#even something as basic as ‘follow basic sentence structure’

[phoenixkaptain]

Tbh every time I see anything that’s like “You should NEVER write this specific thing,” the spirit of C.S. Lewis tells me “you should write that thing right now immediately”

[thevulturesquadron]

Today has proven, yet again, that Fans(TM) shouldn't have access to direct communication with the creatives behind the media they consume, unless it's in moderated spaces.

I'd say that a good chunk of the online active fanbase does not know how to interact with someone who provides them with a creative work and doesn't know how to offer constructive criticism. I am not even going to touch on the fact that these people have basically no comprehension skills or media literacy. It's a festering culture of entitlement, and the only way in which they can express themselves is by complaining and demanding.

I wish this wasn't the case, but that's the reality we live in and it has just gotten worse in the past few years. Fans should not have the means of speaking directly to creatives by tagging them in posts or reaching out to them on platforms that only allow for a couple of sentences and raw emotions.

You want to talk to the people that spend years of their lives building something with love in a crazy stressful environment? You need to work for it! Genuinely, these people should have to go through the challenge of writing a structured essay where they stop and think and wonder why something was created that way, every time they want their opinions read/listened to.

And in this particular case (following the Dragon Age AMA), the way some Solas/Lavellan shippers (I know most fans out there are decent people that mind their own business) behaved was beyond belief and excuse. You should really take a step back and look at how you've been treating other, real people, for slights, perceived or otherwise, aimed at a fictional character. Regardless of how you feel, you absolutely do not have the right to treat strangers like that. Talk in your friends groups, vent and rant and let out whatever emotions you need to, but when you interact with people outside of your sphere, talk as you would to a person you just met.

The only mistake the devs made in that AMA was to expect a mature exchange, which was clearly something that people who love stripping their favourite characters and narratives of any complex layers are not capable of.

[meichenxi]

Language learning: slow learning versus toxic productivity

Or: the process in crisis

Five years ago, all of the productivity advice I read (and gave out) as a successful self-learner of many different languages had one basic premise: that I was not doing enough, and that I could always be doing more.

Several burnouts later, running headlong from one mental illness into another, I'd like to invite you to entertain the exact opposite idea: there is a limit to what you can do. I have run face-first into mine on multiple occasions, and burnt out. At many points I've stopped learning the language at all. Most importantly, I've learnt to be distrustful of the very premise that all of the so-called productivity or optimisation advice is based on.

More is not always more.

Listen to a podcast in the target language whilst you exercise. Exercise to give yourself more energy to learn your target language. Talk to yourself in the shower in your target language. Do Anki whilst eating breakfast. Listen to Glossika whilst walking to work. Change your phone settings to your target language. Bullet journal. Manage your time. Make friends in your target language. Control your time. Write a diary. There's always enough time. These are all things I have done myself and recommended others do, to increase exposure to the language, to increase productivity.

Productivity? What productivity? What, exactly, is it that we are producing? I am producing sentences and words but - for who? Who is listening? Nobody's here, in my room, at 7am on a Sunday. If productivity were just speaking or writing, I'd be productive in my native language too, by virtue of speaking out loud. Or conversely, in language learning circles, should we measure it in terms of input? How many hours did you spend listening to Chinese yesterday? What about today? Is there anything you do in your life, in your daily life, that you could optimise? You're wasting time. There's time here, for those that want it. If you want to get ahead, to be successful, to be a good language learner, you have to know how to use that time. Go online, and debate over which tools are the best; watch your videos. What exactly is it that is being produced?

Productivity is a measuring tool for concrete output: the productivity of a field means how much crop it can yield per harvest. The productivity of a factory is how many mobile phone chargers it can bring to market per year. There are direct and measurable ways to increase this sort of productivity. But what is productivity when it comes to knowledge work? Cal Newport's work, The Minimalists, Essentialism: they all run into the same problem, which is that nobody seems to know what 'productivity' for knowledge workers means at all. You can look at a factory line and see which parts need greasing up, figuratively or literally: it is very difficult, on the other hand, to look at the work of a self-contained writer and tell her where she is going 'wrong'. (And by 'wrong', I mean - slow.) And language learning is an even more particular subset of that particular subset of work.

You could judge a novelists' productivity two ways: by the 'busyness' of her daily writing routine, or the amount of novels she produces. But what exactly is being produced when we learn a language? What is the end product?

In some ways, language learning as a hobby is even more playful than traditionally thought of arts and crafts. (By 'play' I mean something which is done for its own sake, and which is pleasurable, and which may yield next to no monetary reward.) We might think of the poet as sitting on a tree and dangling his feet in the river, a vision of artful indolence, but at the end of the day there is output - a poem. A knitter has a jumper. A potter has a pot. But language learning doesn't follow this [work] + [time] = [tangible output] structure. We can't even use the second metric of 'productivity' to measure it at all. Something is being done, of course - I can learn to speak Greek, and speak it markedly better after two months than one - but my point is you can't look at a day's work and say, this is exactly how much I learnt. Learning is not memorisation in the short term - it's receiving input, and practicing how to wield and use a structure. It doesn't happen over the course of a ten-minute podcast.

Learning happens - encoding happens - when the brain is doing other things. In other words, much like every creative process, you need downtime. You need rest, and sleep, and fun, and brightness and joy in your life. You might 'remember' a bunch of words on Anki, but you need to sleep before you can review them again: that's the whole point.

There is a much wider problem here, a culture of goals and optimising your life and glowing up, and to be honest, I find it disturbing. I think that for a very long time my language learning metrics were a stand-in, a relic, for the kinds of unhealthy and obsessively perfectionist thinking that gave me an eating disorder. How many of us truly believe - genuinely, with every inch of our heart - that we are better people if we 'better' ourselves? Learn more. Exercise more. Study more. How do you feel about yourself at the end of a day, exhausted, because you've completed day 75/100? Do you feel better about yourself because you've achieved? I'm guessing that you do.

For many people - including for myself - this wider culture has spilled over into their hobbies. Hobbies like language learning in particular are a target for this because they are so easily quantifiable - and we are encouraged, if we want to succeed, to quantify them. How else will we know how to improve?

Over the last few years, after burning out, after living off grid and without wifi and doing extreme minimalism and a lot of other lifestyle experiments to try and understand why modern life is so fucking hard, it's become clear that most systems of 'productivity' measure 'optimisation' by getting the most done in a day, but they don't stop to question whether you should be doing those things at all.

They don't stop to ask: what matters? They don't stop to ask: why am I trying to write a novel, finish my dissertation, pursue a romantic relationship, get healthy, learn ice-skating, learn to cook, look after my aging parents, and learn guitar at the same time? They don't ask: how do I prioritise, and where do I find silence? They ask: how do I cram more time in the day? They don't ask: how do I slow time down? They don't ask: how can I know what matters, if I never give myself space to think?

In other words: 'productivity' in language learning is measured by 'busy-work', by how much you can see from the surface.

You can't measure how well the learning is going, exactly, but you can measure how many hours a day you show up and grind. Whether or not that struggle is the best use of your time, or whether you're spending the time on things that will truly bring you value and quality, is a different question altogether.

And it's not one most 'productivity culture' will ever ask.

There will be things in your language learning journey that, to borrow from self-help terminology, no longer serve you. Habits and relics and resources and mindsets that worked for you once, or no longer did. Those books that are too advanced that you feel like you 'should' be able to read. That textbook that's been sitting beside your bed for a year. That habit of scrolling social media in your target language that was helpful when you were at a more intermediate level, but does little for you now that you're advanced.

Take stock of these. Simplify. Do less, but do it better. Productivity culture never stops to ask: what can I do without? It always asks, instead: how can I do more? But maybe - just maybe - the way to do more is to focus on fewer things, but do them well.

Multi-tasking isn't multi-tasking, but switching quickly between different focuses of attention. The average American owns 300,000 things, and watches television for 4-5 hours a day. On average, if you are distracted, it takes you 20 minutes to reach the same level of deep focus: but the average American office worker opens an email within six seconds of receiving it. Are you any better with your phone? How much time do you spend there? If you meditate, that's wonderful, but do you have any time to let yourself think? To walk and to understand how to feel? I don't want to sound like a boomer, but: can you name the birds? Do you live in a place, not just a room?

Stop trying to be 'productive'. Do less. Do it well.

I am now facing a wall in my learning of Chinese, and I'm still not sure how to get around it. The reason for this is because so much of the advice I gave others around language learning, and so much of the advice I found online, is focused on this sort of optimisation. But I no longer want to be listening to something, to be watching something, every second of every day. I have a partner to love and a house to appreciate and I want to spend time, humming and pleasant, alone with my thoughts, and it's summer, dear diary, and I don't want to stay indoors. Routines can keep you afloat, but they can also drown you. Do something different. Do something new. Do something that is not productive, that produces nothing, idle away, walk to work without music and perhaps when you sit down to your language learning that evening, you'll be filled with a renewed vigour and love for it. Do it because you love it, not because you scheduled it in your calendar.

A lesson, related, from my martial arts teacher. He said:

If you are tired, do not train. If you do not train, rest. 'Rest' does not mean go on your phone.

The same principle applies here. If you are tired of learning, which you may well be, rest. Not going on your phone, not watching Netflix. I mean taking a walk and sitting under the tree and looking at the patterning of the sky. I mean lying with your dog and absently scratching his tummy. If you're tired, and you have the luxury to stop - stop. Let yourself be tired. Don't drink caffeine. Sleep.

Last year, I was able to write 340,000 words of fiction because I focused on one thing: writing my book. Apart from things that I literally needed to do to survive and maintain my health and relationships around me, I didn't set a single other to-do. My daily list looked like: write for three hours. Not a word limit. Not exercise, though I ended up doing that, not learning a language. I imagine that if I had tried to focus on Chinese at the same time that I wouldn't have achieved anywhere near half the result. I still learnt Chinese, a very decent amount - I went to China and Taiwan for three months in total! - but I did it because I wanted to, of a whim, on a Sunday, something fun. It wasn't a must, or anything I was forcing myself to do. Many days I didn't do any Chinese at all. It was so immensely freeing to be able to think, at 11am: I'm finished for today. Even when I was at work, because I knew I was just there to pay the rent, I felt serene. Stressed on a day-to-day level, certainly, because all work is stressful, but - there wasn't any striving. I just did the best I could. And that was enough.

I am writing this, now, as I come out of my first ever information-overload burnout. I've burnt out, but I've never experienced one of these before: even looking at a book, at a phone, physically hurt my eyes. I couldn't bear to listen to people speak and would lock myself away in my room. I physically felt I could not talk, and had to take extensive time off work. Even looking at a pen and a blank page was too much; listening to podcasts was too much; reading the instructions for dinner was too much too. The only way I could heal was by doing absolutely nothing at all. That period shocked me deeply, because it showed me how absolutely dependent I was on having some input of information all of the time. No wonder I was tired.

I know, now, that there are lots of movements built around this same idea, by frustrated learners all over the world: the growing realisation that metrics and Excel and polylogger and tracking tracking tracking can't be the only way to learn. That a list of the number of books you've read in one year is hardly indicative of how well you understood those books, and what you learned from them. You've read 20 books this year already - good job. When do you think about them? What time do you spend on reflection? Why did you choose those books? Which chapters, and which characters, hit you the hardest? Why?

Minimalism, deep work, 'monk mode', essentialism, every writer's dream to run away and write in a cabin in the woods, slow learning, Buddhism, Stoicism, Marie Kondo-ism, the art of less, project 333, my no-buy-year, slow fashion, slow food, slow travel:

What all of these philosophies have in common is the idea that doing things deliberately ('mindfully') means 1) doing things slowly, 2) doing things well, and 3) doing things one at a time.

I am now at a place in my life where I understand the value of time alone with my thoughts. I don't want to listen to podcasts every minute of the waking day, because I need time to think about them. I need time to let the ideas for my novel grow in the dark. Nothing can be heard in noise; so make space for silence. I am a member of the real, living, breathing world, and that means I cannot devote 8 hours a day to Chinese television shows like I could when I was 20. I have to call my father. I have to do the dishes. I want to flex my creative muscles in other ways. Alternatively - I no longer believe that my worth is tied up inherently with how well I do my hobbies.

You're just some guy. There's freedom in that. You, my friend - you suck <3

Let yourself be bad. Let yourself be mediocre. Let yourself 'slide backwards' or regress, because all that means is that you're putting focus somewhere else. It'll come back. It always does.

I'm no longer comfortable, therefore, with the way that the language learning community tackles productivity. Please don't misunderstand; a lot of us have time spare that we could use to do things 'better' for us. I know. But I just believe now that getting rid of things, like the time you spend on your phone, is going to be more helpful in the long run than trying to force yourself into some gruelling, achievement-centric regime that collapses from within after two months of struggle and self-flagellation.

The other realisation I have had is just how much happier I am spending more time being alive, really alive, and less time in front of a screen. For a language like German or Gaelic that's much easier, because you can study with books, but with Chinese you always have to study to some extent with audios, flashcards, computers. Especially if - like me - you can read novels without a dictionary, but cannot handwrite even your Chinese name. So where next?

I don't have any answers. I'm not sure how to pair the two things together, to be honest, because almost all of my language learning has traditionally made use of technology. It's all been goal-orientated, systems-orientated, and despite the fact that I've failed at using these systems every day for years, despite the fact that Anki has NEVER worked for me, despite the fact that I have spent hundreds if not thousands of pounds on courses here, there, a wealth of overwhelm and five thousand words saved on Pleco, did I read that right? Five thousand. No wonder I'm stressed.

Regardless of happiness, it's much easier to achieve a state of deep focus and work when you're not online. After my period of information burnout, I feel actual physical pain from the weight of choices online. It's exhausting. I'm watching a Chinese show, but I want to go on tumblr. I'm on tumblr, but I feel guilty for not watching the Chinese show. I'm constantly torn between doing this and that, never fully committing to anything, seeing a post by Lindie Botes and thinking, damn, she's good. I should be better. But I don't want to compare myself to her. Do you know what? She is good. I admire her immensely. But I don't want to judge my self-worth by some imagined scale of productivity anymore - and, the more time passes, the more I'm not sure what 'productivity' in the context of language learning even means.

Try slow, focused, deep learning. You might just find it works.

There's something refreshing, almost counter-cultural, anti-capitalist, anti-consumerist, anti-rat-race, about this thought. Slow learning. I think there's an answer here, somewhere. It's a problem I've been dancing around for a while; and do you remember how you learnt your first foreign language? For me, it was on the floor, absolutely absorbed in German comic books, flicking through the dictionary furiously and scribbling things down in a notebook. I only had one book, and one dictionary, and one grammar book. I want to go back to that sort of simplicity. There was joy in that.

One again: I don't have any answers. I don't know exactly what direction this blog is going to go in, as I wrestle with these sorts of meta-problems. I'd love to hear your thoughts. And for now, if there's one thing I'd like you to take away from this long and frankly absurdly rambling post (thank you for bearing with me!) it's an alternative answer for the question I get so often, about what you can do to learn the language when you're tired, because:

Yes, you could watch reality TV shows in Chinese, or you could give yourself permission to be human. You could rest.

Thanks guys. Meichenxi out <3

[s-soulwriter]

Hello , here are some really basic writing tips.

Intriguing Openings: Start with a bang! Drop your readers into the middle of action or create a mystery that begs to be solved. Make them curious from the first sentence.

Character Backstories: Dive deep into your characters' pasts. Share their quirks, secrets, and defining moments. Readers love discovering what makes characters tick.

Sensory Descriptions: Paint a vivid picture using all five senses. Describe the smell of freshly baked cookies, the feel of a soft summer breeze, or the taste of a sour lemon.

Plot Twists: Keep your readers on their toes with unexpected plot twists. Surprise them by turning a seemingly predictable story into something extraordinary.

Cliffhangers: Leave your audience hanging at the end of a chapter or post. A well-placed cliffhanger will have them eagerly awaiting the next installment.

Metaphors and Similes: Add color to your writing with creative comparisons. For example, "Her smile was as bright as a thousand suns," adds a vivid and poetic touch.

Character Relationships: Explore complex dynamics between characters. Highlight their conflicts, alliances, and the evolution of their relationships throughout the story.

Symbolism: Incorporate symbols or motifs that carry deeper meaning. They can enhance the overall theme and give readers something to ponder.

Narrative Voice: Experiment with different narrative voices, such as first-person, third-person limited, or even second-person, to find the one that suits your story best.

Foreshadowing Mysteries: Drop subtle hints and clues early in the story that will become crucial later on. Readers love piecing together mysteries.

Unreliable Narrators: Consider using an unreliable narrator to keep readers guessing. They might misinterpret events or hide critical information.

Flashbacks as Puzzle Pieces: Use flashbacks strategically to reveal key aspects of the story or characters. Make them fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Dialect and Dialogue: Give characters distinct voices through their speech patterns and accents. Engaging dialogue can showcase personality and culture.

Emotional Rollercoasters: Take readers on an emotional journey. Make them laugh, cry, and experience every emotion alongside your characters.

Settings with Personality: Make the setting almost like another character. Show how it impacts the characters and the story's mood.

Evoke Empathy: Share characters' vulnerabilities, fears, and desires. Readers relate to flawed, authentic characters with whom they can empathize. Let them fail.

Experiment with Structure: Play with non-linear timelines, multiple perspectives, or fragmented narratives. Challenge traditional storytelling conventions.

Clever Wordplay: Incorporate puns, wordplay, or clever language usage to add humor and depth to your writing.

Cinematic Scenes: Write scenes that readers can visualize as if they were watching a movie. Use dynamic action and vivid descriptions.

Leave Room for Imagination: Don't spell everything out. Allow readers to use their imaginations to fill in some blanks.

Remember that storytelling is an art, and there's no one-size-fits-all approach. You can use these techniques to improve your unique style and the story you want to tell. Most importantly, have fun writing.

And remember to drink enough water!

If you want to have more of this , than click below and follow me.

[thydungeongal]

You've stated repeatedly that D&D 5e doesn't possess the mechanics to enable the heroic-fantasy adventure that a lot of DMs/Players seem to think it's meant for. What mechanics would a game designed to cater to that manner of play and storytelling have? Care to offer any recommendations?

In my opinion for a game to really support the genre of heroic fantasy it should have at least some of the following:

Some way of character motivations affecting gameplay in a robust manner. D&D 5e has inspiration which can be rewarded for acting according to a character's bonds, ideals, or flaws, but it is so poorly integrated into the system it might as well be "your DM grants inspiration when they feel like it."

Meaningful nonlethal consequences. D&D 5e gives characters limited means of handling situations nonlethally, including combat, but for the most part combat defaults to lethal and the game provides very little actual concrete guidance as to how characters losing an encounter should be handled. Death remains the most meaningful, clear consequence in D&D, which means there's a risk of losing narrative continuity in pretty much every encounter.

Doing heroics should be tied into the game's incentive structures and in-game reward mechanics. D&D 5e by the book mostly rewards overcoming obstacles (with defeating monsters as the most clearly mechanically defined example!) and before anyone says "milestones" shut up, that's just putting more work on the DM instead of the game defining its own reward mechanics.

There should, in general, be a framework for handling more types of activity than just combat, and combat shouldn't necessarily need to be handled as a blow-by-blow affair, but this is something I think there can be a lot of variation on.

Games that I think fit the bill to varying degrees:

RuneQuest/Mythras: Character ideals like Passions are very well integrated into gameplay. While combat is lethal the game does a lot of the work of telegraphing that to players and GMs and since the game assumes that most opponents will be intelligent creatures with thoughts and feelings there's no expectation of "the orcs will fight to the death" which is a sentence I hate in modern D&D adventure design. While I personally think Passions could be better integrated into the game's advancement system, the way the game handles advancement through actually doing things and membership in organizations (integrating characters into the setting) works very well!

Against the Darkmaster (VsD for short): While mostly a very trad game in the same general wheelhouse as D&D mechanically, its lethal combat system can actually disincentivize engaging in combat for fun (not exactly heroic imo) and it actually provides lots of mechanics for integrating character motivations and doing heroics into the system, including its advancement structures! Hell, it even provides methods for corrupting character ideals and it has a clear campaign structure of fighting against a BBEG!

Fellowship: A game that very much approaches the same genre of fighting against a BBEG as VsD but from an indie direction, once again rewards actual heroics and building connections with the world over just killing monsters, and I mean that this stuff is already implemented into the rules. Also provides a framework for handling social situations, including making friends!

QuestWorlds (formerly HeroQuest): Probably one of the first "narrativist" RPGs (I'm only using that as a shorthand: GNS sucks), QuestWorlds is a very much a trad type of RPG but that approaches the act of gameplay from a very different perspective. Basically, the game has narrative convention built right into its mechanics. It is a very neat game and I heartily recommend checking it out!

Fate: I don't particularly like Fate but even I must admit that it fits almost all of my criteria there! It is more of a toolkit game system so some assembly is required, but I do believe one could easily run a heroic fantasy game using it!

The Shadows of Yesterday: Is a good game. I'm losing steam right now but like TSoY is a pretty good game and I like it. I think y'all should Google it, it's out there on the internet and you can just. Read it.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Some Tips & Advice for Writing Fiction

"Since advice is usually ignored and rules are routinely broken, I refer to these little pearls as merely 'suggestions.'....There’s nothing binding here. All suggestions can be ignored when necessary." —John Grisham

Love your story. Many writers create their best work when they’re deeply invested in their characters and plot.

Withhold information from your readers. When writing fiction, only give readers the information they need to know in the moment. Ernest Hemingway’s iceberg theory in writing is to show your readers just the tip of the iceberg. The supporting details—like backstory—should remain unseen, just like the mass of an iceberg under the water’s surface. This prevents readers from getting overwhelmed with information and lets them use their imagination to fill in the blanks.

Write simple sentences. Think of Shakespeare’s line, “To be or not to be?” famous for its brevity and the way it quickly describes a character’s toiling over their own life. There is a time and place for bigger words and denser text, but you can get story points across in simple sentences and language. Try using succinct language when writing, so that every word and sentence has a clear purpose.

Mix up your writing. To become a better writer, try different types of writing. If you’re a novelist, take a stab at a short story. If you’re writing fiction, try writing nonfiction. Try a more casual writing style by blogging. Each piece of writing has a different point of view and different style rules that will help your overall writing skills.

Write every day. Great writers have a regular writing habit. That means dedicating time every day to the craft of writing. Some writers assign themselves a daily word count; Stephen King writes 2,000 words a day. You might also join a writing group; being accountable to other people is a great motivator. Don’t worry if what you jot down is technically bad writing or you struggle to get something onto a blank page. Some days will be more productive than others. The more you write the easier it gets.

Set milestones. The average word count for a book is 75,000 words. That can make novel writing intimidating. If you’re working on your first novel, stay motivated by setting milestones. This will help you break the book down mentally so it is easier to manage and easier to stick with.

Understand basic story structure. Professional writers are well-versed in the framework most stories follow, from exposition and rising action through to the climax and falling action. Create an outline to map your main plot and subplots on paper before you get started.

Don't write the first scene until you know the last. This necessitates the use of a dreaded device commonly called an outline. Virtually all writers hate that word. Plotting takes careful planning. Writers waste years pursuing stories that eventually don’t work.

Learn strong character development techniques. There are effective ways to create a character arc in literature. Learn what character information to reveal to increase tension in your story. Your main characters should have a backstory that informs their actions, motivations, and goals. Determine what point of view (POV)—first person or third person—complements the character’s interpretation of events.

Use the active voice. Your goal as an author is to write a page-turner—a book that keeps readers engaged from start to finish. Use the active voice in your stories. Sentences should generally follow the basic structure of noun-verb-object. While passive voice isn’t always a bad thing, limit it in your fiction writing.

Take breaks when you need them. Writer's block gets the best of every writer. Step away from your desk and get some exercise. Getting your blood flowing and being in a different environment can ignite ideas. Continue writing later that day or even the next.

Kill your darlings. An important piece of advice for writers is to know when words, paragraphs, chapters, or even characters, are unnecessary to the story. Being a good writer means having the ability to edit out excess information. If the material you cut is still a great piece of writing, see if you can build a short story around it.

Don't introduce 20 characters in the first chapter. A rookie mistake. Your readers are eager to get started. Don’t bombard them with a barrage of names from four generations of the same family. Five names are enough to get started.

Read other writers. Reading great writing can help you find your own voice and hone your writing skills. Read a variety of genres. It also helps to read the same genre as your novel. If you’re writing a thriller, then read other thrillers that show how to build tension, create plot points, and how to do the big reveal at the climax of the story.

Read beyond what you like. Dutch writer Thomas Heerma van Voss says: "Read as much and as widely as possible. See how other writers construct their scenes, tease the reader, build tension. Don’t be afraid, especially when starting out, to steal or imitate – all arts begins with imitation. One of the Netherlands’ most famous writers began his writing career by copying out stories by Ivan Turgenev in an effort to master his rhythm and way of writing."

Read writers who do not write like you. Trinidadian-British poet Vahni Capildeo says: “Make friends with writers who do not write like you. Swap books. Show each other work. Take the long view and the wide view. Writing adds your lifetime to the lifetime of everyone else who has written or read, or who will read or write, including non-‘literary’ folk. All sorts of people work carefully or lovingly or effectively with words. You may find inspiration in a law report (ancient or contemporary) or a tide chart, or in an ‘unplayable’ play…"

Research. Critically acclaimed novelist Guinevere Glasfurd says: “Writers are often exhorted to ‘write what they know’. But what if your protagonist is a fourteenth-century nun? Or a drag queen from Kentucky (and supposing you, the writer, are not)? Start by reminding yourself why you want to tell the story. Research can be frustrating; sometimes the archive is silent, the answers are not there. There’s a reason for that and that should spark other questions. Research can also be enormously rewarding. It can, and likely will, reveal something unexpected. It is important to remain alert to that, to be attentive and open to surprise. Research is an iterative process. Research a bit, write a bit, research a bit more. Allow your writing to remain fluid at this point, open to question, encouraging of further enquiry.”

Write to sell. To make a living doing what they love, fiction writers need to think like editors and publishers. In other words, approach your story with a marketing sensibility as well as a creative one to sell your book.

Write now, edit later. Young writers and aspiring writers might be tempted to spend a lot of time editing and rewriting as they type. Resist that temptation. Practice freewriting—a creative writing technique that encourages writers to let their ideas flow uninterrupted. Set a specific time to edit.

Get feedback. It can be hard to critique your own writing. When you have finished a piece of writing or a first draft, give it to someone to read. Ask for honest and specific feedback. This is a good way to learn what works and what doesn’t.

Think about publishing. Few authors write just for themselves. Envision where you want your story to be published. If you have a short story, think about submitting it to literary magazines. If you have a novel, you can send it to literary agents and publishing houses. You might also consider self-publishing if you really want to see your book in print.

Ignore writing advice that doesn't resonate with you. Not every writer works the same. You have to figure out what works for you in the long run. If working off of bullet-point outlines gives you hives, then don't do it. If you work best writing scenes out of order, then write those scenes out of order.

Sources: 1 2 3 4 ⚜ More: Writing Notes & References

[nihongo-enthusiast]

How To Read and Understand Japanese Sentences (Part 2)

To catch who is doing what; who is the main subject and who is being affected by the action; you have to pay attention to the particles.

When a person is followed by the particle は such as (田中さんは…), the speaker is trying to tell you about Mr. Tanaka.

In other situations where the speaker wants to emphasize that IT IS Mr. Tanaka who did something, the particle が would be used instead (田中さんが…)

When an object is followed by the particle を, you know the subject is doing something to this object. If I say ご飯を…, you know the subject is going to do something to the meal. Whether he is eating a meal or cooking a meal, that... you have to read the verb at the end of the sentence.

In Japanese sentences, you will never know what happened to the object or what the subject did to the object until you read the verb at the end. For instance, if I say ドレスを…, the subject could wear a dress, buy a dress, draw a picture of a dress, sew a dress, or even steal a dress, etc. There are many possibilities to what the subject could do to a dress in that sentence. As a reader, you would never know until you see the verb at the end.

And to make a simple sentence longer, Japanese people would add extra details to describe about the subject or/and the object. Let's take a look at this simple sentence below.

女の子はドレスを着ています。

The little girl wears a dress.

This is the most basic sentence structure of Subject+Object+Verb.

You have no idea where this girl comes from, what kind of dress she is wearing, what colour is the dress, etc. Now, let's make it longer.

隣に住んでいる女の子は、先週の誕生日に私からもらったかわいいピンクのドレスを着ています。

The little girl who lives next door wears a cute pink dress which she received from me as a present on her birthday last week.

Now, you have a better image in your head about the little girl and the dress she is wearing. It enhances your imagination about the character and the storyline.

Let's take another sentence.

姉はチーズケーキを食べました。

My elder sister ate a cheesecake.

Again, there is very little to feel and imagine from this short sentence. Let's make it longer by adding some details about the cake.

姉は父が仕事の後、家に帰る途中で私のために買ってきたチーズケーキをうっかり食べてしまいました。

My elder sister accidentally ate the cheesecake that my father bought for me on his way home after work.

Now, you could feel the sadness and disappointment of the speaker towards the elder sister of what she did. And you also know where that cheesecake came from.

[writingquestionsanswered]

hi! me and my co-writer ans in the planning phase. we dont how to end out story. its an abrupt ending, when tension an high and we dont know how to pick that moment or how to create that moment. thanks!

Stuck on Cliffhanger Ending

Even if your story has a cliffhanger ending, the story still needs to follow basic story structure:

Through the setup and rising action, you make numerous promises to your reader by laying out threads and posing questions. The climax and falling action should resolve the main conflict, and the resolution allows you to tie up most of those loose threads and answer most of those unanswered questions.

Cliffhanger endings happen during the denouement, at a crucial moment when a significant question or plot component is about to be resolved. Again, you want the main conflict to be resolved and most of the loose threads to be tied up, but this particular unresolved component will be something that won't ruin the story if it isn't answered right now (or ever). Usually, the answer is just about the be revealed when something surprising, shocking, or suspenseful happens to interrupt it. To figure out a good cliffhanger moment in your story, you first have to figure out your purpose in having a cliffhanger. Are you trying to draw the reader into reading the next book? Or are you simply trying to end with a gut punch?

If you’re just looking for a gut punch (with or without a coming sequel), look for an unanswered question that doesn’t need to be answered in order for the story to be resolved. For example, maybe one of the story’s many questions was the parentage of your orphaned protagonist. If the identity of the parents isn't crucial to understanding the story, and if you've already laid out options, you could have the character in the process of finding out when someone bursts through the doors and makes an important announcement. If you're going to have a sequel, it could be an announcement that sets up the conflict of the sequel... like that the antagonist they just vanquished has escaped the dungeon and taken refuge in the mountains. If you're not going to have a sequel, you would want it to be something that doesn't ignite a new story that will never be told. For example, maybe the protagonist is just about to open a book that reveals who their parents are, and then someone bursts in and says, "You've got visitors!" When the protagonist asks who it is, the character says, "Your parents..." Those are good gut punches. They'll leave your reader reeling, speculating, and wishing for more, but you're not leaving anything crucial unresolved.

Another example would be when your characters have spent the whole book fighting and triumphing over an alien invasion, and after all of the mourning, celebrating, and rebuilding, your character goes to bed one night, turns off the light, and hears the telltale hiss of one of the aliens. Again, GUT PUNCH! Is there really an alien left alive? Is it going to hurt or even kill the protagonist? Does this mean the fight’s not over? Does it mean the fight is really just beginning? There are lots of questions, but the answer could just as easily be, “It wasn’t really an alien, it was the wind. Or, it was the air conditioner turning on.” So, you’re not leaving the actual story unresolved. Your protagonist isn’t dangling off the edge of a building when the last sentence ends.

If you’re trying to draw the reader into reading the next book, you generally want to end with a new or re-stated question… and I don’t mean a question that you literally ask. I mean a question that the reader will ask themselves based on whatever you’ve laid out. For example, the reader might think, “The protagonist defeated the evil king in this battle, but the evil king is still out there. Will the protagonist be able to defeat them once and for all?” Or, it could be a new question that’s presented during the resolution. Like, maybe the protagonist defeated the antagonist in this big battle, but at the end, during the big celebration, a message is delivered to the protagonist letting them know the antagonist has struck again, in a new place this time. And your protagonist tells another character to gather the rest of the team. The reader is left with the question, “Where did the antagonist strike and what was the result? How will the protagonist respond? What will happen next?” Again, nothing of the main conflict is left unresolved. That’s a successful cliffhanger ending. :)

Happy writing!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[platoniccereal]

some notes on the wanderer/scaramouche's characterisation~

i first and foremost made this for myself since every time i touched upon the wanderer's speech something felt amiss. but i also hope these notes may be of help to any content creator in their characterisation of our favourite an-emo boy!

while writing these notes i went through phrases scaramouche/the wanderer utters to establish his choice of words and thoughts that may be hidden behind them! i also provided utterances themselves for almost every point i made so that his speech can be copied easier. besides, i tried to guess how this can be utilised in our head canons! :)

please keep in mind that these are still my notes of something that stood out to me, not absolutely everything. additionally, i still may misinterpret something + our interpretation may be different + you can see something as a stretch. that's ok! also, i listened to the english va + i speak of the balladeer and the wanderer as Two Different hypostases of a character, not the same continuous character.

hope you find it helpful!

INVERSION OF GENESIS.

★ when the balladeer/the wanderer is angry, he rarely raises his voice. he starts to whisper and even speak softer instead (it's about the english voice, but afaik it's also true for other voices, too). when he wants an emphasis on certain words, he whispers, too. this isn't true for battles, though, as he is very loud in his wanderer and shouki no kami hypostases.

★ his usual sarcastic structure is to state something he'd expect and then illustrate that someone is acting against it (as in, stupid). e.g. «ah, so if it were up to you, you'd finish the job? guess i had you all wrong. there i was thinking you were just getting cold feet,» «it's not every day you see people questioning the god of wisdom's judgment. just when you think you've seen it all.»

★ when he wants to threaten a person or make them do something, he isn't necessarily uses imperative sentences. he uses «i'd like you to» in «in return, i'd like you to answer a question for me» and still gets what he asks for. other examples are his «so why don't you relax your guard a little?» «let's cut each other a little slack, shall we?» and «so maybe you should think about backing off a little.»

as illustrated, instead of describing painful consequences, he undermines them instead. («a little» is his favourite word, it seems.) as evident later, it is coupled with his, err, laid back attitude towards threats to him. basically, he just lets people act stupid and walk into his traps.

from what we've seen from dottore, he also uses the same structure: «i suggest you keep your true feelings to yourself.» maybe, he was the one scaramouche copied.

★ overall, his sarcasm is what you'd usually see from people. it should be kept in mind that sarcasm is his initial response and he will use it as often as possible even if he could simply explain. there won't be any examples here, though, as there would be too many. but his conversations with nahida, paimon and signora illustrate it well. i believe sarcasm is his way to assert power since it builds on «common knowledge + the inversion of that» hence implying the opponent doesn't have this common knowledge -> they are stupid, he is not.

★ he is extremely professional and focused on completing the task successfully. he knows how operations (which the traveller suggests he was assigned when he was the harbinger) are carried out and follows the strict algorithm. e.g. «(to nahida) we will now proceed to the heart of irminsul», «permission to begin searching for information?»

he isn't easily swayed when he works and tries to get this attitude out of the traveller and paimon, too, just asking them not to fall behind.

★ he follows the agreement with nahida: how they will walk into the irminsul and what his tasks will be. he completes them without any chatter and keeps nahida updated as he should. even after the revelation about the tatarasuna's history, he still is able to proceed with his task.

★ «you can't have your prisoner knowing too much,» «i understand that prisoners have to put up with harassment from the guards,» it may be a stretch, but from these sentences + how he talks about his relationships with the fatui i can conclude that he easily justifies abuse towards himself. the balladeer/the wanderer isn't the person who just lets people do that, but whenever abuse happens, he easily explains it by the natural order of things and weaklings suffering from the strong ones because they deserve it. hence, whenever he ends up being the weak one, he believes he deserves this abuse. this can seep through into in his further interactions with people who care about him should any fight occur.

★ «sometimes it's you using them, other times it's them using you.» it comes in a direct parallel to niwa's words about dottore's attitude towards kabukimono: people of tararasuna didn't want to use him, hence it's the doctor who altered scaramouche's perception of human relationships. the balladeer/the wanderer believes in mutual gain and uses it to: 1) get what he wants from the traveller, 2) pay back for nahida and the traveller's help.

thus, it's safe to conclude he uses this principle as a moral compass in every social interaction he comes across. he could use this law to navigate his personal life instead of his emotions.

★ «most of human relationships are this way… certainly the stable ones are.» it is easier for him to predict when he stops being valuable to someone and toss other people out when they are not useful to him, so there is no sudden abandonment. it is easy to see how it corresponds with his trauma. this principle gives him the illusion of control since he can calculate everything, and gaining control over situations that may lead to the repeated trauma is a response real abuse survivors have. hence, it's safe to conclude the wanderer will try to find what other person gains in his more sincere relationships and, what's worse, may use other people who care about him out of habit since it's a natural order for him.

★ even though he earned the reputation of someone who doesn't bite his tongue when he should he doesn't backtalk or lie when it isn't beneficial to him.

★ he admits to managing «cordial conversations», so while the wanderer may avoid participating in small talks at all, it isn't unreal to picture him having one and not imploding. this is also something confirmed by his first appearance in the unreconciled stars event where he handles a friendly conversation perfectly - so the friendliness is just something he knows (and studied intently as kabukimono) but ignores on purpose. social skills are there.

★ the balladeer and possibly the wanderer, too, is sadistic in a classical sense of the word. he admits to enjoying stomping on the pests, meaning bringing pain and destruction to people. this can also be confirmed by one of the husk of the opulent dream's pieces. there, it is stated that «he also loved watching expressions of terror and helplessness play across human faces, and it was perhaps precisely because of this imbecilic underling's expressiveness that he had kept them around.» as the balladeer, he let some of his subordinates stay not because of their usefulness, but because they were funny to abuse. (also. hot.)

thus, it can be possible that in a less hostile environment of the akademiya the wanderer can struggle with this side of himself, hurting people on purpose. this can also become something he has to fight in relationships with people he cares about.

★ before his memories are restored the wanderer is polite and reserved. he apologises, calls his boss properly and tries to do his part. we can notice the similar behaviour of the balladeer but weaponised to imitate friendliness (e.g. unreconciled stars). there isn't any features of a classical shy character, he doesn't stutter or use abrupt phrases.

★ «i ran into him out in the wilderness during the storm, and he let me take shelter in his cart. in return, i said i'd be his helper for a while.» even before he gets his memories back and remembers principles the fatui likely taught him, the wanderer navigates his relationships with others through understanding what he gets and what he must give in return.

it is clear that he spent some time in the shop already and made enough work to make the merchant uncomfortable for exploiting him. thus, the «for a while part» isn't quite true. the wanderer has nowhere to go so he has every intention to pay back more than he needs to, to just stay somewhere.

hence, he can continue using this principle in his relationships with others, creating a conflict where he is dead set on paying back with little to no regard for his own feelings.

★ «i don't deserve your protection.» it seems that even before he restores his memories and is only told about his sins, the wanderer already despises himself enough to reject help. this attitude may exist later, when the wanderer restored his memories, with an added «i'm not that weak» but this is only my speculation.

however, this phrase may be another example of him carefully weighing what others give to him and what he should return.

★ «(uttered by the jester) what you are, truly, is a weapon, one that can be wielded with an iron will…» to further ingrain the thought that the balladeer is a tool, not a person, the jester proposes the idea of seeing himself as a weapon to kunikuzushi. coupled with dottore saying someone will eventually use kabukimono, it seems this was the strategy that was used to keep the balladeer in the harbinger ranks.

thus, we can see that the balladeer continued to suffer abuse due to 1) his beliefs in the strong dominating the weak, 2) his illusions that he is a person shattered by events of tararasuna, hence he perceives himself as an object, a weapon that must endure. the latter is a bit of a speculation but i don't think it is far off the mark:

★ «now that i've had a taste of just about every flavour in this world, i've found that actually… bitterness is the one i like best,» and the whole bitterness discussion in the teapot are the example of him pushing himself to his limits in order to being able to handle the true bitterness of life. (also, it lies in a nice parallel with ei/shogun's «illusions shattered» thing, but i diverge.)

★ «(uttered by the jester) or, you could continue to drift aimlessly.» another tactic fatui used to win kabukimono over was his obvious lack of any goals and place to go. we can see that the wanderer finds himself in a similar position, staying with the merchant because he had nowhere to go. long time ago, the balladeer stayed for these very reasons with much, much more dangerous people than a common merchant.

★ «i'm harsh on myself and everybody else.» while the former comes from the low self-esteem and believing himself to be weak, the wanderer also won't be patient with anyone's blunders. i suspect especially if it's about someone in his charge or if it's about work. i also suspect that an easy way to get on his good-ish side is to act this way as well and not let any mistakes slide.

★ «utility to others is what makes me worth.» as soon as his memories were implemented into him, he is reverted back to his harsh principles ingrained into him by the fatui. it seems there isn't any other tool he could use to measure his worth. the base principle that any life is worth something does not exist for someone who didn't see himself as an alive being for several past centuries.

hence, it can lead to reckless behaviour driving him to his limits which will cause stress to someone who cares about him.

★ «oh right… i almost forgot. you're the good guys. you're into justice and all that.» this is his answer to the traveller trying to argue with how the wanderer sees his own worth. i believe there's some division between what he thinks good guys deserve/what the wanderer himself deserves. thus, while it is possible he will agree that life's worth is life itself after some long argument, he still won't apply this to himself. i believe it's a somewhat common coping mechanism to think «people don't deserve X, but i deserve X.» (i'm not talking about his crimes, btw.)

★ «no nonsense. i like it.» he approves when the traveller doesn't argue with the «let them stab the blades into my chest if they so desire. maybe that's how it always should have been.» while the wanderer might need support in his life and changing his self-destructive perspective might be of great help to him, it seems he still wouldn't appreciate a direct approach to that.

VOICE LINES.

★ one of the most consistent features of the wanderer is despising the idle chatter, as evident in this idle voice line, «it's rather pathetic to force a conversation just to occupy silence.» another example is the husk of opulent dream's description: «the youth, hating chatty humans the most, gave his subordinate a backhand slap.»

so, the balladeer/the wanderer despises small talk even if he can participate in one. he would likely appreciate people who are just focused on the task and don't say anything that isn't related to their common goal at the moment. perhaps, it can be used to form a wordless bond between him and people who hang out with him.

it seems that he is quite harsh in his criteria for the idle chatter since his subordinate asks quite a normal question of where the harbinger is heading next.

★ looking through every voice line about other people, it can be argued that the wanderer's initial algorithm to describe someone is to trash them. but i believe we should also remember most of his voice lines are about the harbingers, and he's never had particularly warm feelings towards his colleagues. other four are yae miko and raiden shogun, and he isn't fond of them both, and kazuha and nahida. last two are the only people he doesn't despise, and these voice lines are pretty tame, while not an open praise.

★ «i have no need for food. save me the trouble and take care of yourself and that small thing floating next to you.» this can be perceived both as him not wanting the traveller getting in his way like the balladeer's subordinates, or genuine, poorly expressed care. thus, the wanderer may say dubious phrases with that intention whenever he expresses his care.

★ «so, you're still stewing over our run-ins from before? huh. well, what are you going to do about it? take your time. i'm in no hurry.» the wanderer's attitude to threats is quite unique. other examples of that are his lines from the trailer, where he answers «sure i will» and «i look forward to that» to the threat that he will pay for his attitude. also, «fine by me – come one, come all, i say. as a matter of fact, i'm somewhat looking forward to it.»

basically, you can read his behaviour as «you can be stupid enough trying to attack me, and i won't stop humans from being stupid, and the outcome is their fault.» it's basically all over his trailer where he waits until the fatui attack first.

★ when it comes to answering for his sins, though, i would rather see it as accepting his punishment. it is also evident in his falling voice line, «the price for my sins.»

★ «the gods aren't guided by any kind of rationality or moral compass. haven't i shown that to you already?» i believe he doesn't mean ei or nahida here, two archons he is connected with, because he didn't show us anything in regard to them. (we dealt with problems with them ourselves) what he might mean is shouki no kami. this also may be evident in his battle ost and, «(about his actions) after all, gods have never been needed to be reasonable.» so this phrase may indicate irony he feels regarding his actions as an archon.

★ overall, it seems that he's rather profiling everybody for us rather than giving his pure opinion.

★ «anger, whether it be from others or myself, is too convenient and useful as a tool.» while the balladeer went as far as becoming a god only to become emotionless, he now learns an actually legitimate way to deal with anger. the first step to do it is to learn that anger is a normal emotion and how to channel it instead. thus, he can also learn this about other emotions and that each one of them is ok. knowing he uses the utility of everything as a compass, the utility of emotions may be something that will help him accept them.

★ «don't you know that's only asking for trouble?» coupled with the phrase from his birthday letter, «has she ever stopped to think about what an «experience» it is for others to meet me?» it is apparent that while behaving highly unsociable due to detest for idle chatter, he also wants to shelter others from his presence since he believes it is nothing pleasant. i believe he also thinks it will only bring suffering in the end – to them.

★ «it's not so much that i have nothing to say… i just have nothing fun or positive to share,» explains another reason he avoids conversations – he just doesn't believe himself to be someone people would usually have as an opponent.

★ «if you don't mind, perhaps… we could sit here together for a while,» coupled with «the scenery here should be quite breathtaking» from his birthday voice line lets me think that his favourite quality time with others is to peacefully enjoy some scenery (he truly is a cat who just likes to be in someone's presence).

★ «are you so dumb as to have forgotten that i'm not human?» this is a less useful observation but i find it rather funny that he is annoyed not by the fact that the traveller may try to poison him but by the fact that they chose an ineffective method. if we wanna extract something useful, though, it can be said that if the traveller tries to kill him and fairly wins, he is ok with that as he is the weak one in this situation. but that's quite a stretch.

★ «i can see the great deal of effort you put forth,» «thank you for trying to look out for me. go get some rest,» and «it's generous of you to host me in your home. the least i could do is be grateful,» show pretty clearly that even after the wanderer restored his memories he is still able to express gratitude without exploding, and i don't believe he finds it useful to be mean when it isn't of any need.

★ «hey, you own this place. what are you so nervous about? it's not a good look,» coupled with «look at me, coming around here, criticizing your lifestyle choices.» everybody noticed how nice the wanderer is in the serenitea pot (as shown in the previous point). but this also reveals that while he enjoys being painfully straightforward and kept people around just because they suffered prettily, he doesn't enjoy when at least the traveller doesn't put up any fight. maybe it's about the subordinate/the equal difference. basically, he seems to respect people with strong personal boundaries. the ones who don't try to justify their own home where he is just a guest, at least. that would be logical since it's evident he navigates his life through «weak/strong» division.

★ «this is your home. arrange it as you wish,» this and previous voice lines illustrate once again that he isn't unnecessarily mean, at least not all the time. he understands the dynamics of a place he is in and how to be a grateful guest instead of shitting on every player's choice.

★ «the fact that things didn't work out doesn't make my past self a fool for hoping in vain that they would, does it?» and «you're a god. do you think i'm evil?» depending on whether we see the former as rhetoric or not, this may show that even though he is quite old, he still looks for guidance whenever it comes to more vulnerable topics. he looks for this guidance in people he respects, such as the traveller and nahida. and at least with nahida, he listens intently because the answer truly matters to him. maybe, if there wasn't any mechanic restrictions, he would listen to the traveller, too.

PRE-IOG SCENES.

★ «for just a small price, they get the feeling of controlling the world. trading their life for supreme power… pretty good deal, don't you think?» there isn't much to analyse as the utterance is pretty clear, but i just find it funny because this is what he ended up doing with shouki no kami. so either he fell into the same trap or he truly believed in what he said then and wasn't just mocking teppei.

★ «[haypasia] peered into my consciousness and saw my past. someone like that is qualified to become my first follower.» while this qualifies haypasia as a follower, having one also qualifies him as a god. but this can be perceived differently. haypasia saw his past and stayed devoted and didn't leave her god. it is my speculation, but this may be something scaramouche is after - this is a twisted form of acceptance. as the wanderer, he still may harbour such desire to be seen and accepted, leading him into healthy relationships or unhealthy obsessions. still, the whole haypasia sequence demonstrates that scaramouche is still a loyal individual, he just didn't have anyone to grant this loyalty.

★ on the same note, it should be said that scaramouche openly admits and expresses affection to haypasia. a mortal, a feeble human, mind you. because, of course, she is his first and only follower. thus, he can show such feelings honestly and without shying away if he deems it necessary, which might be useful for creating his future bonds with other people and maybe he will be much more open with them than we'd initially thought.

★ «has anyone ever told you that you're not good at sowing discord?» and «you're still too naive if you think a few words will be enough to convince me to destroy the doctor,» imply that before the revelation in 3.3, scaramouche wouldn't let just anyone get him on bad terms with the doctor and manipulate him into that no matter how much abuse by dottore he endured. no matter how bad his relationships with his colleges are, he will handle them himself. this is a note purely for me and my future writing of the wanderer, but it seems that even after 3.3 getting him out of the dottore's mental grasp will be a demanding task.

SMALLER DETAILS.

★ his idle emotion and his character picture are him smiling, so it isn't unusual for the wanderer to do it and even more natural - maybe, at least when he is alone.

★ whenever the wanderer finishes the task, he prefers to shortly say «done» without any chatter.

★ when it comes to speech, he doesn't divide his sentences much and uses compound, very complex ones freely. whenever he needs to explain something, if it isn't something he deems stupid, he does it fully and doesn't hold back.

★ scaramouche always calls nahida buer, perhaps as the way to show himself being above «demon gods», while the wanderer calls her lesser lord kusanali, which sounds more respectful as it is her title.

★ overall, i think the approach hoyo use for their characters is choosing one main characteristic (if you think about any character, you can remember One main thing about them) and then building their interactions around situations where it feature shows and situations where it is an exception and they act against it.

if we focus only on one type of these situations, we mischaracterise the character. thus, if we choose, say, the wanderer being mean as his main feature and focus on it, we miss out on times where it isn't true. for example, his respect for the traveller's realm or his desire to help others in a parade of providence. if we focus only on nice exceptions like that, we mischaracterise him as well.

updates:

★ now that we have both the second birthday story and his tcg lines, it appears to the wanderer is no stranger to doing something just to make someone happy. and then say it was only because he's got nothing to do. e.g., reading books someone recommended to him, «some vahumana students were trying to push some book recommendations onto me. i don't have anything else to do, so i'm just idly flipping through them» or playing a duel because he thinks it makes the traveler happy, «can a game like this really make you so happy? childish... if you want to play, then be quick about it,» «all smiles after winning a game like this? ha, so easy to satisfy,» «and the boring game is finally over... you happy now?»

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If you feel self-conscious about the quality of your writing, don’t worry! I understand that English is a difficult language, that getting words on the page is a hassle, that sometimes what's in our brains doesn't want to show up on the page (there's a reason I'm an editor and not a writer). I'm not here to judge your handle on language; I'm here to help you express your ideas and communicate effectively with your audience. I also have experience working with ESL writers and can explain both the basic rules of English and the complex things that even native English writers have trouble with.

[thosearentcrimes]

Read Bring No Clothes by Charlie Porter. If I followed the rule "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything", that would have been the only sentence in the review. Well, really, it wouldn't have existed, implicature is still a form of speech. For a while it didn't exist, since I read this book some time back now, but not out of moral concern, but rather simply because I'm not allowed to use the computers at work for personal shit anymore, and that's where I wrote these. So I finally got around to buying a new e-book reader instead, expect more reviews shortly, written from home this time. But I digress.

Bring No Clothes is a truly awful book about the fashion of the Bloomsbury group. I struggle to think of any redeeming features. It is shorter than the hardback makes it seem, but this is simply false advertising, and not a virtue. It chooses to give each chapter heading its very own entire page to sit on, to blow the letters up to an absurd size with liberal line spacing in the style of a panicking high school student, to pepper the book with black and white photos of dresses remarkable for their color. The hardcover copy I read pretends to have 340 A5 pages, and I would be surprised if it got to 100 with reasonable formatting. In truth it is a nothing but a handful of hastily concatenated half-written filler articles and a couple of unpublishable magazine features stuck between two hard covers for no apparent reason, an unfilmed script for a "video essay" (read: summary) that would be too long to watch and too short to say anything.

It is really quite literally a series of magazine articles. Charlie Porter is a fashion journalist, and his work on the book speaks to his total inability to adjust his writing style to the medium, the astonishingly poor standards in fashion journalism, and the seeming absence of any editing whatsoever on the part of the publisher. Though possibly it was edited, and earlier drafts were even worse. Somehow. There is no coherent theme to the book, no throughline connecting the individual chapters. There are entire chapters that are obviously unnecessary and poorly conceived, which would presumably have been removed if not for the desperate need to pretend the book is so much longer than it really is. Lastly, for some reason image descriptions are done in-line rather than through captions. Is this common in fashion journalism? It sucks to read, in any case.

The writing is shit. It's so unbelievably bad. Borderline unreadable, the structural issues with the book as a whole are reproduced even at the level of individual sentences. Porter's chief flaw is that he is preposterously self-absorbed. He is either unable or unwilling to separate his own impressions and delusions from reality. He spends substantial sections of most chapters writing about the personal experience of researching and writing the book, and plenty of other insufferable personal trivia besides. To pull that trick off without boring the reader takes extraordinary talent, personal charisma, and varied and interesting life experiences, none of which Porter seems to have. Not an amazing range of vocabulary on display either, and somehow I doubt this was a deliberate effort to keep the reading difficulty down. The miserable structure, constant pointless personal asides, and general inability to express what few ideas Porter may or may not have render the book a truly tedious slog.

When reading a non-fiction book, I would like to be able to pick out something I learned about the topic, some basic point of interest. It is impossible in this book, which contains nothing but boring accounts of relationships between seemingly insufferable people. Porter's narration does bring his protagonists to life in places, with some help from direct quotes. Unfortunately, they are brought to life as some of the most annoying egotists you've ever met in your life, which admittedly seems quite plausible for British upper class twits (well, mostly twits). Still, I don't put too much stock in that characterization, as it could very easily be projection by the blatantly self-absorbed author.

I generally try to recommend books to sorts of people who I think would like them, whether or not I was a fan myself. I suspect I am a poor judge of appeal, ultimately, but I try nonetheless. I think nobody should read this book, ever, for any reason. It is not that the book is evil. Reading evil has merit. The book is just bad. There are people who would like it, probably. Those people, in particular, should not read the book, as I suspect it would inhibit their development. Everyone involved in the production and distribution of the book should feel shame proportional to their degree of responsibility for what they have inflicted on the world in general, and on me in particular.

[twothpaste]

15 and 25 😇

15: something you learned this year it's chill to be a little bit repetitive with the phrasing & words you use. i used to stress out a lot over this, always ripping my hair out trying to make sure i didn't use the same Anything twice within the span of a few paragraphs (unless i had a deliberate reason to repeat myself). but like. it's actually fine for dialogue tags to just go "he said x" "y, she said" back and forth for a while. (trying to cram in alternatives like "stated" or "exclaimed" might even come off forced & call more attention to itself). it's also ok to plainly repeat character names a lot. often it's the most straightforward way to make it clear who's doing or saying what, usually better than epithets or roundabout sentence structure. and i've gotten really into writing little segments with a lot of "and"s; there's kind of a natural storytellerly rhythm to it. i still try to keep big, rare, or interesting words on long cooldown periods - but it's nice to chill out and stop fretting over basic stuff like this. though i dread being redundant & yearn for unapologetically maximalist prose, i think i'm learning the sorts of spots where a more utilitarian approach works best.

25: a fic you read this year you would recommend everyone read ok so i know my followers are here for mother and not zelda, but i've gotta drop [ 👉 this little twilight princess oneshot ❗ ]. it's one of my favs i've read this year. it's about kid link meeting his newborn baby brother. it's very short, and so fucking sweet, and if you like mother 3 i swear you'll probably enjoy it (even if you haven't played twilight princess or zelda games in general)

[silverzoomies]

hiiiiii!! i’m so sorry your job is so stressful right now and i really really hope it gets less stressful as you get more comfortable with it❤️❤️ i love your writing and your blog so so so much and i’m convinced that we would be great friends if we knew each other irl (i’m delusional). anyyyyyways. i just wanted to know if you had any tips for starting to write fanfiction as someone who’s thought about it my whole life but never actually pulled the trigger?

hgjdshgkdshk💗💗💗!! i don't think you're delusional at all !! and thank you so much for the encouragement !! my job is super tough, but i'm figuring it out !!

the best piece of advice i can give for aspiring fanfic writers is to write what you want to read. legit, there is no better writing advice !! but here's some other tips, just in case !!

♡ seriously. first and foremost, write what you want to read ♡ write for YOU before anyone else ♡ don't be afraid to take inspiration from fics you like ♡ i reread my favorite fics all the time and make mental notes about the writing styles i love the most !! ♡ this does not mean copying styles because you think you'll get more notes. again, this is about being inspired !! ♡ if you're writing for notes, then you'll just stress yourself out ♡ i also take heavy inspiration from life experiences, friends, family, my favorite movies and shows, etc ♡ write gibberish first. don't even worry about the technical stuff ♡ my fics always start off as nonsense. i spill words onto a page without thinking. it helps a lot in the long run !! ♡ example: if the fic is about quicksilver looking for his lost walkman. i type as follows - peter looks for his walkman. where it go? he can't find it. such a bummer. what do now? aw heck. maybe he should check under the sofa. not there. damn. he scratch his head. did he eat it or something?? idk skjgddsjg ♡ once you have something (or anything) down, it's so much easier to go back and refine it ♡ you can worry about technical stuff like grammar, spelling, and sentence structure last ♡ i use onelook religiously, it's always open on another tab lol ♡ hemingway editor is useful too, but don't take it too seriously. you're writing fanfic, not a professional novel for barnes and noble. you're allowed to break the rules !! ♡ start with simple dialogue and fix it later ♡ example: quicksilver's looking for his walkman. i start off with basic dialogue. he might say, "where is it?" ♡ when i edit, i go back and give it more character, "ah, c'mon, where the heck is that thing? I coulda swore I left it-" ♡ READ YOUR DIALOGUE ALOUD !! yes, even the nsfw stuff !! whisper it to yourself if you have to !! ♡ if you read dialogue aloud and it sounds awkward, your character probably wouldn't say it

i could go on forever, but hopefully this is enough to help you get started !! 💗💗💗

[99corentine]

How To Write Good by Corentine

THE DRAFTING PROCESS, PART 2/2

Writing guide continued! Here's PART ONE.

STEP THREE: THE START, THE END, THE BEATS

I’m of the opinion that every story should start with a bang. You could start mid-way through a notable event, as seen in GHD:

- O L H A - D - V - The words, incomprehensible, rattle around his head like the last rumbles of a great thunderstorm. Then, much like after a storm has passed, the air suddenly feels clearer, sharper. A sludgy fog he didn’t even realise he was in clears from his mind and he blinks, confused. The first thing he sees is his own hands.

If you want it to be especially punchy, you can start with a line of dialogue or a short sentence, like I did for T4T:

CHAPTER ONE: It is the end.

It’s reeeally easy to lose readers at the start, so you always want to write a strong opener. Something that grabs the reader by the collar and drags them in to read the rest of the chapter.

You don’t need to have all the details, but you should have at least a vague idea of how the story ends. If you’re writing fanfic that follows along the same plot as a game or existing story, most of the legwork is done for you – so writing GHD, I planned for it to end when Alduin was killed. As I got further into the story, I came up with a more narratively satisfying ending, because it’s okay if the ending changes. As long as you have an ending in mind, you have something to work towards.

So GHD’s original, very basic plot was:

START – the Last Dragonborn wakes up with total amnesia

???

He saves Miraak

???

They kill Alduin together – END 

Now you have to map out those ??? parts by deciding the major beats of the story, i.e. notable scenes. This gives you something to work towards other than the ending. I ended up with notes like these:

START – the Last Dragonborn wakes up with total amnesia

Who is he? Don’t spend too much time on this, not important, can be answered later

Goes to Solstheim, meets Miraak

Finds a way to communicate with Miraak – sneaks into Apocrypha? Shares dreams? College of Winterhold has psijiics, use telepathy?

Finds a way to save Miraak

Go to Apocrypha, confront Hermaeus Mora, save Miraak

They look for ways to kill Alduin together

Hermaeus Mora comes for them

Prolonged recovery, tells reader that even ‘redeemed’ Miraak is still scary

They kill Alduin together

What happens after Alduin?

(Redacted for spoiler purposes) – END 

The story beats should ebb and flow like the tide; high-octane scenes should be followed by periods of calm. You don’t want to do this too quickly or the story will feel like whiplash; rather this is a process that happens over many chapters. Let’s look at some examples in GHD:

⇈⇈ Miraak dominates telepathy and is really scary!! ⇊⇊ Chry wanders around Skyrim doing errands and Thinking About Life… ⇈⇈ Chry breaks Miraak out of Apocrypha!!  ⇊⇊ They recover from the ordeal and have a honeymoon period… ⇈⇈ They go to Blackreach and it’s visually awesome, and also Chry gets jealous!! ⇊⇊ They do misc stuff for a while… ⇈⇈ They talk to Septimus Signus, Mora shows up, nearly kills Chry!! ⇊⇊ Miraak whisks Chry away somewhere to recover in peace…

You see what I mean?

Right, you know roughly what’s going to happen. Time to turn that into words, baby!

STEP FOUR: GOTTA START WRITING

My actual writing style is its own separate topic so I’m not going to tell you how I structure a sentence or anything, just my literal writing process. 

In my chapter document, I start by making a bullet-point list of everything I want to happen in the chapter. What happens can, and probably will, change as you actually get the chapter down. That’s fine, you just need a starting point.

I very rarely write individual chapters in order, as in start to finish. Rather, I tend to write the scenes I can picture clearly in my head – then by the time I’ve written those I’m in a writing groove and the gaps in the rest of the chapter will come easier. When I’m done, I’ll stitch the individual scenes together, which sometimes requires altering the scene start or end to make the whole thing more cohesive.

There are times when the writer’s block takes me, and I have like two finished scenes and just cannot summon the words for the rest of the chapter. When this happens, to be honest, the only answer I’ve found is brute force: I sit myself in front of the computer, get rid of phone/alt tabs/other distractions, and force myself to type something. Or I hold myself hostage (i.e. ‘I am not allowed to play more Baldur’s Gate 3 until I have written GHD chapter 47’) that works too, for me anyway. 

Whatever it takes to get something on paper. What’s mostly important is to get something written, even if it’s not very good. You can always edit, rephrase or even rewrite sections later. Usually I’ve found once you start writing, you get into a groove and then it’s no longer a chore.

I also aim for a certain word count / chapter length while writing. I know a chapter is exactly as long as it needs to be and blah blah, but I set myself a minimum wordcount to reach. Or if I go way over the word count it’s probably because I’ve waffled too much, so I either aim to split the chapter into two, or to ruthlessly edit it back down again. 

For GHD I average 7,000 - 9,000 words, but I actually think that’s a bit too long and risks losing people’s attention span, so for T4T I aim lower, about 6,000-ish. Less is perfectly fine, but if I’m reading another fic I find a chapter length of 2,000 words or lower to be disappointingly short. That’s all personal preference of course, and certain fics will lend themselves better to shorter chapters.

Although I jump around scenes within each chapter, I make a point of writing my entire chapters in chronological order. If I’m on chapter 5, and I know something awesome happens in chapter 12, it’s imperative that I do not write chapter 12 ahead of time. If I do, I’ll reeeally struggle to write chapters 6-11, because I have already rewarded my brain by writing the cool thing. If I hold off, my enthusiasm to write chapter 12 may in fact motivate me to crank out chapters 6-11 in record time.

I do have one other thing – in my Scrivener projects I always have a document called ‘Unused’. Sometimes, usually at like 2AM when sleep has failed me, I’ll get a really good idea for some dialogue or description. I scribble it down somewhere (or it will be forgotten for sure) and later I type it into my Unused document, so it’s just filled with random bits of text like this (note, everything you see here is unused, so it's not going to feature in the last chapter of GHD):

At some point in time I’ll peruse it and think ‘yes, this line!!’ and drop it into a future chapter – again though I just write bits, not entire scenes or I’ll have written all the exciting parts already. Anything I edit out of a chapter (i.e. a paragraph I liked but didn’t quite fit) gets dropped here too, in case I can reuse it later.

STEP FIVE: FINAL EDITING

I will be honest, I’m pretty impatient. Once I’ve finished a chapter, especially if it’s one I’ve been struggling with for a long time, I want to publish it now. So I’m guilty of not editing as thoroughly as I should – but this is what I usually do and it catches at least most of my mistakes:

As a first step, I copy-paste the chapter from Scrivener into google docs. Remember I said Scriv’s word processor wasn’t the best? Yeah, it’s no good at picking up on dodgy grammar, but google docs is, so I run it through there and skim-check for wiggly blue lines, then make the changes in Scriv. You may not have this issue if you’re using Word or another more comprehensive software

In my great excitement, I publish the new chapter to AO3. As I re-read the chapter over there, I see a minimum of 5 glaring errors I somehow didn’t spot in the previous steps, and hastily correct them before anyone notices.

Once I know the grammar is mostly fixed, I run it through a text to speech software to read it back to me (surprisingly Microsoft Edge has quite a good one built in called 'Read Aloud'). You'd be surprised how many mistakes you pick up this way. I’m looking for whatever google didn’t catch, wonky phrasing, repetition (i.e. I used the word ‘quickly’ twice in the space of two paragraphs, that sort of thing)

Sometimes I do a re-read with a fresh pair of eyes, anywhere from hours to days later. If I have the patience, of course...

I like to get at least the first 2-3 chapters of a brand new story written before I post anything to AO3. This is to make sure my enthusiasm doesn’t immediately wane and I actually stand a chance of finishing it. After that I’m rarely more than a chapter ahead of what’s been posted, because go figure I’ll post the newly-written chapter once the editing is done, then start on the next one.

Some people won’t even post a story at all until they have the first draft fully written. This is admirable, but not always realistic – GHD is like 375,000 words, you think I would’ve sat down and written all that before posting chapter one and even knowing if anyone would read it? Hell no. 

But while you don’t need a story to be fully written, you do need it to be decently mapped-out. I used to start fics with absolutely no idea where they were going to go; I’d finish 1 or 2 chapters, get really excited at writing that much and hungry for feedback, then post something that I would inevitably lose all enthusiasm for and leave unfinished.

So, know how it starts, know how it ends, and know the story beats in between so you always have a goal to write towards. There will inevitably be fics that you never finish and that’s fine – it’s all writing practice – but readers don’t like to be left hanging, so try your best to finish! Even if it takes ahem four years or so.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐

And there you go, that’s my writing process! I’m not sure how useful that really is, but if it was I could write more guides in future? I have…

A guide to my writing style (this one might be hard to put into a guide but people like my turn of phrase so, maybe useful?)

How I write a sex scene

How I write a fight scene.

[amethystina]

"Han fattas mig."

One of the compliments I often get on my writing is just that — my writing. My word choices, my sentence structure, my imagery, my rhythm, my originality, etc. Now, I never thought I'd reach a point where I’d become that good at the craft itself, especially not in a language that's not even my native tongue. Partly because of imposter syndrome but also because I'm usually such a perfectionist that I never thought I’d dare to write something that doesn't strictly and stiltedly follow the rules.

Sentence fragments? Words used in unusual contexts? Odd or highly specific imagery? No can do!

Except, clearly, I can. I should, even.

And I want to share one of the monumental pieces of writing that made me realise that. And it’s not even a whole work. It's just one sentence, really:

"Han fattas mig."

Now, that probably looks a bit weird to those of you who don't understand Swedish, so let me explain.

That's a quote from the children's book Ronja the Robber's Daughter written by the famous Swedish author Astrid Lindgren. It was published back in 1981 and while I didn't actually read the book as a kid, I DID watch the Swedish live-action movie many times. But, even then, it took until my adult years to fully grasp the utter and heart-breaking brilliance of that quote.

For some context, the book/movie is about Ronja who, surprise surprise, is the young daughter of a robber chief. That quote is said by her father, Mattis, when one of the old robbers of their clan suddenly dies. Now, this old robber, Skalle-Per (uh... I guess the translation would be Bald Pete?), is clearly a father figure for Mattis. A wise old man who, while gloriously snarky, is also incredibly nurturing and emotionally mature. Which stands in stark contrast to Mattis who is the somewhat traditionally dominant, macho man. He HAS to be, on account of being the chief for a clan of rough and tough robbers. They, in many ways, complete each other, where Skalle-Per is kind, thoughtful, and sensible while Mattis is brash, violent, and impulsive.

Now, predictably, when Skalle-Per dies, Mattis throws a full-on tantrum. The kind that shows just how inexperienced he is with dealing with emotions without Skalle-Per to help him work through them. And, since the whole problem is that Skalle-Per is now dead? Mattis has absolutely no idea what to do.

He starts pacing back and forth, crying, flailing his arms, and yelling things like: "He's always been here! He's always existed, and now he doesn't!" And no amount of calming words from his wife soothes him and, eventually, he says that line:

"Han fattas mig."

And there is no direct translation I can give you that fully conveys the amount of raw, almost childlike, grief in that one sentence. This sentence was the one that made me realise that following the rules doesn't matter because, strictly speaking, this one doesn't. The words used are unusual to the point where they're even a little odd at first glance but, once you look deeper, also so incredibly impactful.

The rough translation would probably be "I miss him" but, as said, that doesn't convey the sheer desperation that those words do in Swedish. First of all, it throws the words around, completely changing the focus and weight of the sentence. "Han" is "he" and "mig" is "I." So saying "I miss him" reverses the order where the emphasis SHOULD be put on "him" but the main subject of the sentence now becomes "I" (i.e. less about the loss and more about how "I" am feeling). In “Han fattas mig” the “he” is the most important part.

Second, you have the word "fattas" which, yes, directly translated means "missing." But not the kind of missing that we Swedes normally use for grief. We have another word for that called "saknar." If you miss someone who has died, you'd say: "Jag saknar honom." Which is basically the same as the English “I miss him.” The word "fattas" is for a completely different context — a much more mundane one, with almost no emotional stakes. It's what we use when a piece is missing or something is lacking a required component. Kind of like you would say: "This stew is missing something" when it doesn't taste the way you want it to. But it can also mean "lost" as in "there's one puzzle piece missing."

So when Mattis says those words, he doesn't say "I miss him." He's saying: "He is a part of me and he is now missing," and "he is a part of me and I lost him," and "he is a part of me and now there is a hole where he used to be."

He is saying: "I will never be complete again."

Because "fattas" is also the word we use when something is missing and the thing won't be complete until you add it/return it/get it back. And, in this case, since the man in question is dead, you know Mattis will never get that chance. He will never be whole again. Which, sure, is a rather terrifying take on grief, but also not an untrue one. Grief will lessen over time, but the loss will still be there.

And this isn't me doing some sort of complex linguistic analysis — I don't have to. Because it's all there. It's so simple yet so effective. And yet, somehow, no one had really thought to use the word "fattas" to describe grief before. Because it's just a simple and mundane word we use for entirely different things, not big, painful emotions, right? Except Astrid Lindgren did. And while she no doubt did so to make it easier for children to grasp the concept — since most kids can relate to the feeling of losing something in the context of "fattas," which is much more direct and real than the elusive emotion of "saknar" — it also changes how an adult can view grief and loss.

Not even "I lost him" can fully encompass the absolute BRUTALITY of the grief found in the sentence "Han fattas mig."

And that is why I give fewer and fewer fucks about the rules. Now, obviously, I doubt I'll ever come up with something as brilliant as this sentence (it honestly rocks me to my core sometimes) BUT it's worth trying. It's worth being creative and experiment with the words you know and in what order you place them. Just maybe, you'll end up with something really cool. That's not to say you should ignore any and all rules, but it's okay to play around. It's okay to do the unexpected.

I think it's important to remember that. Writing is creative. We write to express things — to find ways to describe and explain complex emotions, grand adventures, and sweeping love stories. It connect us and gives us a way to share our experiences, thoughts, and feelings. And, sometimes, the set boundaries won't be enough. Sometimes, we might just need someone to look at how we describe grief and go: "I can make it simpler and, at the same time, so much more painful."

And it doesn't always have to be complex. It doesn't have to be difficult words and purple prose. Sometimes, all you need is three words so easy that a child can understand them and, somehow, you will describe a sense of loss so deep and so fundamental to that character that you KNOW that they will never be the same ever again.

So experiment. Be bold. And, above all else, have fun.

And, one final heart-wrenching fact to wrap this all up: The actor who played Skalle-Per — Allan Edwall — was in almost ALL of the movies/shows based on Astrid Lindgren's books. He played different roles, of course, but he was a staple — synonymous with her works. And, when the actor died back in 1997, Astrid Lindgren was asked how she was handling the loss and her reply was the same as Mattis’s:

"Han fattas mig."

[rigelmejo]

Some learning apps I've liked (in no patrticular order)

Renshuu (japanese): good lessons, a bit slow paced for me

Readibu (chinese reading app): free version is good, paid version includes full sentence audio and translations I think which may be useful.

Pleco (chinese dictionary and reader app): top level app, get it now if you study chinese and use your phone at all. Its free version includes a huge great dictionary, and Clipboard Reader which has ALL the Reader features just that you have to copy and paste the chinese text in (their paid Reader you can upload epub txt files etc directly). Their paid features are nice because they are all 1 time fees: pay 5 dollars once and have the purchased item forever. I hate subscriptions so i love that this app does single purchase instead. I bought some graded readers on this, and expanded dictionaries. Its Dictate Text text to speech feature is nice in the Reader/Clipboard reader because it highlights the word as it reads and shows translation, making it easy to follow along.

Duoreader: a free basic app, has a few parallel language books for many languuages. It includes text to speech audio and click word translation. Excellent for free reading with parallel text set up.

Smart Book by Kursx (also under the name Parallel Translation of books by kursx on the app store): it uses mtl, but you can search for books or import books, and it will show sentence translations or make an entire parallel text for you, it also has click translations, word saving, progress information (which is motivating to me), and text to speech read aloud function. Its currently what i use the most for reading. Trahslations are as good as Lingq or Google Translate so NOT always reliable but useable and the sentence translation helps for figuring out grammar. But Pleco and Readibu have BETTER translations. For chinese this app is good, for japanese its useable if youre upper beginner but if you dont know basic grammar and particles then the japanese individual word translations are often wrong and unreliable - sentence long translations are useable though.

Tofugu: good hanzi study app.

Anki: great app especially if you import decks made by people around the internet. I look up decks by going to a search engine and typing in something like "4000 hanzi mnemonics anki deck" or "common chinese words in sentences anki deck." I have recommended some anki decks I've used on this blog. A tip about anki: their website works fine in mobile browsers, you do not have to pay for any app to use anki on your phone, you can just use the site if you'd prefer. For initial uploads of flashcard decks created by other users, you will need to install anki on a computer, then download the anki deck from the deck's page online, then put it into your computer anki program. After you do that, you can sync your computer anki to the website one. Then you can use anki either online or on the computer or on both. I use anki only on my phone mobile browser. It seems the main benefit of anki phone apps over using the internet mobile browser, is flashcards are easier to Make if you end up wanting to make your own anki flashcards on your phone.

Immersive Chinese: chinese lessons. I haven't used it much but I like the structure

Glossika: I specifically recommend getting the old cds, possibly through your library, or finding the mp3 files online. I think the audio files are easier if youre not good at focusing on consistently doing SRS flashcards, since spaced repetition study sentences are the new glossika model and require a monthly subscription. Plus side to the new model: most languages have around 6000 sentences where the old cd courses often had around 3000 sentences. Plus side to the old cds/mp3s: can be found in many libraries for free, and online, and if you do buy them theyre a one time cost. Excellent resource if you like audio review (i do), with common grammar and vocabulary taught. I like that even the 3000 word old courses will get you at least to upper beginner or lower intermediate, enough knowledge to start learning by reading or watching shows and looking words up, and enough words to have some conversations. Pimsleur is similar but tends to cover less vocabulary, so afterward you need to learn more words on your own before you can immerse and look up words to study.

Japaneseaudiolessons.com: a website with free japanese audio lessons, a free textbook, free notes. They also have nice kanji learning books with pre written mnemonics and sentence examples for sale.

Your local library: a lot of libraries have deals with language learning sites/apps, your specific library may provide some courses for free. In addition, apps Hoopla and Libby have a lot of courses and digital textbooks and audios you can check out. You can use those apps with a library card. If you are a college student, a lot of college ebook collections include MANY textbooks and independent study books for languages. Nearly every Tuttle book I got for studying Japanese and Chinese, I was able to check out the ebook version first using my college library and only bought those books because I ended up finding them so useful I wanted print copies. (For that matter, some under $20 dollar reference books I owe for teaching me hanzi and kanji: Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters: HSK Levels 1-3 - this book gave me a foundation in hanzi and was the easiest guide for learning hanzi for me and learning HOW to remember them. I found it more useful than Heisig's Remember the Kanji/Hanzi books by far, although they utilize a similat idea, and less effort to remember than Kodansha Kanji Learner's Guide - although I like that reference book as a reference. Runner up is Tuttle Learn Japanese Today: The Easy Way to Learn 400 Practical Kanji by Len Walsh. It was more basic than the hanzi book, less in depth, but a very approachable understandable and quick to learn kanji book to start out with when studying Japanese, that will not overwhelm you the way say Heisig or KKLG might. For hanzi I used my Learning Chinese Characters book for a few months, then an anki deck "hanzi 2000 mnemonics pinyin" while also just regularly looking up new words while reading graded readers then chinese show subtitles then webnovels, and making up my own mnemonics which got easier over time. For japanese, I followed up with a vocabulary deck as I found vocabulary easier to remember than isolated kanji, and kanji.koohi.com was a useful site for free user submitted mnemonics to remember kanji when I struggled to remember. Its also a good site for free flashcards and study of kanji generally.

ChinesePronunciationTrainer: a really simple free app. It's biggest usefulness is practicing pronunciation. You can record yourself trying to pronounce a sentence after hearing the chinese pronunciation, then play back your recorded attempt compared to the chinese pronunciation. The app makes shadowing easier to evaluate, so you can compare and notice if you're making pronunciation errors and work on them. It's also very simple low feature speaking practice.

LingoTube: free app, uses machine translation. If you want to watch youtube with dual subtitles, or click translations on subtitles, or instant replay/loop of dialogue lines, this is an app that can do that. Very useful for immersing with youtube videos like youtubers and shows on youtube.

Idiom app: it is orange with an i on the icon. Click skip for the "helm" offer when you first download it, helm is a paid add on for better translations and you may not want it right away. The core app is free (helm add on costs a subscription). This app is basically Lingq but free. Translation quality is the same, which appears to be google translate quality on Lingq and Idiom. So some errors, but useable especially as you hit upper beginner and above and can notice when you may want to reference a word in an external dictionary (like Pleco app for chinese, yomiwa app for japanese, etc).

Satori Reader: a graded reader app for japanese, absolutely amazing quality material. I recommend exploring the free content on the app. If you decide you'll use it a lot, or plan to get into a reading kick for a few months, it's worth getting a subscription for a while. I plan to get a subscription once I have the time to read japanese 1-2 hours a day for a few months. Satori Reader has tons of reading materials branching from approachable to an upper beginner (say you can read Yostuba manga a bit, or are in Genki 2, or know around 2000 words) to you're almost ready to read webnovels or regular japanese novels but the difficulty bump is just a Touch too steep. If you go through the various reading level material on the app, you shpuld be prepared to handle at least some japanese novels for natives once you can handle some of the higher reading level stuff on Satori Reader. In addition: the translations are done by professional translators with in depth notes on grammar points (incredibly useful and the best explanations on Japanese Graded Readers Ive used), fully narrated stories by real people, and many of the graded readers are designed to be enjoyable long reading material in their own right. There's also some multiple difficulty versions of reading material if you'd like to read an easier version before trying a more complex version of the same story. There is so much reading material on the app you can get significant practice and vocabulary/grammar improvement if you have time to read. I lnow a few people who got through a few hundred+ chapters on this app, and generally they went from N4 or N3 reading level to N2 or N1. Then they transitioned to reading novels for natives. As far as high quality well made well explained plentiful graded reading material for japanese, this is one of the best resources I've found. (The other 2 great graded readers I have are textbooks, one being a Tuttle Read Japanese book that goes from basics through to being able to read 2000 kanji, newspapers and documents, formal and informal, and is dry af to read but generally leaves you fairly prepared for japanese reading, and a more basic Beginning Japanese Reading book thats part of a 4 part textbook collection and absolutely drills the basic 500 most common kanji and many words, hiragana and katakana and many words in them, for 500 or so pages).

Microsoft Edge. I know, weird. Edge on computer and mobile internet browser has a Read Aloud tool. It is the best sounding text to speech Ive heard. This Read Aloud tool is also in Microsoft Word if you copy paste text into Word. I find going to sites in my target language, and using the Read Aloud tool, is a nice way to get audio in with my reading when I can't find an audiobook. The tool also highlights the word as it reads, helping you keep up with the reading, and for me it helps improve my reading speed. In addition, ANY web browser (and any phone/tablet Reader app like Kindle, Moonreader, Kybooks etc.) often has the ability to click or tap or highlight a word to look up the translation. So when reading on any of those internet browsers/Readers, you can look up words just like you would on Lingq but free.

Japanese.io: a site with japanese graded reading material, and tools like click translation and saving words.

https://www.sosekiproject.org/about.html If you like the author Soseki, this site is awesome. It features full audio of his works, full parallel text translation, and individual word translation.