#facts about writing

[novlr]

[sp0o0kylights]

“Dustin isn’t coming.”

“What?” Eddie says, all frantic and jovial movements freezing instantly.

His eyes narrow on Lucas--the bearer of bad news. “Why?” 

“Family emergency.” 

Mike makes a face. “I saw his mom yesterday and she was fine, so is this a…?” 

He makes a gesture that is entirely incomprehensible to anyone who isn’t Sinclair and his terrifying girlfriend.

(At least, Eddie thinks Max is Lucas’s girlfriend this week. It got a little hard to keep up after the third break-up-make-up marathon, and he frankly, stopped bothering to try.

It helped that she barely spoke--The only time notable being when Eddie had mockingly asked Sinclair if he needed a cheerleader when she’d first sat in, upon which she’d asked Eddie if he needed new kneecaps with a look in her eye that said she was serious.)

Wheeler Jr.’s gesture however, made her put her book down.

“You think he’s having migraines again?” She not so much asked as demanded, which had Mike shrugging. 

“Dunno." Lucas says. "Dustin didn’t say.” 

“Gotta be, if he called Dustin.” Mike mutters, Lucas shuffling his papers about as he begins to set up for Hellfire. He was the last in the room, practically late, which Eddie had planned on harassing him for had he not announced Henderson’s absence. 

(Fucking freshmen. They just weren’t terrified of Eddie like they used to be.) 

 “Robin must be sick or something, otherwise he’d call her.”  Lucas finishes as he finally sits down. 

“Didn’t the Marching Band go on some trip?” Mike turns to address the rest of the table, and gets nods from Jeff and Gareth both. 

“Yeah they’re marching in some parade in Indianapolis.” Jeff confirms. 

“So his last resort was Dustin?” Max is getting that tone in her voice, the one that makes everyone at Hellfire very uncomfortable. “Typical.” 

She pushes away from the table, making a show of gathering up her things before rising easily to her feet.

Eddie trades looks with the elder Hellfire members as she makes her exit--the kind that says they’re all going to be talking about this later. 

They knew their freshmen had some weird obsession with the former King, of course, but Mayfield too?

What the hell was up with that guy?

At least Eddie thinks, right before things are once again shot to shit, they can go back to playing the game.

He can make it work this early into things, and if Henderson isn't’ a fan of what he’s about to do to the kid’s character in his absence, well. 

Maybe he shouldn’t be fucking absent then. 

“So what, Max, you're gonna go over there and make it worse?” Mike snorts. 

Fatal mistake.

Eddie almost strangles him for it, if only because it prolongs this entire unnecessary conversation. 

Max performs a military perfect heel turn, coming straight back for Wheeler Jr., which makes him right about fall out of his seat in panic. 

“What was that, Wheeler?” 

“I’m just saying--!” 

“We don’t know Steve’s having migraines.” Lucas reiterates, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Maybe it’s something else.” 

“Does Steve get migraines a lot?” Grant asks, because despite all appearances he’s a terrible gossip and gets sucked in far too easily.

Eddie throws a pencil at him for it. 

“Hel-looo, we have a game!?” He thunders, but unfortunately for him, precious Stevie-Weavies headache now has everyone’s attention. 

“Yeah, though he’s really good at pretending he doesn’t.” Lucas answers with a put upon sigh. 

“There’s a whole pattern--he ignores it until it gets super bad, then he has to call Robin or Dustin to come get him when he inevitably gets stranded at work or the like, grocery store.” 

“Well who else do you think he’d call?” Mike scoffs again. He does a lot of that, when discussing Harrington. “It’s not like his parents are--Ow, Max!” 

“Close your mouth before I close it for you.” She hisses and Mike, shockingly, does just that. 

To Eddie, she says; 

“Your ass isn’t any better, or did you forget I live across from you?” 

Eddie--who had an insult primed and ready--promptly shuts his mouth.

(Fucking! Asshole! Freshmen!) 

“Maybe I should go too.” Lucas says, hedging a look between his girlfriend and his DM. 

“No.” She snaps, pointing a finger at him.

 “If you go, then this idiot,” she flicks her finger to  Mike, “will go and then we really will make it worse. Stay here before your bichon frise has a fit about all his sheep abandoning him.”

Then she’s turning on her heel again, storming out. 

“What the hell’s a bichon frisé?” Gareth asks in the aftermath, frowning. 

“It’s a type of ahhhh--” Jeff clearly thinks better of the explanation, eyes sliding to Eddie.

Who’s scowling.

“I know what a bichon frisé is, Jeff.” He snaps. 

“I don’t.” Grant loudly complains. 

Jeff attempts to both calm Eddie and explain while Mike and Lucas spend far too many minutes looking after Max. 

“Enough!” Eddie howls, temper finally getting the best of him. “Are we playing or do you also need to go sit by the King’s bedside?”  

“Thank you,” Mike says, like he wasn’t a third of the entire problem. “Let’s play!”

They make it about ten entire minutes before getting knocked off track again. 

In fairness, not that Eddie would ever admit it--the second meltdown is his own fault.

xXx

Hellfire is Eddie’s domain. 

It’s one of the few places where he could relax without getting harassed or hounded, and having his freshmen--his!--abandon him for King Fucking Steve had set him off. 

So he’d made a few comments about it.

Maybe introduced an NPC who sounded suspiciously similar to Harrington, only to instantly kill him off. 

Made another couple of nasty comments. 

Who cares? It worked him through his snit rather nicely, and his boys all knew to leave him be.

Except, apparently, for Lucas. 

“Dude, would you lay off?”  The kid finally snaps, pencil slamming down on the table. 

Which is the most backbone-like thing anyone has ever heard Sinclair say, and he gets far more whistles for it than he should.

Eddie pins him in place with a glare. 

“What was that Sinclair?” He snarls, voice as menacing as he can make it.

(It’s pretty terrifying, he’s practiced quite a bit with it.) 

Sinclair flinches, but doesn’t back down. 

“I said lay off. Steve has migraines because of--” He stops, before seeming to come to a decision. “Because of me. He took a hit for me, and I owe him a life debt for it.” 

To Eddie, he says; “You get what those are, right?” 

Mike rolls his eyes. “It wasn’t just for you--”

“That time with Billy was!” Lucas is quick to snarl. “But you know what Mike, you’re right. It wasn’t just for me. He T-boned a car for all of us!” 

Sinclaire is on his feet now, which is the unfortunate moment that Eddie realizes he has once again lost control of the room. 

A situation he firmly blames on Steve Harrington, because he’s petty. 

“Or did you forget that part? That’s you, me, Will, Nancy and Jonathan right there! Nevermind the tunnel. Or the junkyard! 

“We had the junkyard handled--”

Lucas scoffs. 

“We absolutely did not.” 

“I don’t get why you’re all making such a big deal out of this. He’s the fighter. That’s what he does. That’s why we brought him to the tunnel.”

“You recall what happened at Starcourt, right?” Lucas challenges, furious. “You did see him after, right?” 

This, finally, seems to shut Mike up. 

“Shouldn’t you be mad at him for that?” He says after a moment, and the rest of Hellfire has completely put aside all actual gaming to watch this play out with a morbid sort of fascination. 

Eddie allows it, only because he’s trying to breathe the way Wayne taught him to before he loses it entirely and throws both of the idiot kids out of the drama room. 

“He pulled your sister into it.”

“Have you met Erica!? You can’t pull her into shit!” Lucas spits furiously. “That wasn’t D&D, Mike. It was the Upsi--real life.” 

Lucas is quick to correct himself, even in the heat of the moment--as all the kids are, like the entire school hasn’t clocked that they have some weird ass secret they’re terrible at hiding.

“And if we’re playing those games, then who pulled him into the tunnels? Who made him come to the junkyard?”

“Dustin.” Mike says snidely. 

“You don’t get to blame Dustin when Steve was the only person around.” 

“There were people around! They just weren’t people who--weren’t--who couldn’t--”

“Finish that sentence.” Lucas demands 

“Be trusted.” Mike spits out, like it hurts him. 

“Exactly.” 

“El went through way more than Steve ever has! El--”

“El was using her po--doing mage things! And also, she shouldn’t have had to go through all this shit either! We can’t rely on her to save the day every single time, Mike--and look at how hurt she gets!”

“She--”

“She hides it from you, you know. How bad she hurts. Cause she wants to put your feelings first.” 

“I--”

“Will does too.”  Is Lucas’s parting shot. His backpack is in his hands in a blink, papers and character figure shoved wildly into it, before he’s storming out the door in a poor mimicry of Mayfield.

“Harrington T-Boned a car?” Grant says, in the resounding silence. 

“That BMW of his hasn’t had a scratch on it--” Jeff says, with an inquisitive tilt to his head. 

“He didn’t use the Beamer.” Mike interrupts, angry and sulking. “Are we playing or not?”

“I’m gonna say not, given we are down two players.’ Eddie tells him through clenched teeth. 

“I’m going to be so mad if Steve doesn’t have a migraine.” Mike grumbles, as he begins packing up his stuff. 

The rest of Hellfire follow his lead, after one look at Eddie’s face convince the lot of them that it’s best to flee now, before Eddie unleashes all his pent up rage. 

“Not as mad as I’ll be, Wheeler.” Eddie promises darkly.

And it is a promise--because now, he’s going to follow all his stupid (sans Mike, who isn’t in his good graces either but at least stayed) freshmen--and go visit one fallen King.

If Harrington doesn’t have a headache now, he will when Eddie’s done with him.

[druid-for-hire]

hawkeye and trapper get fake septums

(id under the cut)

[image id: a three-page digital comic about characters from the TV show MASH, illustrated by "druid-for-hire." On page 1, frank burns squints at Hawkeye from a short distance, who is next to Trapper, who is reading a newspaper that obscures his face. "Pierce," Burns asks, "what's on your face?" Hawkeye turns to face him, revealing a septum piercing. "what's what, Frank?" he asks. Shocked and affronted by this breach in army regulations, he shouts, "I can't!! Believe you!! It's not enough for you to disagrace the army uniform by being out of it all the time? You have to go and--and do that! You look like a punk! Or a cow!"

On page 2, Hawkeye, unbothered, replies "Y'know, Frank, I'm finally living up to the Pierce name. I was thinking about going for some ear tag earrings. Maybe I can get a nurse to pull my udders." Frank howls, "That's disgusting!" Turning to Trapper he shouts, "Did you have anything to do with this, McIntyre?" Trapper pulls down the newspaper to reveal that he's wearing three septum rings and says, "I sure did! He stole my look!"

On page 3, Frank says "You're both terrible. Both of your butts are going on report!" while Hawkeye takes out his apparently fake septum ring behind his back. "Report for what, Frank?" he asks; Frank turns to see that the piercing is now missing. "Yeah, what's the matter, Frank?" Trapper says, whose piercing is suddenly missing as well. Frank storms off, yelling "Neither of you can pull the wool over my eyes!! Just wait until General Barker hears about this!" Some time later, Frank is standing next to General Barker, pointing at Hawk. "General, I'm telling you, the hole is THERE!" he shouts. "Go and take a look in those nostrils for yourself!" There is a long and awkward pause. The General did not like that. Hawkeye remarks, "Gee Frank, take a girl to dinner first." end id]

[why-is-it-always-autumn]

Love a self-inflicted time loop. The main character isn’t trapped.  They can stop whenever they want.  But how can they when things aren’t perfect yet?  They can do better than this.  They need to try again.  They can get it right this time.  They just need to try again.  They can stop anytime they want.  Just one more time.  They can fix this. They just need to try again.  There are still things to fix.  They just need to try again.

[tarvek-sturmvoraus]

bats: tim are you going to tell us anything you did while searching for bruce tim: not unless everyone gets real cool about a bunch of stuff really quickly

[essektheylyss]

the visceral gut drop of "—and in his place is a gently floating male drow—" vs the absolute giddy high of "—who is no longer Seth. Instead you see, a dark elf—" like, Essek Thelyss really is narratively That Bitch and he sure knows how to make a fucking entrance

[starry-bi-sky]

Incorrect Quotes for the Blood Blossom Au - DPXDC

Original Post Context Here but TL:DR - Vlad poisons (orphan) Danny with blood blossom. He runs off, finds Pre-Robin Battinson, Battinson saves his life. Danny is currently staying with him until the time being. Batdad all around, found family, woo!

————————

Bruce after giving Danny an antidote: poof. Just like that, the toxin’s gone

Blood Blossom, not gone just sedated: wrong! toxin’s right here you fucking brussel sprout

————————

Vlad at a gala while his godson is (allegedly) missing: Mister Wayne! A pleasure to meet you, I wanted to speak with you about hopefully setting up a deal between our brands—

Battinson, currently housing his (allegedly) missing godson: I don’t like you.

Vlad: —and it’d be a— i’m sorry?

Battinson, louder: I don’t. Like. You.

Vlad:

Bruce:

Vlad: If you could tell me what I did to offend you--

Battinson, with the intensity of a thousand suns: No.

————————

Danny: 🧿🧿

Bruce: 🧿🧿

Danny: 🧿🧿

Alfred, in the corner: Can you two socialize like normal people

————————

Danny: gun to your head, who would you rather kiss: riddler or the joker

Bruce:

Bruce: gun to my head?

Danny: gun to your head, yes.

Bruce, without missing a beat: pull the trigger

————————

Danny (is currently unaware Bruce = Bruce Wayne): hey Vlad's planning on poaching Mr. Wayne's company out from underneath his nose, would you be able to prevent Mr. Wayne from making any deals with him? Or just in general from being alone with him?

Bruce, realizing Danny doesn't know he's Bruce Wayne:

Bruce: ...yes.

————————

(Danny and Bruce are leaving Wayne Enterprises, Danny is wearing a face mask and obscuring most of his identity. There's a swarm of paparazzi at the doors)

Bruce:

Danny:

Danny: there's an open window on the first floor bathroom

Bruce, immediately turning on his heel: mh. mhm.

————————

Aunt Alicia:

Bruce:

Aunt Alicia:

Bruce:

Bruce 🤝 Aunt Alicia: "Vlad Masters can go fuck himself" club

————————

Bonus! Because looking at it makes me giggle and I think it needs to be shared

POV: You're Alfred living with two of the most socially awkward people in Gotham. Now with biblically accurate heights!

[bluerosefox]

Gray and Graysons

One of the Bats has a secret. Something they never told to the others.

They were so very young but they have memories of a sibling, so small and tiny. They remember the burst of warmth they had in their heart when they held the tiny baby for just a moment.

But they weren’t allowed to keep them, their family couldn’t raise them. Money was tight, just enough for three but not for four, despite their shows always bringing in a crowd it was getting harder and harder for the world to be wowed by them in the new age and their sibling was too small and tiny and needed to be cared in a single place than for them to be on the road. Their lifestyle was not good for his tiny sibling apparently.

They had to watch as their parents gave his sibling away to people in suits, them promising to give his baby brother to a loving family when they find a ‘home’ for him. He watched his parents try to be strong only for his mother to break down once the car left down the road, his father holding her and apologizing, the rest of the circus troupe all silently coming over to give the heartbroken family condolences.

Richard ‘Dick’ Grayson had tears running down his face when he last saw his baby brother.

A brother he got to name before he had to be given away.

Daniel ‘Danny’ Grayson.

-x-x-

Dick never told the others. If anyone dug deep into his past they might find his brother’s birth records maybe, if someone got around to digitizing the paperwork for him but given the fact he was placed in the US childcare systems just a few days after his birth and the fact that Dick was still pretty young they most likely believed he didn’t remember his baby brother now. Not after so many years.

But they were wrong, Dick remembers. And he kept the secret close to his heart and memories.

And the only physical evidence he had was a single picture of him holding his brother, a smile on his tiny face towards their father who had taken the photo of them together. When he had lost his parents, lost most of the things that connected him to them, to his past in the circus that had been his whole life, had been taken from him in Gotham’s ruthless childcare system, he held on tight to the picture in secret. Hid it away from anyone trying to rip it from him, hid it from Bruce when the man took him in days later, hid it from Alfred despite how gentle the butler was towards him. He couldn’t, wouldn’t risk losing his photo at the time, he hadn’t trusted anyone and by the time he did he didn’t have the heart to reveal it.

So yes, the existence of his baby brother Danny was his most guarded and best kept secret.

So that’s why Dick, as Nightwing, nearly died from a heart attack when leaving a Justice League meeting he spotted a familiar face among one of the new engineers working in the Watchtower.

It was like seeing a young version of himself. Only, Dick could see that the young man was more than a copy of him, so much more than a clone. He held many traces of John Grayson but also had a bit more of Mary Grayson than Dick did. Small details that Dick foggely remembers taking note when he had held his baby brother.

“Hey, hurry up with that report Gray!” Shouted the head engineer from down the hall, his hand beckoning the young adult to come over.

“Coming! And boss, I told you Danny is fine!” Danny shouted back before hurriedly leaving a stunned Nightwing.

[pockyandsoda]

me, while watching any star trek ds9 season one episode that isnt episode 3: yes yes this is all very fascinating, but what is mr garak up to i wonder?

[novlr]

[matchingbatbites]

"What the fuck did you do?"

Eddie wasn't expecting hostility when he answered Jeff's phone call, his best friend's usual calm demeanor replaced with open annoyance. And yeah, okay, the annoyance itself wasn’t new, but Eddie doesn’t think he’s actually done anything recently to earn it.

"Well-"

"Actually, no. I'll tell you what you did. You retweeted photos of Steve Harrington - internationally beloved heartthrob actor Steve Harrington - along with the caption 'not to sound like a subby slut but GOD I would be his puppy baby boy in a heartbeat'. So I guess the better question is, what the fuck were you thinking, Eddie?"

Eddie's jaw clicks shut because- yeah, he had done that. Had seen those photos of Steve smoking circling the internet and spent god knows how long just staring at them, had curbed the desire to shove his hand down his pants by posting a single thirst tweet about it.

“I was thinking, Jeff, that I'm allowed to post whatever I want to my private fucking twitter, man. I mean it's a free country, isn't a guy allowed to make a horny tweet about a sexy man every now and then?”

“You are, when you actually post it to your private account and not our award winning band's main account.”

No. Oh no. There's no way Eddie actually-

He rips his phone away from his face to open twitter, and realizes two things simultaneously. One, Jeff is right, he had posted it to the band's account. Not on his private, locked, personal account, but on the account that's actually open and free for literally anyone on earth to look at.

The second thing he realizes is that their notifications are currently flooded with responses to Eddie's tweet, somehow racking up into the thousands in the few hours it's been since. 

Jesus Christ.

“Eddie?”

The metalhead jerks back into the moment and put Jeff on speaker so he can scroll through the horde of replies, says “Fuck, I fucked up. Are we gonna have to do damage control on this?”

In the mess is a reply from Gareth's own personal account: @ corrodededdie stop tweeting from the band account challenge 🙄🙄🙄

”Maybe. There hasn't been any type of response from Harrington or his people, but they might ask us to take it down if it blows up too much.“

Eddie hums, thinking they might be too little, too late about it blowing up too much, and flips over to his main account so he can reply to Gareth's little jab appropriately. He isn't surprised to see that he has a couple of new messages, probably from other people wondering just what the fuck Eddie was thinking, but when he goes to check them-

He's never been happier that he turned on messages from followers only, because then he would have missed this, missed Steve Harrington's little profile picture beaming up at him from the screen of his phone, along with a new message request.

”Jeff, I gotta go,” he says, not even realizing he's cut the other man off.

“Eddie, what-

”Harrington messaged me. I'll call you back.“

Eddie doesn't wait for a response as he hangs up on Jeff, and his hands definitely aren't shaking as he opens the message from Steve. And listen- Eddie is a fan of the guy, that much should be obvious. 

Steve had grown in popularity around the same time Corroded Coffin had; he’d gotten some part in a drama film that had skyrocketed him into stardom, and Eddie fell in love the moment he saw that gorgeous face on the silver screen for the first time. He's never had a chance to interact with the guy, has been in the same place a few times but always missed him, like ships passing in the night, but Eddie's been fine with pining from afar, just like every other person on the planet that's even remotely attracted to men.

Besides, even with how popular Corroded Coffin has gotten over the years - a couple of Grammy’s here, a dozen chart topping metal songs there - Eddie doesn’t expect Steve to just. Know who Eddie is.

With all of this in mind, Eddie is expecting some kind of semi-casual request to take the tweet down, that it's not a good look for his image-

Anything other than what Steve actually sent.

'If you're puppy baby boy, does that make me Master? Or Daddy?'

And Eddie- 

Eddie slides down, sinks into his couch cushion as all of the blood in his body suddenly shifts, rushing to fill his dick like it's a fucking race. The phone almost slips out of his hand and he fumbles it briefly before taking a deep breath. 

Is Steve serious? He wouldn't send that if he wasn't serious, right?

This could be it, could be Eddie's one chance to impress Steve, to get his foot in the door of Steve's interest. He bites his lip and types out a reply, something quick that he sends before he can change his mind.

‘I’m open to either, actually. Do you have a preference, sir?’

He doesn’t expect the typing indicator to come up immediately, and just knowing that Steve is somewhere right now, typing out a response to Eddie, is enough to have him nearly vibrating in his seat.

‘I’m partial to Daddy, myself.’

Fuck fuck fuck.

Eddie takes a breath, tries to think of a response that isn’t just ‘Please, Daddy, can I sit on your massive dick that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since that one indie film you did that just had all of your junk out in the open?’

Steve saves him by sending another message.

‘But maybe we could start with Steve, and possibly dinner? Though I’d be happy to see where things go after that.’

He- What-

Eddie must have stopped breathing, because the next time he takes a breath his lungs burn, his mid races because there’s no way Eddie’s long term celebrity crush just asked him on a date. He sits there long enough that the screen goes dark and he scrambles to turn it back on, sees the message still there, real and unchanged.

There’s no way he can say no to this, to Steve, and his hands shake as he types out a response.

‘Dinner would be great. Just name the time and place, Daddy.’

[katabay]

ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WAS A KNIGHT...

the visual inspiration for this was a combination of Frederic William Burton's Meeting on the Turret Stairs and also Bernardo Cavallino's The vision of St. Dominic receiving the Rosary from the Virgin

this was supposed to be just a one off illustration to get the thoughts out of my system, but then I started thinking about medieval politics and warfare and plagues and a castle and home as both a place of refuge, a prison, and a tomb, so perhaps they will end up as ex voto characters as well.

you may say, hey! that rosary looks like it has too many beads! it's a fifteen decade rosary, probably. dominicans are really into marian devotions. it works out.

also. spiral style stair cases. oh boy. it was that unexpectedly more difficult than I originally thought it would be to draw. the more I think about it, the less I understand them, even though I had a million photos of the stairs in front of me while I was drawing it.

⭐ I have a tip jar (ko-fi)!

⭐ and other places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app

[calethescammer]

One of my favourite brain rotting tcf ideas is Cale having some tremor disorder. Basically, he has hands that randomly tremble without any reason.

It may be genetic to him, or he developed it as Cale because of not eating his meals properly and inevitably developing some vitamin deficiency.

Now comes the best part.

Imagine Cale, perhaps in some really gruesome battle, with blood of enemies and allies mixed around him. Imagine his family seeing Cale's stoic face, wondering how a person so young can be so brave, and then they see his hands shaking under his raven coat, even as they're curled tightly into a fist.

Imagine Cale looking at Jour's portrait, admiring her beauty and her alike face with his own. But then his family sees him, his gaze fixated on his mother's image and his hands trembling slightly.

Imagine him, standing at the forefront of some battle with his shields raised, with his hands trembling uncontrollably, even though he is not straining himself. The people protected under him can only tear up at his selflessness.

Imagine Cale after attacking the enemies with a wave of firebolts, but his hands again started shaking badly, even if he has them covered under his sleeves. His family misunderstands that as Cale hiding his pain.

Imagine Cale, resting on a couch after some battle, and when Raon, On and Hong excitedly climb upon his lap, he only smiles slightly and pats them with his trembling hands. The kids then worriedly inform Ron of this and Cale recieves sweet lemon tea for a whole week.

Imagine Cale talking about territory matters with Alberu, and Alberu is once again amazed by his dongsaeng's witty and almost experienced approaches to problems like war. But then he sees Cale's hands shaking while holding the tea cup, and he realises how absolutely not normal it is to not be nervous in such a situation. (Alberu later pledges to himself to give Cale the slacker life he always wished for.)

Just imagine Cale in any situation with trembling hands and it literally creates the most hilarious misunderstandings with some really wonderful angst.

[vagueconfusion]

Feeling real ridiculous for not having realized that Baron's "stark father" was the Nightmare King until now

[andhumanslovedstories]

I've been running this writing experiment lately to cut out phrases like "I felt" in my fiction writing. Like I was looking at a sentence in a draft that said, "he felt as if character's eyes were pinning him in place." And then I was like, "well, does he think that or is it true? As a result of this person watching him, he's froze. It's not like a thing, it is that thing."

Oh and "almost"! I'm always going, "He felt almost relieved that it hadn't happened." Well, did he feel better that it didn't happen or didn't he? Or "somewhat", I'm always going, "she felt somewhat perturbed."

And like none of that is wrong, to be clear. I don't know if it'd improve your writing, I don't even know if it'll improve my writing, but I use this sentence structure all the time so every viewpoint is from a voice that thinks about what it thinks, hedges its statements, and offers the same ability for wry little jokes formatted in the exact same way. And I have a lot of writing like that and I think (!) that they're good, but read as a whole, I'm like, "god, they all sound the same." Like there's one melody that I write songs to, so even with different lyrics, it's almost (!) the same song. Something I've been struggling with in regards to my writing and why I've felt so blocked is how boring I found writing my usual way. I'd read something and enjoy the individual parts of it, but then I'd step back and I didn't like the whole. And I got good at this enough at seeing that I didn't like it to do it in real time as I was writing, which as you can imagine didn't improve the process of writing because now I was bored AND dejected about being bored.

There's this sentence-level structure fact that I use unconsciously. A pattern I find easy is short sentence, short sentence, short sentence, long sentence. So I write that. "He [verbed]. He [verbed]. Then he [verbed]. As he [verbed] to his [consequence], he [verbed] that [noun] was [statement of condition]." Which could work, it often does make for a nice rhythm, but it's something I reach for often because it's easier for me.

Just last sentence, I originally typed, "I find it easier for me." But if what I mean is "using this pattern is less effort than another pattern," then it's easier for me. One voice is hedging its bets and the other asserting. Either is fine! But they're different! And, again, GOD you would not believe how many words I've cut out of this paragraph as I write it. I'm so chatty. I love using twelve words when six will do. And that gives my writing a specific tone to my ear.

So if I am bored of that tone, why not try using just the six words? Why be understated? Why be afraid of stronger opinions? So right now with my fiction, I'm experimenting with cutting out as many self-reflective words as I can. Sometime you do need to draw attention to the face that this is the character's interpretation, but like you definitely don't need to do it as much as I naturally want to do it. You don't need to always go out of your way to allow the possibility that the narrative voice is wrong. During editing, I trim the weaker ones (I originally typed, "what I consider the weaker ones" Is that more accurate?). But I think them being there in the first place shifts my language which shifts my character's which shifts my plot. It's sentence structure all the way down!!

(this barely applies to my writing on here, btw. i try to do good but yknow this is a tumblr blog. i'm not trying to get a lit mag to accept it.)

Anyway blah blah (chatty!) the point is I've been trying to write in a way opposite of my interests. Something that doesn't take itself too seriously, that emphasizes EMOTION and ACTION instead of minimizing it, and that clips through scenes at a good pace. Doing this been amazingly fun. I've been having such a good time doing it. I am writing so much because I really enjoy doing it. The process of writing is so fun again.

This post is about two things. One is my new mood stabilizer and therapy day camp. The other is about the benefit of pretending to be MXTX.

[lucabyte]

A belief in Nominative Determinsim