear version of 'SnaggeMon' as a light novel. It's still had some downtime during the busier work periods, of course, but it's easier to write than the game is to make. And I've been keeping the members of the Official 'SnaggeMon' Discord Server up to date and well-fed with snippets, sneak peeks, and even a poll now and then! (Seriously, if you haven't joined the server yet then by all means do so!)

And I have news: in that Discord server, I've now released a new, updated PDF of the 'SnaggeMon' light novel first draft — including the arrival and appearance of the one, the only, KING! 👑

You read that right! For the first time in almost two years, there is now brand spanking new 'SnaggeMon' content available to the public! It's not in the game and probably won't be for some time, which I understand may disappoint some people. But in the meantime, I hope this gives you some new joy to share with each other and keep the fires burning.

And, just because I like you… Here is a link to the PDF, free and publicly viewable and downloadable!

Thank you for your continued patience, and I hope you enjoy the new content. I'll be updating things in the Discord server and dropping snippets, sneak peeks and further updates there more regularly than here for now. But I wanted to let you all know what was going on and give you a chance to share in the joy!

'SnaggeMon! - Giving Up My Champion Rank To Date The Bad Guys!'

[joesalw]

Some good comment on this 1830s line from reddit thread about swifties harassing Maitreyi Ramakrishnan:

As someone with a masters in poetry, who has analyzed, graded, and critiqued poems, lyrics, and lyrical prose, it 💯 seems like the work of a younger white student just starting out, romanticizing a random decade bc it would make them seem deep. During workshop someone will mention that time period wasn’t so great for POC, and then the writer will stick on “but without all the racists” and think that solves the whole problem, when that’s only part of the issue to begin with.

ETA I’m getting a lot of messages from people who are supplying me with the lyrics in context, which admittedly I had not seen before. I took a look and I remain unconvinced at the assurances that the lyrics are doing the opposite of what I had first interpreted.

If this song were in front of me during workshop, I would absolutely inform the writer that because of a lack of clarity, this could be interpreted in a variety of ways. I would then ask:

“Nostalgia’s a mind trick” for whom, and why?

Because nostalgia isn’t a mind trick for marginalized communities.

It’s whiteness and privilege that allows for nostalgia in the first place. It’s whiteness and privilege that would write about “the highest bid” as referring to marriage and not chattel slavery during a time of literal chattel slavery while referencing the time period’s racists in the same stanza/verse. (If marriage as the highest bid is a metaphor for sexism and transactional marriages, the metaphor fails in context).

It’s whiteness and privilege to tell a story about a speaker being supposedly so aware of their whiteness and privilege that they educate their friends on it during a game (which also implies they never played this game with someone who was a member of a marginalized community, a game that with the lyric “used to play” implies it was played fairly regularly for a time), but concludes that “nostalgia is a mind trick” without adding that it’s only a mind trick for those immersed in privilege.

This is emphasized by “Seems like it was never even fun back then.” This line implies that at one point, it seemed fun to the speaker.

“If I’d been there, I’d hate it.” I would let the writer know that I as a reader am not convinced of this conclusion due to a seemingly lack of comprehension on the speaker’s part. I would let them know many readers would interpret this lack of comprehension as willful ignorance. If that is the writer’s intention, then proceed, if not, a revision is in order.

!

[literaryvein-reblogs]

A List of Poetic Terms

anaphora the repetition of a word or phrase, usually at the beginning of a line.

alliteration the repetition of sounds in a sequence of words.

allegory narrative with two levels of meaning, one stated and one unstated.

apostrophe direct address to an absent or otherwise unresponsive entity (someone or something dead, imaginary, abstract, or inanimate).

assonance the repetition of vowel-sounds.

beat a stressed (or accented) syllable.

binary dual, twofold, characterized by two parts.

blank verse unrhymed iambic pentameter.

caesura an audible pause internal to a line, usually in the middle. (An audible pause at the end of a line is called an end-stop.) The French alexandrine, Anglo-Saxon alliterative meter, and Latin dactylic hexameter are all verse forms that call for a caesura.

chiasmus from the Greek letter Chi ( Χ ), a "crossed" rhetorical parallel. That is, the parallel form a:b::a:b changes to a:b::b:a to become a chiasmus.

climax the high point; the moment of greatest tension or intensity. The climax can occur at any point in a poem, and can register on different levels, e.g. narrative, rhetorical, or formal.

consonance the repetition of consonant-sounds.

couplet two lines of verse, usually rhymed. Heroic couplet: a rhymed iambic pentameter couplet.

diction word choice, specifically the "class" or "kind" of words chosen.

elegy since the 17th century, usually denotes a reflective poem that laments the loss of something or someone.

end-stopped line a line that ends with a punctuation mark and whose meaning is complete.

enjambed line a "run-on" line that carries over into the next to complete its meaning.

foot the basic unit of accentual-syllabic and quantitative meter, usually combining a stress with one or more unstressed syllables.

free verse poetry in which the rhythm does not repeat regularly.

imagery the visual (or other sensory) pictures used to render a description more vivid and immediate.

meter a regularly repeating rhythm, divided for convenience into feet.

metonomy a figure of speech in which something is represented by another thing that is commonly and often physically associated with it, e.g. "White House" for "the President."

ode a genre of lyric, an ode tends to be a long, serious meditation on an elevated subject.

prosody the study of versification, i.e. the form—meter, rhyme, rhythm, stanzaic form, sound patterns—into which poets put language to make it verse rather than something else.

refrain a phrase or line recurring at intervals. The definition does not require that a refrain include the entire line, nor that it recur at regular intervals, though refrains often are and do.

rhythm the patterns of stresses, unstressed syllables, and pauses in language. Regularly repeating rhythm is called meter.

scansion the identification and analysis of poetic rhythm and meter. To "scan" a line of poetry is to mark its stressed and unstressed syllables.

simile a figure of speech that compares two distinct things by using a connective word such as "like" or "as."

speaker the "I" of a poem, equivalent to the "narrator" of a prose text. In lyric poetry, the speaker is often an authorial persona.

speech act the manner of expression (as opposed to the content). Examples of speech acts include: question, promise, plea, declaration, and command.

stanza a “paragraph” of a poem: a group of lines separated by extra white space from other groups of lines.

symbol an image that stands for something larger and more complex, often something abstract, such as an idea or a set of attitudes.

symbolism the serious and relatively sustained use of symbols to represent or suggest other things or ideas. (Distinct from allegory in that symbolism does not depend on narrative.)

synecdoche a figure of speech in which a part of something is used to represent the whole, e.g. “wheels” for “car.”

tone the speaker’s or author’s attitude toward the reader, addressee, or subject matter. The tone of a poem immediately impresses itself upon the reader, yet it can be quite difficult to describe and analyze.

topos a traditional theme or motif (e.g. the topos of modesty).

trope a figure of speech, such as a metaphor (trope is often used, incorrectly, to mean topos)

valediction an act or utterance of farewell.

If these writing notes helped with your poem/story, please tag me. Or leave a link in the replies. I'd love to read them!

More: Word Lists

[loftec]

Familiar by @mimilaroo

Shameless (US) | Mickey Milkovich/Ian Gallagher | 4 899 words 107 pages | 7 signatures | 4,5 pt Bodoni 72 Book

Mickey gets out of prison, narrowly escapes getting caught in a thunderstorm, perhaps experiences something magical, gets some ink, makes a friend, gets the upper hand back.

Truly a fandom classic in my books, Familiar is a staple of fix-it fics, the best kind of magical realism, and has one specific line of prose in it that I still regularly think about, 8 years later. Guess which it is, comment your favourite Familiar line!

[atiyasnake]

I've been keeping up with you accidental crimelord Danny and God dude I just want to chew on it. Grundy and Danny friendship is so silly and fun. Waylon being treated like Just Some Guy has gotta be so healing for him. and I really like some of the prose you use. especially the way you introduce new characters with some interesting trait and have it tie into the moment.

I love that you want to chew on the fic XD . I am an absolute suckere for friendships and character interactions that are fun and genuine, especially with characters that you don't see that a lot in other stories. And it's just fun using Danny as the person to do that in his own way.

And YES, I think it would be healing for Waylon to just be treated like a regular dude!! Like imagine him just having gotten out if Arkham and having a long list of encounters that just went wrong and then suddenly this weird kid just being 'chill', and somehow this leads to more people being chill with him and now he's regularly getting sandwiches from an old lady.

I'm so happy you like the way I have introduced the characters!!! Especially in this one that had more OCs than in my other fics. It was kind of a challenge and I wanted them to be their own person but fit into this world of Gotham, that along with writing and introducing the characters that already exist in the DC universe.

[bonesandthebees]

Hi Bee!!! I really admire your writing style a lot lol, it's inspired me a bunch, but I was wondering if you had any tips for how you do it? I'm just curious, and I'm not like, trying to copy it comepletely or anything, I still want it to have my own thing obv, but I also want it to bear it's inspiration from yours if that makes sense?

aww thank you this is so sweet!! it makes me so happy to hear people say I've inspired them :)))

when it comes to my writing style I've never really been the type of person to have super flowery/poetic prose. it never came naturally to me but for a long time when I was younger I thought I had to have more flowery prose in order to be considered a 'good' writer so I would try really hard to write like that but it just stressed me out. eventually I realized that I don't even like reading stuff that's in super flowery poetic prose (nothing against it, that kind of language just makes it more difficult for me to focus on what's going on in the scene personally) so why would I try to write like that?

basically I try to write in the style that I like to read most. I do use a lot of imagery and metaphors sometimes because I love creating visual images with language, but I try not to bury what's happening in the scene with it. I try to write enough character thought process so that my readers have a good sense for what's going on in their head, but I don't dive into long sweeping thoughts and memories for pages at a time.

the most important aspect of how I write however is that I try to write in a way that makes everything easy to visualize. I want my readers to feel like they're watching a movie in their heads. while sometimes I might leave details up to a readers imagination, usually I try to describe the setting and immerse the reader in it. but more importantly, I make a habit of regularly mentioning exactly what each character is doing physically in a scene. for me as a reader, I struggle to come up with my own 'additions' to scenes that aren't explicitly said on the page. if two characters are having a conversation, unless the reader describes their faces and body positions, I'm usually going to end up picturing them standing straight up talking to each other in monotone voices with blank expressions on their faces. maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration but it's not far off from where my head goes. so in my writing I always want to mention that stuff. I specify how a character says something, what they're doing with their body (are they sitting? standing? are their arms folded across their chest? how does their body language convey their mood?) what their face is doing (smiling, frowning, etc.). I try to regularly 'zoom out with the camera' if you will and give the readers a full picture of the scene going on.

ok that was a ramble but you guys know how I am. I hope that helps!!

[mrghostrat]

i know i just posted a long ass rec list but i remembered some more fics that are crucial for u to read

still not my last rec post. but here's ur new homework until i wake my kindle back up and sort through my reread list.

We're Both Of Us Above by obstinatrix

E • 3k • angel/demon (pwp) "I saw you once," Crowley says, in a tone which might be interpreted, by anyone other than Aziraphale, as casual, "with a Fusilier." my favourite genre of aziraphale. the best characterisation. incredible dialogue, flirty snarky bitchy "how could you sleep with humans but not with me" resulting in amazing "youre the only one i've ever loved" sex.

New Approaches by FeralTuxedo

E • 19k • human AU (professor/author) Professor Aziraphale Fell welcomes the attendees of the First Conference on New Approaches to Genre Fiction. Among them is keynote speaker and best-selling thriller author Anthony J. Crowley. Aziraphale has not seen him for twenty-five years. Sometimes, he can still feel the ghost of their parting kiss on his lips.

The Lines Between by Ginger_Cat

M • 21k • angel/demon (post armageddon) fucking exquisite out of this world prose i want to drink with my eyeballs. aziraphale notices something is wrong with crowley (love) but can't figure out why the current state of their relationship isn't enough for him. celestial, spirital banging. so, so many feelings. fucking delectable literary motifs.

Celestial Bodies by Justkeeptrekkin

M • 48k • angel/demon (1920s) pg wodehouse inspired fic where aziraphale has a human friend group that invite him and crowley for a weekend away in the country. it's so funny and delightful and the pining is agonisingly sweet, and i love seeing how crowley interacts with all these batshit humans aziraphale calls friends. i know i'm a jeeves & wooster feral but i can't recommend this fic enough

Man to Man by leukozyna

E • 62k • human AU (office) crowley is the token twink in a corporate office with a mad crush on his colleague. aziraphale seems very much to be straight, but after striking up conversation over drinks at an office party, the two start hooking up regularly so crowley can help him uncover his sexuality.

A Classical Education by Melibe

M • 1k • human AU (professors) what the fuck this fic only has 1k hits i assumed it was like a fanon classic thpfhtkjdhs. aziraphale recites latin poetry at an office party. “Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo,” Aziraphale enunciated clearly, knowing that only one person in the room understood the meaning of the archaic syllables: I will sodomize and face-fuck you.

The Rose Thief and the Priest by ImprobableDreams900

T • 15k • human AU (priest/gardener) When horticulturist A. J. Crowley sees a rare breed of rose in a churchyard, he decides he won't stop until he can get a cutting—even if he has to go through the church's stuffy priest to do so.

New Messages by TawnyOwl95

E • 38k (WIP) • human AU (fandom/online) Aziraphale writes fanfiction for the show Nice and Accurate Prophecies. Crowley draws fanart. THIS THING IS WRITTEN SO GOOD AND FUN AHHHHH so many laugh out loud points and feet kicking.

To reveal my heart in ink by chaoticlivi

E • 29k • angel/demon (post armageddon) aziraphale misses letter writing, so he and crowley start to write each other letters. it's easier to confess things on paper, even if they never mention the contents of their letters when they meet in person. it gets so dirty so fast (and aziraphale signing off every one with Your Dear Friend after detailing how he wants to tear crowley to pieces makes me wheeze laugh every time)

Demon and Angel Professors by Ghostinthehouse

T • series of 200 works, 133k total • human AU (professors) an incredible collection of drabbles (this bitch somehow makes every one 666 words) following a universe where aziraphale and crowley are both professors at the same uni. a mix of them and outsider povs, starting from the "two professors are married but no one realises it's to each other" trope, turning into some wonderful soft stories that reveal more of their relationship history, and loads of moments of queer and disabled solidarity.

[catnippackets]

Hello!! Do you have any tips on fully scripting ur comic before drawing it out? (Anything u kept in mind during the process or that stuck out to you!) Im thinking of doing it this way and i think u mentioned somewhere that u scripted the backmaker before starting to draw it?

I think I might! this might be more just general storytelling advice in general rather than specifically scripting, but I find it's a thousand times easier to do it this way, I do this for when I'm writing prose as well. to be perfectly honest I don't know how to plot stories any other way lol

so first of all: everything needs a thesis statement. or rather every scene needs to have a specific reason for existing.

When I wrote TBM I divided it into three acts, and then decided where I needed to be at the beginning and end of each one. So for example, act 1 had to begin with the girls at the creek making a discovery, and it had to end with one of their classmates dying and all of them being left with a feeling of dread and are unsure if they’re responsible for it or not.

Once that was decided, I had to figure out what other things needed to happen in order to carry us there. There’s nine sections in act 1, twelve in act 2, and fifteen in act 3, and each of them have their own little thesis statement as I like to call it. Sometimes they’re specific like “they go to the creek so they can find the body of the first victim and kick off the mystery”, but sometimes they’re simply “establish this dynamic between these characters”, or “set up that this character feels a certain way about this issue” or even “drop foreshadowing here for this other thing so it can pay off later”.

So for act one, the things that needed to happen were: establish that Alice has a reoccurring nightmare, set up all the girls' personalities and relationships with each other, establish that they hang out at the creek regularly, they go to a different part of the creek this time and find something kind of creepy, one of their classmates dies, all of them feel various degrees of fear and guilt over it, and life goes on and they all graduate highschool and aren't sure if they should move on or keep thinking about it.

Some of those things can be done in one single sequence, and others can be drawn out in between a few of them, but as long as those things happen, you’re golden. With certain sections, if the point is simply “these characters talk about this thing”, you aren’t even really locked in to a specific setting, you can put them wherever you want and have them doing whatever you want as long as it works.

And then there’s also the characters!! They each have their own beginning and end as well. I needed to make sure I knew exactly where each of them were, like, mindset-wise, at the beginning and end of each act, and then dedicate scenes within the story to track their progress on it. So characters and scenes and acts are basically all treated the same! Each start in one place and end in another, and I have to figure out how to merge all of them nicely.

I've locked in the full script at this point, it was locked in before I started drawing it really, but I'll occasionally reach a scene and have to rework dialogue a bit cuz ppl are talking too much or whatever and I hadn't realized in the writing stage that drawing it out that way would be tedious or tricky. but it's usually pretty minor, the general ideas are all still there

I hope that's somewhat helpful to you, I never know how to explain what my process is lol but that's basically what I do!

[indelen]

Alright, I'm hideously behind and the world is awful so I’m just going to blitz through to the end because the next readthrough is starting soon and I'm not even done with this one, like what is this, high school English? So ....

This is my reread of the Lockwood and Co. Books, organized by @blue-boxes-magic-and-tea, I'll make a general summary of several chapters and then post bits and pieces that jumped out at me.

I go into a longer analysis of Fairfax and Annie’s relationship and how it relates to Lucy but I do want to say kudos to Stroud for portraying such a realistic unhealthy relationship. This is a young adult book and he could have easily made Annabel Ward a saintly abuse victim, but she wasn’t. She was in a complicated toxic relationship with a powerful man, she feared him but wanted his love and approval, she acted in ways that provoked him, which obviously was not smart but abused people do not act in relatable, logical ways. Abuse victims fight back, act in toxic ways, return to their abusers and do any number of seemingly illogical things and I think that it says a lot about Lucy that despite all her baggage, her young age, her “not like other girls” tendencies, her inability to relate to the life Annie had, she still felt an enormous amount of empathy for her and it was that empathy that saved them in the end.

Part IV, Chapters 23-24:

Lucy’s family and her past in Cheviot Hills is fascinating because she never speaks about them except for the very succinct and detached way at the very start and these small moments throughout the books that indicate they mean a lot more to her than she would ever admit to anyone. The fact that she keeps some kind of memory box far under her bed, the fact that she sees her sisters as concussed visions alongside Annie Ward and Lockwood who, for very different reasons, currently occupy her mind quite a bit, shows the family she left behind still has a huge hold over her.

I love George so much because he sasses and analyzes everything in front of him from literally the moment he regains consciousness.

Never going to be normal about Lucy using this sort of imagery about Lockwood. She’s reaching near Victorian levels of Beautiful Death prose. Lockwood is always ethereal, otherworldly and doomed. Too good and beautiful for this sinful earth. What’s interesting is that in literature this sort of imagery is usually reserved for the hero describing the heroine. It’s one of many times the “hero” and “heroine” tropes between these two that are pretty regularly subverted.

Fairfax is like Combe Carey Hall itself in that at night he transforms and the posh and valuable facade recedes to reveal a grotesque and horrible true nature underneath.

Fairfax is an abuser who cannot understand that his toxic relationship with Annie is entirely of his own making. From the beginning their relationship was not that of equals. He was of a higher social class than her and never did anything to bridge that gap because it would threaten his precious inheritance and he never viewed acting or this part of his life as permanent or worth preserving. He was just partying and having fun before he settled into living a rich man’s life. He hid his relationship with Annabel and Annabel, naturally, resented the shit out of being treated as someone’s dirty secret. She sensed how disposable she was to him and got jealous, manufactured conflict and fights, flirted with other men, all to get attention and to provoke a reaction from Fairfax. And he rewarded her for this behavior. He was obviously controlling and his lavish gifts were meant to pacify her. They also normalized their unhealthy dynamic, the locket explicitly referred to the toxicity of their relationship as romantic. You can’t write “my torment, my bliss” on a jeweled locket and give it to a girl and then be surprised when she kinda thinks you’re ok with the torment bit. And so round and round it went until … frankly I’m not even sure that one fight was any worse than all the others. Fairfax never saw Annie as a person, he saw her as beneath him, and disposed of her, out of possessiveness and anger sure, but also out of pragmatic convenience. As long as Annie lived she was a liability and posed a risk to his reputation and name. He can try and pitch their relationship as mutually toxic and harmful all he wants but the truth is only Annie was ever in danger in it.

And here is where I put my tinfoil hat on.

Because my theory is that Annabel Ward was drawn to Lucy and formed such an empathetic bond with her specifically because she saw Lucy as being in the same situation as her. Ghosts seem to have limited capacities and see things on a loop and devoid of context. To Annabel’s spirit the story of meeting a dashing young man through work, work both are passionate about and work that brings them intimately closer together, but he is of higher social class and is financially better off and also he holds a significant amount of power over her is, on paper, very similar. Lucy might not think Annabel is much like her, but Annabel’s ghost sees things in Lucy’s mind she recognizes. Her hidden emotions, the desperate besotted love she feels for a magnetic, powerful person in her life and the feeling of inadequacy and desire to be seen as good, as valuable to him are all familiar ones Annie latches onto. And while Lucy is too young and repressed and traumatized to recognize any of this, I think she still learns a lot from Annie. It’s not a coincidence that the biggest conflict between Lockwood and Lucy is that of inequality and disbalance of power. Lucy, from this point onward, will grow to dislike that Lockwood does not share anything with her emotionally and that he overrules or does not consult her opinions professionally. And to some extent I think it’s her learning from poor Annie Ward.

Yea OK this is where I have trouble buying the “killed instantly” story Fairfax tells to everyone including himself. The human neck is not made of LEGO bricks and it’s hard to kill a fully grown adult with a single blow. So unfortunately, and this is NOT A NICE MENTAL IMAGE so like, skip to the next point if you don’t want to read something that describes grievous bodily harm, abuse and murder, but unfortunately it’s very possible Fairfax very badly injured Annie but she did not die instantly. Like, he may have broken her spine, but while that would inacapitate her, it would not necessarily kill her. If this is true then she died a much slower and more terrible death. And a few things in the above section support this. Annie repeating she’s “cold” but not understanding why. The manifestation of sounds and how they overlap - the hammering that entombed her, tapping of a finger on plaster, the slowing beating of a heart. Did Annie die on some level aware that her lover was disposing of her even before her last breath? Ghostlock was not enough. She should have eaten him.

Very early on we get these hints of just how much of a capitalist nightmare Fittes is and how it slowly swallows up smaller agencies and clearly aims to become a monopoly and discards kids they have no use for. And also how many of those kids clearly fall through the cracks and end up in criminal organizations or doing the dirty work of wealthy unscrupulous magnates.

Book Lockwood is pretty violent in these low key, concentrated and brutally efficient bursts and it’s one of those things that remains enigmatically unexplained. It’s not just fencing too, it’s all sorts of stuff. In the next book he folds Ned Shaw like a tablecloth. Did Gravedigger Sykes teach him? Flo? Unexplained! Very hot though. You 100% can see where Lucy is coming from.

Smile counter is still at 9 since there was nothing much to grin at in these chapters, but I want to give a shout-out to George for chasing after Percy, a grown man armed with a gun remember, alongside Lockwood. Like that's good guts, George doesn't like action, he doesn't live for it like Lockwood does, but he doesn't shrink away from it either.

[weaselandfriends]

Have you thought about opening a Patreon? I would pay a lot of money if it meant getting your stories more regularly...

My prose sucks, yours is spectacular. How do I get better at it? I try reading a lot, but I'm starting to conclude there's only so much you can pick up via absorption without some kind of formal instruction.

1. I'm not especially interested in opening a Patreon, and here's why. First, I work a reliable full time job that isn't too demanding on me, so I'm already financially stable. My following right now likely isn't large enough to sustain me full time, so I wouldn't be able to use Patreon as a primary income source anyway. Even if my following was larger, though, it would be a gamble to quit my job and sustain myself solely on fan donations. Ultimately, it would probably be more stressful for me than my current situation, and I could see my writing quality suffer under the pressure of needing to constantly output material on a monthly basis. On top of that, I'm not sure if sustaining myself on Patreon would actually increase the regularity of my stories. Unlike seemingly most authors (go look at Alexander Wales' Tumblr for an example), I'm not an "ideas guy." I don't get a lot of story ideas. The ideas I do get I nurture for years, slowly adding details to them until they're ready to write. Cockatiel x Chameleon was an idea I got in 2015 (published 2022). Modern Cannibals was an idea I got in 2012 (published 2017). When I am actually writing a story, I'm usually able to consistently output content, even with my job. The limiting factor for me isn't my available time in the day, but my brain. I appreciate the sentiment, though! One of my favorite comments, which I received on Cockatiel x Chameleon, went something like "You should be on humanity's payroll."

2. My prose sucked too. When I was a teen, I would write stories and my classmates would laugh at how badly written they were. In college, I couldn't even get my friends or family to read my stories. (I once described one of my stories to my grandmother and she said, "Well that doesn't sound any good at all.") At age 18, I decided to start reading classic literature. Only classic literature, at a rate of 50 pages a day, every day. I read all kinds, from all sorts of time periods and countries. I read everything from Homer to David Foster Wallace. And while I read, I wrote. I wrote badly. In college I wrote novels that pretty shamelessly imitated the prose styles of Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy. By the time I started writing Fargo (which is a story where I think my prose was still improving), I had written nine complete novels and had read somewhere between 200 and 300 works of classic literature. I didn't have any formal training, at least in terms of writing fiction. I was an English/Geography dual major, and from my English classes I learned how to close read a text, and in general I learned how to write an academic essay. In my final year of college I took an MFA-styled creative writing workshop, but by then I was pretty much beyond what it could teach me and I don't feel like I learned much of anything from it.

Other than reading and writing, I started editing. One of my later pre-Bavitz novels I finished, then went back and edited assiduously. I took a 100,000 word rough draft and over 14 editing passes pared it down to 70,000 words. That was massive for improving my prose, as it forced me to engage with my story on a word-by-word level. Every single word fell under my scrutiny and thus I had to grapple with how valuable, how good that word was. What I learned from that experience was massive for improving my prose going forward.

I think it's entirely possible for someone to improve their prose just through the basics of reading, writing, and editing. Julirites, the author of Fargo fanfic London, has massively improved her prose over the course of the story. It didn't even take her nine failed novels to do it, either. Be willing to experiment. Be willing to fail. Don't be afraid of someone laughing at you for writing purple prose. Imitate authors you like, that's the first step toward developing your own unique style.

[adhd-coyote]

ATTENTION!! Notice for readers of "This House Don't Feel Like Home"!! A message from @darknight-brightstar and I-

Firstly, we would like to thank you for being such delightful people. Your comments and emojis and kudos make us smile and give us so much good brain juice. We love each and every one of you.

Secondly, we regret to inform you that this story will be put on a short hiatus.

You see, when we wrote this fic, we wrote it just under a month, in between Book 1 and Book 2 of "Don't Give Up On Me". And we wrote it for ourselves, back and forth in our DMs. It is 75% prose, 15% chatfic, and 10% memes and emojis. Haha. We hadn't really thought about posting it until "Don't Give Up On Me" got going.

We've been editing as we go, as some of you might have caught. There is A LOT of authorial knowledge and a lot of "That Doesn't Make Sense In the Timeline" but it didn't matter because we were the only ones who were reading it.

Unfortunately for everyone (us and you) we've gotten to a rather large editing Gordian knot that needs to be unraveled a bit.

This story IS NOT abandoned. And, like we said in the beginning, it IS finished. We just need to spend some time editing.

In the meantime, please enjoy the regularly scheduled updates for "Don't Give Up On Me", Coyote's SithyWan Week contributions, sporadic Cult of Fox updates, and look forward to Corrie Guard Week next month.

Love,

The Nuisance Animals <3 <3

[rogueshadeaux]

Silly little Stardew Valley headcanons of mine no one asked for.

I'm back in it lol.

Shane has heterochromia iridium, though not many notice it at first. His left eye is a soft brown, while his right is a deep green. It honestly looks like a trick of the light at first - both of his eyes seem that dark green, one stuck in the shadows from his lolling head as he avoids people's eyes.

Alex is mixed. Sorry (I'm not).

Also, it's Alexandre.

Elliot doesn't use hairties. It's those little clips you use that have like. teeth. you know the ones. Leah got him one of a translucent butterfly as a joke and uh...it now sits at the base of the potted rose on his desk for when he writes.

Mayor Lewis is only mayor because no one's bucked up to run. The people would unanimously vote for the Rusty Spoon you regularly find on your farm if it was on the ballot.

It was Shane's little sister that died and lead to him being Jas' guardian. Jas looks too much like her, and it causes so much pain for Shane.

Also Shane's little sister is Mona, the only headstone you can read in the graveyard.

You know how you can look in Jas' room and her dollhouse is quoted as: "The little family is gathered around the dinner table. Wait...except Grandpa. He's shoved under the bed for some reason." Yeah I like to pretend that's an allegory. Grandpa is the boogeyman under the bed, and maybe the reason Jas is in Shane's care.

when Shane starts his sobriety journey, he finds surprising friends in...Alex and Haley? Alex and he are all about gridball - Shane was semi-pro, after all, a player in college - and Haley's blunt rebukes amuse him. She has the same style of banter as he does. You can catch them on the beach, Shane and Alex throwing around a gridball while Haley is on the side, sunbathing and making fun of them (lovingly).

Linus is a reflection of the nature magic of the Valley - like the bear or the hat mouse. It's why he and Rasmodius are close friends and regularly near each other at festivals; they're arcane users. Linus more so lives in it as an equal rather than a wielder.

This isn't a headcanon but why the fuck doesn't stardew valley have a school. I bet none of these fuckers know what a hypotenuse is.

ELLIOT IS A MERPERSON. You know how Ariel runs away from home for the trinkets of the land? That but storytelling. I am not original in this one but I KNOW it's true. I feel it in my junimos.

Abigail isn't Rasmodius' child. Emily is.

Penny and Sebastian are exes, but in like, a middle school way. I am not elaborating.

Granny and the player's grandfather were childhood friends.

George is a war veteran.

The Travelling Cart transports refugees. It's why they go to the Gotoro Empire to begin with.

George knew his way around mines, and was quite the adventurer. He, Marlon and Gil know each other. Well.

Sam just has one of those personalities where he’s only two degrees away from being a friend to EVERYONE in town. Gets Shane to crack up in the Joja Mart break room, is interested in the prose of Elliot’s writing (he’s a writer himself, after all - songs are just poems). He’s like a dog, everyone just gravitates towards him.

[babyseraphim]

20 questions for fic writers

tagged by @emryses, thank you for always tagging me in such fun things!!

1. How many works do you have an AO3? 11

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 122,112

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I write pretty much exclusively for Dead Boy Detectives, but I have a oneshot for Marvel from 2017, and an unfinished AU for Critical Role that I'll probably never go back to

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

By Lantern's Light

my healing needed more than time

foolish flame

The Case of the Selkie's Skin

Overloaded

5. Do you respond to comments?

I do when I have the time and energy. All my free time is kind of eaten up by writing the fics themselves, so unless the comment is really long or really funny, I usually don't respond. But I appreciate every comment just the same, they are what keep me motivated to write

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I honestly don't really do fics with angsty endings? Because all of my fics are super angsty in general, so I like to end things on a positive note. I guess the closest would be The Case of the Selkie's Skin because there's not really any closure there, they just move onto the next case. But even that one still has a cathartic ending.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

foolish flame for sure. A lot of my fic endings tend to be bittersweet in some way, but this one was a pure fluffy ending

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Nah. I don't think I've been regularly posting fics long enough for that.

9. Do you write smut?

I have written smut exactly once, and while it was a really cathartic/rewarding experience, I don't know if I'll ever do it again. It's a little too far out of my comfort zone.

10. Do you write crossovers?

No, crossovers aren't really my thing, though I have toyed with the idea of writing a dead boy detectives/pushing daises crossover just for the hell of it. But it probably won't ever make it onto paper.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, and the idea of it kinda scares me lol

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

Literally changes day to day. I think kirk/spock is the one that will truly own my heart forever, but payneland really is the perfect ship for me (hence all the fanfiction)

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

The Case of Eros's Arrow, which is sitting with 4 chapters on AO3. I still like the concept of it, and my OCs in it, but my writing has changed so much since I started it and I just don't really feel connected to the work itself anymore. Which is a shame, because I left my readers on a total cliffhanger. Whoops.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I think I do alright with descriptive prose (or I enjoy writing it, at the very least). I'm also good at worldbuilding and coming up with fun/creative plots.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Transitions between scenes, and general construction of dialogue (though I've gotten better at dialogue over recent months). I can also get a little ramble-y when it comes to introspection, though I'm usually pretty good about cutting it all down by the time the final draft is done.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I don't have many thoughts on it. I only speak english, and the only language I've ever used in my fics besides english is Latin (for magic purposes).

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Supernatural, I think? It was OC fanfiction, I still have it floating around this blog somewhere

20. Favorite fics you've written?

dye it all, rosary I think is my favorite right now. I don't know what the fuck I was on when I wrote that fic, but I wrote chapter 1 in one sitting, and then chapter 2 over the course of a few months. It turned out so much better than I ever could have hoped, and I just truly love it so much.

I also love my healing needed more than time because it has all the stuff that I love in it (magic, lesbians, dogs, kids, and other fun stuff to come). I'm also just really proud that I've managed to stick with it as long as I have; it's the first piece of writing over 14k that I've ever written in my life.

I tag: @many-gay-magpies, @deadtwinksdetectiveagency, @williamvapespeare, and @the-ipre!

[patricia-taxxon]

Part of what's so weird & frustrating about strawberry jam (celeste mod) is that it's so clearly trying to court normal celeste players and welcome them into the modding scene, with so much polished art and gameplay, but the design sensibilities is so fucking mod-headed in a way i can't imagine being appealing to someone used to the base game. It's like a fanfiction with impeccable prose that still regularly describes kissing as "tongues battling for dominance."

like, what the fuck is this?

does anyone remember celeste fondly as a game where great lengths are made to have it look like a lot is going on but also essentially have you watch the level play itself? same with levels where the pieces satisfyingly move around to wherever you need them in some visually pleasing dance around the player, celeste modding is in its "coffeeshop AU" phase where they've developed their own tropes and cliches apart from the source material. I'd sooner recommend Spring Collab to a celeste modding newcomer, honestly.