#it's so much harder than prose? which is not easy to start with

[rainhalydia]

I decided to write poetry, and then immediately remembered that I actually hate writing poetry.

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia! I was curious, as I understand, this story was written long time ago? Did you edit it with almost 10 years of practice on writing since 2014 now? And more in general, do you feel like writing is easier or not withos much practice (I read about smut, that it is harder now, but in general - worldbuilding, character creation and so on) ?

Hi hi anon!

Yeah the story was first drafted in 2014, and has gone through big edits since then (the latest being 2017, though I did some cursory stuff this year as well to just double check that it's not terrible).

Tbh, prior to 2014 I was writing like... very serious award winning short stories with tragic endings and winning awards for them, so I'm moderately confident the story is readable. I've been writing novels (for fun mostly) since 1995. And I have a university education in writing that started in 1999.

My fanfiction/serial style is very different to my 'I'm writing a book / I'm writing a short story' style.

I think it will feel different to my serials because I wrote it like a book, there's less sprawling character exploration, and the pacing is much, much tighter. There's a lot more focus on plot, and folks used to my serials might feel like the story ends really quickly! Because it's like much shorter (100k) than my serials.

If anything, I think these are the things to watch out for in Tradewinds:

100k novel means much tighter pacing and prose, and often very little time for too much character reflection.

Possibly not as much character exploration as people are used to from me (though there's still some!)

More plotting

Less smut, and the smut is also more 'vanilla' than what I normally write, because at the time I was a lot more wary about putting BDSM into the market. There are power dynamics though (i.e. a vibe where one character 'feels' more submissive to the other)

Robust scene-setting (i.e. description, place, anchoring)

Lively dialogue

I actually think I was probably a better literary writer back in the 00s but it wasn't much fun for me. I quit writing for a while and then picked it back up again to write fanfiction, which was easier and more relaxed for me. (And still is! The Ice Plague is an exception to that because it had more robust plotting and was structure more...formally.)

I honestly think writing gets easier or harder depending on the project and writing style involved.

Some writing gets easier with time, some doesn't. Sometimes that will flip or switch. Sometimes one thing is easy for years and then becomes harder with certain stories.

It was Gene Wolfe who said:

"You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing."

And yeah, I tend to believe for the most part that's true with how hard or easy something is. How ambitious a project is, its genre, its length, its complexity can all play into that.

I pick easier projects as my main projects right now, but I have hard projects coming up too!

I would say overall writing does become "easier" in the sense that foundational skills become second nature (I know how to build a character and their dialogue now without thinking about it, and while there's always more to learn, I can now start in a place of just knowing how to do that instead of knowing I need to learn how to do that), but that the stories themselves will still pose unique challenges to a writer.

Er so TL;DR yes writing for me is easier but I'm choosing easier things to write, and sometimes it's still very hard!!!

[ilikereadingactually]

Craft: Stories I Wrote For the Devil

Craft: Stories I Wrote For the Devil by Ananda Lima

i don't have the physical book in front of me so i don't know who it was, but i have to start by just kissing the person who designed this cover so noisily on the cheek like an overly familiar auntie. i fucking love this cover so much, and it makes me have just the tiniest sliver of regret that i never got into book design like i thought i wanted to in grad school.

whew, glad i got that out of the way. now i can just scream like a tea kettle about how incredible this book is. i'm not even sure where to start. the prose is so easy, as in Lima makes it look easy, it's the reading equivalent of sinking into a hot tub. and even better, it's not actually a light read—Craft presents stories within stories, each with elements of magical realism, each connected by Brazilian immigrant experiences: those of "the writer," a recurring character of the frame narrative, and those of the characters she writes. the outermost layers of this onion of stories also feature frequent encounters with the Devil—flirtatious, world-weary, magical, tender. exactly the best kind of Devil, imo, and his mild interventions delighted me every time.

also, the section that was just feedback the writer received from peers in a writing workshop, about a story we only get to know through that feedback, made me laugh harder than i have in ages. i'm SUPER EXCITED about my upcoming workshop experience and don't anticipate the feedback being comically oblivious, but that section of Craft did bring me right back to every creative writing class i took in college. just so, so keenly observed. fantastic!

the deets

how i read it: an e-galley from NetGalley, which i'm only a little bit behind on this time! i'm definitely buying this book asap, i'd love to actually mark it up with some tabs to really study how the structure is working.

try this if you: love magical realism, dig a nuanced perspective on immigrant experiences, have ever been in a writing group, or think Lucifer actually did nothing wrong.

some bits i really liked: i'm just a big fan of his

The Devil looked around the living room with a face that said, "Not bad." The Devil, who had been forever banished from home with nothing but a condemned soul, for reasons she couldn't quite make sense of, after trying Saint Augustine, Wikipedia, and even the Bible.

___

The writer narrowed her eyes at him but smiled. The Devil sat down where the man had been. The AC was suddenly working again, and the Devil's warmth was pleasant. The air smelled faintly of someone freshly showered, a little like Peter, a subtle soapy sweetness. The Devil's legs were nicely contained within the boundaries of his own seat. She wanted to hug him but couldn't. She said he looked good.

___

Now at the DMV, he looked at her book sitting on her lap and raised his eyebrow with a suspicious expression. He asked if she had to be into that stuff, might he suggest Nyssa or, more recently, Kotsko, the romantics, or so many others instead of that guy—he pointed to Saint Augustine on the cover with a bitter expression.

pub date: June 18, 2024! seriously go get this book it's a stunner!

[jariktig]

Hello there! If you have time I have a lot of asks!!! (If you wish I'm including the wips)

👻 What is your wildest headcanon?

🔥 Have you included any sexy scenes in your fics? If yes, do you find them easy or difficult to write?

💡How many WIPs do you currently have?

💛 What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned about writing?

🎨 If someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see?

👻 What is your wildest headcanon?

I don't think I have properly outre headcanons of my very own; I mostly take other people's (your M has a Thing for electricity; for example, or the purely brilliant one about autobot/decepticon scientific conventions and administrative systems having diverged so far they're mutually more-or-less inoperable) and wander off in slightly tangential directions from those... That said, some of my small silly things include:

In any post-war universe there is a cadre of unfortunate bureaucrats whose job it is to deliver the policy the canonical leaders create; some of them are going to have to give MegOP (or whichever ntuple of canon characters you care to imagine running the place; other ships are definitely available) the Talk on why it is not kind to one's staff to frag in the office.

In any poet!Megatron variation, he really ought to write formal as well as free verse, and to communicate just as deceptively/manipulatively in that format as he does in spoken or written prose...

🔥 Have you included any sexy scenes in your fics? If yes, do you find them easy or difficult to write?

Yes, in that they're planned in; no, in that I've not yet got any to a publishable state. Which answers the second question, I guess...

💡How many WIPs do you currently have?

Depends a bit on how you count them. More than a dozen, anyway.

💛 What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned about writing?

How very much harder fiction is than non-fiction, given where I'm starting from in terms of practice. Which is blindingly obvious in retrospect, but it totally threw me to start with. Also decepti-thots' advice about reading widely, which I think is the thing that has helped me most by sheer good luck.

🎨 If someone were to make fanart of your work, what fic or scene would you hope to see?

I suspect this is much like commissioning art/prompting fic/etc, in that people's responses to one's ideas are always not what one expected and absolutely brilliant. So whatever generates the most interesting response, I guess. If forced to say something more specific - any of the Jazz/Megatron stuff I've not yet actually posted, because that would create more propaganda for my cause...

[gwaeddblaidd]

First time answering a @writing-wednesday question:

Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

It's a longer excerpt, hence the cut, but due to the way I write it's hard to share a short dialogue excerpt. This fic, especially, is very prose-heavy; written in the first-person present tense, a lot of sensory description is used. As a result, dialogue scenes tend to be a lot longer than usual.

I chose this scene because it was the first scene in which I wrote extended dialogue for Wednesday herself. I find that one of the biggest challenges I face when writing fanfiction is getting characters' speech styles right, especially when it comes to characters who have especially distinctive ways of talking.

Wednesday is well-spoken but blunt, and it can be easy to overexaggerate these features. I'm happy with how everything sounds when it comes to the dialogue in this scene; I can imagine the characters actually saying the words, without it sounding like a fanfic, if that makes sense.

With all that said, I'm looking forward to answering more questions in the future! I might have to go through the backlog, actually...

Excerpt follows:

---

I awaken with a start, jolting upright with such speed that it feels like I give myself whiplash. My head pounds and my sides ache, but more than anything I’m left with the uncomfortable feeling that I’m forgetting something. I grumble and groan and raise my hand to rub my sore neck, but find myself pausing. My claws are at least half extended and threads of colourful fabric hang from my fingers. I bury my face in my hands; I don’t want to see the damage I’ve done to the bed.

“You whimper in your sleep,” a voice from across the room says, “like a kicked puppy.”

The voice makes me jump and my body tenses up. I slowly turn to my left, my hands sheepishly falling from my face and revealing my shame. My eyes open tentatively and settle on those of Wednesday Addams, standing next to her desk with arms crossed in front of her. Her cold gaze forces me to break eye contact after but a moment, my groggy mind lacking the conviction to challenge her. I realise I have yet to respond. “Wednesday… Hi.”

I avoid looking her directly in the eyes, but her gaze is unflinching. She says nothing, verbally or otherwise. I pick threads of cotton and fleece from my claws, assessing the damage to the lightly shredded blankets around me. My shoulders drop, signalling my embarrassment.

“Oh please, I’ve seen worse,” Wednesday says, breaking her silence but not her stare. “Your claws must be rather dull compared to Enid’s.”

I read no humour in her voice, but the comment brings a smirk to my face. “Got lucky with at least something, I guess.”

She cocks an eyebrow at that - she doesn’t seem to agree. “Lucky? Your natural weapons are fundamentally flawed and you consider yourself lucky?”

“Yeah, well anything that makes it that little bit harder for me to kill someone…” I trail off; that was perhaps a bit much. If Wednesday notices my oversharing, she doesn’t make it known. “Sorry, what time is it?” I ask, swinging my legs over the side of the bed to sit up properly.

“It’s a little past three. You slept for some fifteen hours by my count, but I didn’t have the heart to wake you.” The slightest hint of a smirk emerges on her face. “You appeared to be having such awful dreams. I would’ve hated to interrupt.”

“Oh, you could tell?” I ask jokingly as I tend to my still-aching neck. I’ve been told enough times by my roommate that I’m quite the emotive sleeper. “So, where’s Enid?”

“At one of her many clubs, I’m sure.” A disdainful look flashes on her face. “Forgive me if I don’t know which.”

I crane forwards and with some light pressure on my neck I hear a crack, followed by some of the tension being relieved. When I look up again I notice that something about Wednesday’s stare has changed. Her eyes are a little narrower, her lips are slightly pursed and she’s standing more rigidly than before, if that’s even possible. She has something she wants to say but is holding back. My perceptive prowess can’t compare to hers, however, and in the time it takes me to read her body language she notices the change in my own. Her face relaxes.

“This question may seem… invasive,” she says, taking a small step towards me, “but know that it comes from a place of genuine interest.”

It’s my turn to cock an eyebrow. “Shoot.”

“Your nightmares. What are they about?” She pauses, her eyes not quite focused on me, as if she’s visualising something. “Enid’s been getting nightmares ever since she wolfed out; is it just a werewolf thing? Are all of you destined to be such tortured souls?”

I consider the question for a moment. “I’m no expert, but we do tend to be pretty vivid dreamers. Add a serving of trauma to that and I guess it’s no wonder you’d end up with nightmares.”

“The trauma of wolfing out for the first time, for example?”

“For some, sure. It can be hard for some wolves, especially if they end up hurting someone. The guilt, the loss of control…” Am I getting too personal? “It’s a bit of a rude awakening, learning what it truly means to be a wolf.”

“Speaking from experience?” she asks, her head tilting a little to the side.

“Nah, I was a bit of an early bloomer. I barely remember my first time,” I admit, a half-truth at best and a lie by omission at worst. My first time was easy. My parents were well prepared; they made sure I was safe and couldn’t get anyone hurt. The revelation of what wolfhood entails though? That came later. I was sheltered for so many years. Hell, I didn’t even really know what I was until I met wolves from other packs and realised just how different I was. The end of my childhood wasn’t marked by something as simple as wolfing out for the first time. No, the day I learned exactly how much violence I was capable of, what sort of cruelty I could enact on others… that was my wakeup call.

“You didn’t answer my first question,” Wednesday says, forcing me out of my reminiscence. “Your nightmares. If they don’t stem from your wolfing out, where do they come from?”

I guess it’s time to make my boundaries known. I notice myself shuffling uncomfortably as I speak. “Sorry, that’s a bit personal, even for me.”

She doesn’t try to hide her disappointment. “A pity,” she says, turning away. She sits down and moves her typewriter to the middle of her desk, apparently finished with the conversation. I do feel a little bad. I’m under no obligation to share my insecurities, but at the same time I do feel as if I owe her��something . Considering her reputation, she’s been surprisingly welcoming to my intruding on her personal space. What harm could it do to let down my walls a little?

“They’re about my parents,” I relent. She doesn’t turn around but her hands stop moving; that got her attention. “They were good people. Or, my mom was, at least. They… they didn’t deserve what happened to them.”

She spins around in her chair. “What did happen to them?”

“They’re gone.”

“I gathered. There’s more to the story than that though, surely?”

I chuckle. “Well, yes, of course. But the details aren’t exactly pleasant.”

Her arms cross once again. “I didn’t ask for ‘pleasant’.”

“My benefit, not yours. I relive it enough in my sleep; if I started spending my time awake thinking about it I’d never get anything done.” In truth, it’s less the memories themselves that bother me so, but rather the implications. If I shared the whole story with her… it wouldn’t take her long to figure it out. Being unable to share too much lest other people piece together the truth… It’s tiring, and serves only to isolate me from my peers. An unfortunate measure, but a necessary one. “Why so interested in my nightmares, anyway?”

Wednesday glares for a few seconds, but then her demeanour softens. As I suspected, she can appreciate a transactional interaction. I offered her some information, with the potential prospect of more, and so it’s in her best interest to respond in kind. She speaks slowly now, clearly choosing her words carefully and betraying her vulnerability. 

“Like I said, Enid’s been having nightmares most nights since wolfing out. It’s starting to impact her day-to-day life. Nightmares have never really been an issue for me, so I thought that perhaps consulting another werewolf might give me some insight on how I might help her.”

I was expecting a far more morbid reason for her curiosity. “That’s actually kind of sweet.”

“Yes, well…” She stiffens again. “Breathe a word of that sentiment to anyone and you’ll have bigger problems than mere nightmares.”

“My lips are sealed.”

[agallimaufryofoddments]

hey, i really wanna help out with the baccano wiki, what do you suggest i start with?

Hallo, hello, hullo!

I appreciate you reaching out!

I think many major characters' chronological sections leave much to be desired. Of course, this is partly my fault, for neglecting them, but still. You take a loot at, say, Huey's or Nile's or Dekurō's pages, and wham bam, there is much missing. Frankly, really, if anyone takes a cursory glance at many of the character articles on Baccano! Wiki, one will see the chronology sections are either lacking (as is in the case of the many neglected articles) or sometimes overmuch (as in the cases where I wrote far too much bloat and wasn't reprimanded).

So! Perhaps if you could add content to the pages with obvious missing content (which are many), that would be swell! With references, I should ideally hope, based on the precedence of other pages that already exist, but I can add references after the fact, of course.

Some people start out with minor things like typos and obviously inaccurate statements. If wikitext is intimidating, I can easily advise on that front! I can do anything.

If you've never edited on a wiki before, I'd say editing easy existing content is an easy way to ease yourself into it. By going into source mode and fixing typos or the like, that way you can familiarize yourself with the editor interface.

I would recommend creating a FANDOM account if you're serious about contributing to the wiki. There's the supposed promise of less ads (I sometimes wonder how firm that expectation holds, these days), but there are other benefits, too.

Perhaps, if you mouse over the menus in the top menu, you'd see the Special:Community menu, or you'd see the Community Portal menu, or the Policy menu (the subpages of which I do need to update, very embarrassing). Perhaps I need to update all of it, so perhaps it is all embarrassing.

----

At any rate, to speak the point, I do think many major characters do lack adequate chronology sections. Character articles tend to be the most visited. I understand that chronology sections can be a bit overwhelming or intimidating, since they require referencing many novels and compiling a character's actions over the course of many novels into a cohesive summary, but on the other hand, perhaps chronologies can be a bit more straightforward than, say, summaries.

In any case, know this. Many of the character articles, including the major articles, are woefully incomplete, surely in part due to my neglect.

I also know my Manual of Style hasn't been updated in a while, and I surely haven't enforced it for scaring off editors (scarce as they are).

In any case, if there is anything you think you'd be good at or would prefer to do, I can happily advise you here or on the wiki itself.

I do expect that I can trust your judgment for the most part, for if, say, you use the wiki casually and find xyz elements lacking (like, say, a character article that woefully lacks much of a chronology), you could easily contribute. There is much that is woefully lacking.

When it comes to prose, I know that mine own prose can be unfortunately blathering and...well....I ramble a lot. I know the chronology sections I wrote can be too wordisome, too detailed. I don't mine people paring them down. I hope also that others don't mind if I edit their edits, if it comes to it.

Summary: A lot of character articles still lack filled chronology sections. Some also lack Personality sections, but I totally recognize that those can be much harder due to the need to balance subjectivity with objectivity. Look at what is lacking, what you wish was there but wasn't. I guarantee you will find many things.

[nexility-sims]

What is the hardest part of writing for you? o.O

actually writing, obviously ! that's the easy answer. i think it's a bit more complex than that, tho.

having motivation to write at all is the biggest struggle, but i wouldn't frame it as a matter of ~inspiration~ so much as a matter of ?? idk, discipline ?? i write for work and for fun, yet it's much easier to write for work because it's something i have to make myself do regularly. i haven't written for fun in a HOT MINUTE, neither long form stuff nor my simblr content. i do feel really mournful about having abandoned my lifelong love of Working On Novel Ideas, but 1) it's a choice i can always unmake and 2) i could theoretically get the same joy and satisfaction from my simblr story. for a while, i made time every evening to work on story things, including the stuff i'd classify as really "writing": plotting, revising plot things, drafting dialogue. sticking to a regular practice of writing is hard. especially when seemingly more important things are demanding my time and energy ! i am getting major fomo from seeing everyone's posts the last several weeks ... oh, to mount my own comeback ...

the more interesting answer, to me and in the context of simblr, is that i sometimes find it hard to convey the investment i feel within the writing itself. being limited to dialogue is part of it, i guess. it's not that i'm eager to hit everyone over the head with exposition so much as the facts that 1) i like to lavish in metaphors and build out the inner world of the characters and 2) the worldbuilding i adore is much more behind-the-scenes than super obvious or at the forefront. as a writer, i rarely spend time on the physical settings unless it's immediately relevant to what's happening; in the story, i build sets but they're not really the point most of the time. historically, the stories i write take place in the minds and hearts of the characters (although i rarely write in first person; i don't really like that kind of, uhm, perspective, as a writer or reader). adding prose paragraphs helps me get at what i want to include with the sims story, but it's not quite the same ! there's also the problem of the nature of the format, which i just haven't mastered. maybe it's my impatience, but i read y'all's stories that make me FEEL things and RELATE to what's happening and CARE deeply ... i'm not sure how to get that effect, in a way that feels real and successful to me personally. step one is probably Posting Regularly Instead of Being On Hiatus For 12843950 Months, huh?

so, maybe it's not that complex, lmao. starting is hard. continuing is harder.

[pascalepalaces]

"We Lock Lips" in Juked Magazine:

08.02.21

by Pascale Potvin

after Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult

That gripe of the city women with the men that tell them to smile—I do sympathize.

I’d accidentally joined a cult, at about nineteen. The members had claimed they’d help me find myself; I’d had no clue what ‘finding oneself’ might even entail, and so I’d figured I was the ideal candidate.

The company had created all of these personal development programs, and healthy lifestyle bootcamps, and all the more countless intensives. I had come to find, in the decade following, that finding oneself should be right down to the bone.

A similar sentiment was expressed to me, too, in more literal terms.

It would just be like digging into myself for gold, I thought; I knew I’d be happy if I was as thin as the others, that they were keeping me accountable in a way I couldn’t alone. I had paid a small debt, too, when I didn’t do my readings; my friends were only paving the roads on which I could push inward.

They did stop pretending, eventually, that the digital parts of my debt weren’t going up the ranks to the one man in the company��the only man, of course, that we’d ever need. Kenneth even broke the gap by texting me directly and often, asking for more pictures whenever he’d heard I’d eaten more than appropriate.

Though it was all innocent I was also all the way attracted to him, I will admit. How couldn’t I have been, knowing his mind, an aphrodisiac? Kenneth was playing Mozart by the age of six; he’d invented a new mathematics at just fourteen; he’d written books of philosophy in his twenties and boisterous prose. He knew he’d solve the hunger crisis as soon as he had the right influence; which teenaged girl wouldn’t worship such virtues no matter how aged?

So, like the others, I stared at every movement of his mouth as one would the Louvre’s latest.

Still, something was inexplicably wrong within me.

You don’t look too happy about it, Kenneth had responded to one November photo, just as I was turning back toward the road home. He had me stop in my tire tracks, again, to keep trying for a grin genuine enough for judgment.

I couldn’t understand why I kept screwing it all up, in the first place. I’d thought of him for so many miles of drives, had often rocked too far into the gas pedal; this task, for me, should’ve been easy. And yet ever since the start of our one-on-one classes I could only hold heat in my stomach.

Even once I managed an acceptable photo (good, but shave yourself when you get home, he’d reminded), I couldn’t feel the same indestructible that I had after his first teachings. The first part of myself I’d sent him had left me high, really believing maybe I could do anything;

It was devitalizing, not reaching something I’d once so easily held.

“So, did you finish your journal?” Alice asked when she found me loading the fridge.

“Yes. Almost,” I mustered for her.

“You know that I wanted it earlier.”

“Of course. But you asked me to fetch the groceries.”

“You know that making excuses only holds yourself back more,” she spoke, in almost a song. “I think I want you to get an early start tomorrow."

Early starts were always exactly four, inconsiderate of night classes prior.

“That isn’t really fair. I just couldn’t do it today," I retried.

But Alice no longer acknowledged me—and so I only put food away as she ate toast.

In a predictable pattern, I couldn’t enjoy my bath that evening either. My skin was still much hotter than the water surrounding me, my eyes still wetter.

Why couldn’t I get comfortable with anything? I had to wonder. What was I missing? Why was I not by some universe allowed to have what the other women had much more?

For months I had tried to tell Alice that I needed intervention—some extra guidance (please, I really needed it)—but she only ever told me I should work harder. I was the only one who could ultimately decide my own fate, with some help from Kenneth whenever he spared it.

After that, things had only seemed more hopeless.

Yet I started to think that if I acquired some proof that my concerns were solid, or a concrete example of how deeply my mind was wounded, then I’d only have to wait for our next family photo and then, she would see. (It was as I was moving my razor up my thigh that I had the quivering idea.)

Nothing happened, initially, when I moved the handle the wrong direction; I did it again just before the blood appeared, bringing with it a ringing pain. I gasped, the water around me.

I was on earth again, escaping.

A different panic came shortly, of course: there was no way Alice should see what I’d done. What an idiotic idea had overcome my idiot head, in its upset; now, everyone would come to see the cuts, and whether she would sympathize would depend on her mood.

Leaving the tub, I held some wet toilet paper against myself and searched the cabinet for some first aid. There was just one bottle of hydrogen peroxide, which bubbled and burned along with my stifling throat.

Later, I settled for toilet paper held up with tape.

There was no group photo for a few days thereafter, and so the first to see my marks was Kenneth at our next meeting. I was surprised to find he didn’t respond to my disrobing but to ask,

"What is it that you were punishing yourself for? Did it help?”

At that, I didn’t want to say anything wrong. “Not smiling well enough,” I mumbled. “And yes, I think it did.”

Kenneth nodded, and the most surprising part—the one that spread up from its cage in my chest through my neck—was when he lifted his head from its place between my legs and stood.

It was the first time I’d seen something in his pants, aroused.

I practically ran when he dismissed me, my vision all in swirls. He was supposed to be celibate beyond human capacity; he’d claimed he never took pleasure from the techniques. They were only for my benefit, meant to help me solve my issues with my body, with general vulnerability.

What had made his hardness too hard to conceal, this time? Was it my cuts? The idea that I’d bled? That I’d bled for him?

If it was just pain that made him bloody in one place, then, how could it be true he wanted us all to find joy?

Alice approached me the next morning, told me she’d like to go over my cuts with a cauterizing pen—to prevent infections, because of our minimalist healthcare, she justified—and I suspected she was making an excuse to brand me for him.

“You finally went out of your comfort zone this week. Let’s keep that rolling,” she was saying, with a coffee-stained sigh at my resistance. “If you get through this most intense pain, think about all the pain that’ll be so manageable in comparison.”

If I were to deny her request or, God forbid, leave entirely, I’d be more punished and my photos spread like spider legs. The cauterizing collateral. That video of me, forced to moan for my deceased father—it’d release like my body never could since the filming.

I had no choice but to take Alice’s advice, one way or another.

So, I accepted it not quite the way that she’d described.

I cut again, much more in the bath that night—this time all over the arms, again showing skin, finding myself in all of my blood and of course bone. Should I have gone even further?, I am wondering. Carved myself into the tiny thing of a woman Kenneth so desired?

Had he been taking secret pleasure, too, every time he’d kissed all of our cheeks and then our lips?

I went to the backyard before dawn and pushed my arms into the wet dirt, digging. I ran some blocks north, did the same in the garden of Blair and Beth and Jenny. I repeated and repeated. Digging for tetanic treasure. Looking for some lockjaw.

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🦇 Lola at Last Book Review 🦇

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

❓ #QOTD When was the last time you were one with nature?❓ 🦇 After a scandal at school and getting shipped off to a French boarding school, Lola is ready to return home to the Bay Area to reclaim her throne as a popular kid. Nothing is the way she left it, though. Her posse has abandoned her, Lola's lost her popular status, and her twin sister Kat is pulling away. After a stunt involving a tiny fire and a yacht (seriously, it was practically a dingy), she's forced to join the nonprofit Hike Like a Girl to—you guessed it—hike and become one with nature. Ew. When everyone expects Lola to fail and call it quits, she strives even harder to prove she's not the trainwreck everyone sees.

💜 J. C. Peterson does a wonderful job at shining a spotlight on certain realities. While Lola is forced to face the consequences of her actions more than once, her male counterpart gets off scot-free, demonstrating the double standard women often face. Lola is real and raw, too; she's a young, energetic, somewhat spoiled and shallow young woman who makes mistakes. Lola's many character flaws give her plenty of room for development. I didn't realize this was a modern Lydia Bennet story until I was halfway through, and it definitely changed my perspective because Lydia is...a challenge. You're more likely to enjoy this book from the start if you recognize her as the realistic but nearly unlikeable character she is. The prose is entertaining and high schooler-appropriate, too (a feat I've seen many seasoned writers struggle with).

🦇 It's a truth universally acknowledged that Lydia Bennet is the most difficult among the sisters to like. Writing a modern-day adaptation starring an entitled, attention-seeking, brattish MC is no easy feat. Unfortunately, we're not given any reason to like or connect with Lola until far into the story, making it difficult for readers to empathize with her (many) complaints. Lola also has a tendency to recognize her own destructive behavior, only to shrug it off and carry on. While it's refreshing to see a female character so confident in who she is that she doesn't need to change for others, it's frustrating to read as we wait for Lola to experience ANY character development. Lola has one tantrum after another without considering how her reactions affect those around her, and her apologies (which take ages) never feel genuine. Her reactions were only for the purpose of adding drama. Many of the supporting characters lack depth, while characters like her mother seem over-exaggerated. Since Lola is living a luxurious lifestyle, she's difficult to relate with on any level as well.

🦇 If you're a fan of Jane Austen or Austen adaptations like the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, you need to dive into this duology! Also recommended to anyone who knows what it feels like when people see you as "too much." Newsflash: you're not.

🪶 Austen Adaptation 🧸 Coming-of-Age 🌿 One With Nature 🌈 Queer Ships

🦇 Major thanks to the author and publisher for providing an ARC of this book via Netgalley. 🥰 This does not affect my opinion regarding the book.

[squarebracket-trickster]

I wouldn't say my second draft was easy, but it was easier than my first and third.

What helps me is, first of all, acknowledging that it is not realistic to expect a finished product by the end of this draft (I am not an experienced enough writer to get away with so little editing); and since this novel is not going to be "done" by the end of this draft, it is okay if I deliberately leave problems for later. It will happen anyway. I might as well be intentional about it.

Then I pick a few areas to improve on, set some goals, and don't let myself touch anything that isn't going to get me to those goals. (I mean, every now and then I might stray a little but I try not to. Even giving myself permission to stray makes the task that much more overwhelming.)

In choosing what areas to tackle first I ask myself:

Which problems are the biggest? When I think of the biggest critiques a reader might have of this story where does my mind immediately go?

Which problems are bothering me the most? Are there any specific problems that are making me want to avoid this WIP or dread rereading it?

Which problems should addressed before I fix others? There is no point fixing stuff I am just going to rewrite or cut later.

Which problems will prevent me from making progress later if they are not addressed now? Are there changes I need to make in one place before I can know what changes to make to another?

I am allowed to change a goal if it isn't working for me but if it is working I have to do my best to stick to it.

In draft 2 if WIPVII I had about five goals:

cut the draft down to around 80K

fix the ending

fix the plot holes and add in any foreshadowing I didn’t put in first draft

any other major structural changes including cutting things that turned to be not needed

cut/fix anything that makes me cringe

Things I left for later drafts included (but not limited to): properly naming the characters, filling in [square brackets], fixing timeline issues, adding description, making the prose sound nice, making the dialogue sound interesting, scene-level conflict and tension, line editing (sentence flow, word choice, filler words etc), grammar and spelling, narrative voice, research, and scene-level pacing (though I did start these edits in draft 2 by cutting things to hit my word goal).

Anytime I came across an issue that wasn't one of my five goals I just wrote it down, often in the comments directly on my word doc, so I could come back to it in a later draft.

idk if any of this will help you. You may already do this or you may have a completely different process/definition of second draft than me. But, for me at least, it has the added benefits of, not only taming some of the overwhelm, but also keeping me from getting stuck on any one section for too long and getting frustrated by the lack of progress, and keeping my perfectionism in check.

This method has also been working beautifully for my third draft. The only reason I feel like my third draft is harder than my second is because I found the cuts and scene rewrites I did easier than the prose-level stuff I have been fighting with in draft three. I am just not naturally a strong prose writer and I am very out of practice too. (I got stuck on the first paragraph of draft 3 for like 3 months... fml. I'm well past it now though!).

why are second drafts so much harder than first and third drafts?? there must be a scientific explanation for this

[the-kaedageist]

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably seen that I began writing the sequel to “More Things in Heaven and Earth” (aka Tusk Love) a few weeks ago, and it has transformed from the projected 10k word one-shot to another novel-length beast (I currently have 56k words and counting). Here are some snips if you want to see what I’ve been working on!

In honor of the fact that I’ve been teasing my Twitter followers with this fic for the entire month of February so far, I wanted to post an excerpt from the first chapter. I hope you enjoy! This takes place about a month after the events of my previous fic.

Please note: this excerpt will NOT make sense unless you’ve read More Things in Heaven and Earth, and it contains heavy spoilers for that story!

More Things in Heaven & Earth 2, aka 2 Tusk 2 Love

Bren started with Thelyss, as Widogast had suggested.

Thelyss’s towers in Rosohna were easy enough to sneak into with scourger training; Bren teleported in and disabled several magical traps, waiting in his study for the man himself to return. It was approaching early evening, not that anyone could tell in that ridiculous ever-night of a city. Bren poked around Thelyss’s bookshelves, discovered a tome about parallel universes written in Sylvan that caught his eye, and slipped it from the shelf, scanning through the contents and then the index to see if it covered any topics related to his most unusual adventures.

He hadn’t seen Thelyss since Caleb Widogast had dropped into his life. He presumed that he was busy in Rosohna with his duties and such. He’d messaged Bren once, in the middle of a dunamancy lesson from his alternate self, and Bren had frozen and let the sending fall away without a response. He hadn’t said a word to his own version of Thelyss about what had transpired during those strange few days, and now he arrived there to find that he already had a book on the very topic?

The book was titled “A Treatise on Parallel Realities”, and it was old and cracked down the spine. Bren carefully opened it to the chapter on ‘forms of alternate worlds’ and was greeted with heavy Sylvan prose – was this book pre-Calamity? – outlining various theories of how parallel worlds could operate. He was particularly fascinated by the concept that an infinite multiverse would contain endless possibilities, and he traced the graceful handwriting with his finger on the page, thinking about doppelgangers and dead parents and a world with more horror than he could imagine.

“What are you doing here?” an accented voice snapped, startling Bren from his reading. He looked up and found Thelyss lurking in the doorway, his spine as straight and his expression as imperious as it always was until Bren took him apart a few times first. “And why are you going through my things?”

Bren licked his lips. After not seeing Thelyss for a month, he looked good - those cheekbones, the soft curl of hair down one side of his face, his ears decked out with all manner of silver jewelry and cuffs. Bren wondered for a moment if Widogast’s version of Thelyss was as much of a peacock; he’d been in the body of a half-orc at the time, which had made it much harder to tell. But Bren also felt a strange sort of echo when he looked at Thelyss, like he was stretching across existence to connect with two other, very different, versions of themselves.

“I need to speak with you,” Bren said, feeling his cheeks flush as he drew himself to standing. “About something that happened last month.”

Thelyss walked like a predator, all long lines and angles. He approached with his eyes narrowed, not bothering to hide the way he was looking Bren up and down despite his annoyance. He moved until he was standing very close, so close that Bren could feel the heat of him. “Then speak,” he murmured.

Bren leaned into him, surprising both of them with his eagerness as he tried to lean down for a kiss. Thelyss stepped back, pressing the palm of his hand against Bren’s mouth to block him, not losing his cool at all. “I thought you came here to talk,” he said pointedly.

Bren rolled his eyes. Thelyss was so dramatic all the time. “If you do not wish to hear about my experience with a version of myself from another reality, I can leave,” he said snidely.

Thelyss froze, his beautiful eyes wide. “Another reality?” he repeated, his gaze flicking to the book that rested beneath Bren’s palm. His expression turned into a glower. “You’re lying.”

“I never lie to you, Thelyss,” Bren said, and it was meant to be a jest – of course they were both lying, all the time, to everyone around them – but something in it was a little too true for his liking. The words hung in the air between them.

Thelyss stepped away and moved to the other side of the small table, seating himself and facing Bren squarely. “Speak,” he said.

So Bren swallowed and spoke. He told Thelyss about the mysterious visitors, the letter written in his own hand that had appeared at Astrid’s tower (he’d gaped at it, insisting it had to be fake while Astrid and Wulf scried on the little bard who had delivered it). He told him about Widogast, how he was all sad eyes and horrifying silences, how he’d distrusted him from the start, (resenting the fact that he was chained to the Assembly while Widogast was free to roam Wildemount with his mercenaries). He opened his mouth to tell him about ‘Oskar’, actually Thelyss’s own double, and then the words caught in his throat. He hadn’t considered how much he actually wanted to share.

“So Widogast taught us dunamancy to send him home,” he concluded, leaving quite a bit out, “but before he left, he told me something.” Bren glanced down at the book in front of him, running his fingers over the page with centuries-old knowledge on parallel worlds. “He told me to collect his eight friends, that the nine of us would save each other more than we’d ever know.” Finally, he focused on Thelyss’s face; he listened passively, showing no expression and wearing his court face. “And one of them was you.”

Thelyss was clearly not expecting that. He blinked, puzzled, and then said the word, “friends?” in such a befuddled tone that Bren wondered if he even socialized with anyone other than himself.

“Yes, Thelyss,” Bren said. “Friends? Companions? People you can trust and rely on? Surely you have such things in the Dynasty as well.”

Thelyss rolled his eyes. “Yes, we have friends here,” he said scathingly.

“Then why did you say ‘friends’ like it was some sort of foreign word?” Bren asked, peering up at him. “Do you have any friends, Thelyss?”

“I know many people,” said Thelyss, which was not an answer. He was utterly hopeless. Bren honestly didn’t know why he liked him so much.

“Well, I will be your friend,” said Bren, and Thelyss gave him the most withering look he’d earned yet.

“You are an enemy agent and we are…dallying,” he said. “You’re not my friend.”

Bren thought about Widogast and his own Thelyss, the way they’d supported each other, the clear love that shone between them in every interaction. How almost disgustingly sappy they’d been together, but also how Thelyss had been deeply protective and fiercely loyal. He wanted that, he realized as he stared across the table at a foreign version of the same man. He loved Astrid and Wulf, and that hadn’t changed, but he also wanted…this.

Thelyss wasn’t going to be easy to win over. He was like a cat – proud, utterly autonomous, and always needing everything to be his own idea. Bren would have to coax him, similar to how he’d befriended the stray cats that ran the streets of the Candles until they’d been willing to eat out of his hand and let him hold them.

“Fine,” said Bren. “We are not friends. You are right. Do you want to help me find these strangers?”

Thelyss gave him a flat look, and Bren knew immediately that he was going to turn him down. Panic welled up in him – how was he ever going to find these people and convince them to travel with him, to befriend him, if he couldn’t even succeed with Thelyss?

“You want me to…what, leave my post as the Shadowhand to follow an enemy agent on a wild goose chase?” Thelyss asked. “What exactly are you asking, Ermendrud?”

Bren studied him. What exactly was he asking? “Could you not take a leave of absence?” he asked. “Sabbatical?”

Thelyss rolled his eyes. “As a member of the Bright Queen’s court, I have commitments,” he said. “I cannot just go scurrying off on some sort of…” he waved his hand in the air, irritated, “adventure because I became bored one day.”

Bren leaned forward, trying to catch Thelyss’s eye; he refused to make eye contact with him. “But you are bored,” he said. “They ignore your talents, squander your brilliance. Nobody here respects you the way you’re meant to be respected, and they’re fools for it.”

Thelyss’s mouth was pressed into a thin line, clearly upset. “And how is that different from what you propose, Ermendrud?” he asked. “What can you give me that the Dynasty cannot? Do you happen to have a beacon in your back pocket?”

“I could get you one,” said Bren, and it must have come out too plaintive, too yearning, because Thelyss’s eyes widened and he finally, finally made eye contact once again. He really was beautiful; sometimes Bren just wanted to look at him.

“You could get me a beacon,” Thelyss repeated, his surprise very quickly shifting to skepticism.

Bren waved his hand flippantly. “Why does Da’leth need two? I bet with these new friends of ours, we could acquire one.”

“Do you even know that these people exist, in this universe?” Thelyss asked. “Or are we just going to go knocking on doors in the Empire until we stumble across the right ones?” Bren registered the ‘we’ in that statement and barely contained his grin. He had him.

“I attempted to scry on them,” he said. “But I only have their names so it was not very successful. However, Widogast provided their locations, so it should not be too difficult to find them.” Thelyss looked less than impressed, but that was his normal expression, so Bren didn’t take it too personally.

“So we have no idea where to start,” Thelyss said flatly. “We have to track down eight strangers because some alternate version of yourself said so, strangers who we have never met, who you cannot even scry on, who could be located Luxon knows where—” He cut himself off and massaged his temples as though all of this had given him an incredible headache. “You realize this sounds as though you have completely lost your mind.”

“Come on, Thelyss,” Bren said with an overdramatic eyeroll. “You know that both of us are miserable here. Why else would we have started,” he rolled his eyes again, “dallying?”

Thelyss gave him a flat look. “You think I only spend time with you because court bores me?”

“I knew court bored you,” said Bren triumphantly.

“That is—I am not—” Thelyss sputtered.

“Why don’t you tell the Bright Queen that you have a lead on one of the beacons and wish to pursue it yourself?” Bren suggested. “Surely she would spare you for such a task, and that would ensure that your position is here when you return.”

Thelyss studied him with pursed lips. “You are quite determined, I see,” he said at last. “I suppose I could manufacture a beacon-related excuse to do field work; that would be the easiest to cover. The problem is, what happens when I am scried upon and the Lens agents see me with you?”

Bren had anticipated this question. He dug into the bag of holding that was slung over his chair, pulling out a small box. “A good question. That is what this is for,” he said, handing it over; the box contained an identical Amulet of Proof Against Detection and Location to the one that hung around his own neck, under his shirt and right against his heart.

Thelyss took the box across the table and opened it. He stared at the item inside, his expression unreadable.

“So,” said Bren conversationally. “When would you be ready to leave?”

[maggiecheungs]

Hi I came across your tale of genji posts in the tag and I'm not sure if you've answered this before but what translation would you recommend for someone who's thinking of reading it for the first time?

MY TIME HAS COME!!!!

(first, as someone who has read all the english translations in full, a word of reassurance: it doesn’t really matter which translation you read. All the translations are excellent; they all have their own advantages. There is no definitive 'best' translation, and honestly, until you’ve experienced them for yourself, there is no way of knowing which is best for you.)

the unhelpful answer: honestly, it depends on what you want to get out of the experience.

for a first-time reader, i would generally recommend the Seidensticker, simply because it’s probably the most readable and is widely recommended as a good place to start; or the Tyler, which is probably the closest we have to a ‘definitive’ english translation atm (and my personal favourite)

however, everyone has their own preferences, so under the cut i’ve put together some of the pros and cons of each version (and obviously, this is very much a matter of perspective--for example, i prefer translations which have lots of footnotes, but some people dislike that etc.)

Waley (1933)

Pros: rich poetic language, first complete translation, gives a sense of the gradeur of the original, stands alone as a novel well, naming fairly consistent

Cons: poetry is run into the text, a (fairly unimportant) chapter is inexplicably missing, more liberal with his prose style, dense style if you're not used to 19th/early 20th century literature, very few footnotes

Seidensticker (1976)

Pros: most readable, easy to source, consistent naming

Cons: fewer footnotes, less academically rigorous than the Tyler translation, slightly less beautiful prose than the Waley and Tyler

Tyler (2001)

Pros: very true to original, lots of footnotes (integrated, so on ebook you can easily reference them), available easily (in print and ebook), accurate, excellent academic resource, direct and minamilist prose style that's still beautiful, good introduction

Cons: mostly the same as pros, just depends on perspective, i.e. lots of footnotes, inconsistent naming (use of shifting titles, true to original), very little is explicitly stated in-text (there were lots of things I only fully picked up on when reading different translations later). the Tyler is definitely the least domesticating, so if that isn’t your style, then maybe don’t start here

Washburn (2015)

Pros: academically rigorous, but less full-on than the Tyler; integrates contextualising information into the translation itself rather than in footnotes; excellent introduction

Cons: can be accused of lacking concision, a bit stodgy, sacrifices some of the ambiguity of the original text in favour of greater clarity

so in conclusion, i would say:

if you don’t have any experience with classical japanese literature and would prefer to read a version that is slightly more domesticated, and more readable, choose Seidensticker

if you don’t mind reading a version that is a little harder, but is ‘truest’ to the original, choose Tyler

if you have a burning passion for the Victorian novel and its style, choose Waley

if you want a version that spells out some of the more subtle elements of the story in the text itself, choose Washburn

but like i said, it’s very subjective, so here are some links to other people’s opinions:

this is a great summary of some of the key differences between the versions: https://maiji.tumblr.com/post/172828724619/saiyuri-dahlia-thank-you-so-much-for-the-reblog

and this is somebody else’s ranking of the translations (again, obviously subjective, but it mostly agrees with my own ranking): https://tonysreadinglist.wordpress.com/2021/08/15/the-tale-of-genji-ranking-the-translations/

and here’s a roundup of the various translations of the genji, with soem pros and cons listed and samples from the first chapter so you can see which writing style you like best: https://welovetranslations.com/2021/03/20/whats-the-best-translation-of-the-tale-of-genji/

[nanowrimo]

3 Most Common Worldbuilding Mistakes for Writers and How to Fix Them

Every year, we’re lucky to have great sponsors for our nonprofit events. World Anvil, a 2021 NaNoWriMo sponsor, helps you develop and organize your characters, plot, and world setting. Today, World Anvil founder Janet Forbes is here to share some pro tips for worldbuilding. Don’t forget to check out the offer to NaNoWriMo writers for 30% off a World Anvil membership!

I talk to hundreds of writers every week, in our World Anvil Q&A live streams, our World Anvil writing challenges, and meetings with our professional authors. And mostly, they’re encountering the same few worldbuilding problems! Here are the 3 most common worldbuilding mistakes, and how you can fix them:

1. Mary-Sue Worldbuilding

You’re probably familiar with the Mary-Sue—a flawless, artificial-feeling main character. Mary Sue Worldbuilding follows in the same vein. If everything in your setting is directly related to your main character, it feels like the world revolves around them. It’s too convenient and artificial. That’s Mary-Sue worldbuilding.

Mary-Sue worldbuilding is usually caused by worldbuilding exclusively around your plot. Introducing larger-scale conflict in the backdrop of your setting, current affairs like civil or religious movements, war, disasters, or technological breakthroughs, can help expand the world beyond just your main character. 

Your main character might interact with these elements, or more usually, with problems caused by them. For example, they might help some refugees from “that war over there”. But your character should not be at the core of everything—they’re not the cause of the war. Other things are happening outside of your story, in the background. (Pro-tip: this is a great way to reinforce your genre and themes, and make your world feel alive and expansive, too!). 

Fixing Mary-Sue Worldbuilding Of course you’ll need a series bible like World Anvil to help you keep these current affairs organized, connect them together, and make sure you don’t lose your notes! Use World Anvil’s worldbuilding templates to get inspired for your big conflicts, and remember - you only need to write a few bullet points to start with! You can always expand more later (we’ll talk more about that in a moment).

World Anvil’s Worldbuilding Templates are custom-made by experts to help inspire and guide your creativity—and you can customize your own templates too!

2. Mosaic Worldbuilding

You know those computer game worlds where each area feels like a self-contained zone? Where the “desert” region and the “forest” region have no trade, communication, or overlap between them? That, in a nutshell, is Mosaic worldbuilding. It ruins suspension of disbelief, makes your novel setting feel false, and can pull your readers out of your story! 

Fixing Mosaic Worldbuilding

The best way to avoid Mosaic Worldbuilding is to make sure that you have a clear overview of your world early on, with each major region and concept penned out in just a sentence or two. That way, each region will feel like a connected aspect of your seamless setting, not a tile shoved on the side. 

On World Anvil, each world setting has a “Worldbuilding Meta” section to help you detail the 10,000 foot overview—the big stuff. And not just your physical world and its people, but your genre, your motivations, and your themes. This invaluable reference tool helps you expand your setting and add more detail, and will also help you sense-check what you’re adding!

Once you have a clear picture of your meta, and know the overview of your world, it’ll be easy to make use of cultural aspects like imports and travellers, cultural diasporas and geographical transition zones to make your world seem more connected and less artificially divided! And you’ll be able to do it without spending too much extra time worldbuilding. Which brings me to my final common worldbuilding mistake…

World Anvil’s Worldbuilding Meta tool helps you focus, streamline and sense-check your world setting! It’s full of guides to create an excellent overview for your worldbuilding project. This is the view mode of Manifold Sky by B.C.G. Wurth.

3. Worldbuilder’s Disease

Sounds nasty, right? Well, Worldbuilder’s Disease is a very common problem—a compulsion to continue worldbuilding things which aren’t actually useful. Here’s my favorite example—the “elven shoes”:

In your world you have elves. They wear shoes. So far, so good. Maybe there’s a plot-point where an imposter’s revealed because they’re wearing the wrong shoes. So you fill in a few details on your series bible. But if you find yourself writing a 5,000 word treatise on elven shoes through the ages… honey, you have worldbuilder’s disease.

I use shoes as an example, but it could be anything. It might be detailing three centuries of monarchy, or expanding unvisited areas in excruciating detail. Sure, it can be fun, but all that time spent on unnecessary parts of your setting isn’t helping you polish the core parts—or get your novel written! It’s distracting you from your primary goal. 

Curing Worldbuilder’s Disease

There are three major causes of worldbuilders disease: 

Lack of perspective

Lovers of prose

Fear of losing your ideas

1. Lack of perspective

Lack of perspective can often lead down a worldbuilding rabbit hole. Keep clarity on what’s important in your setting with tools like World Anvil’s Worldbuilding Meta. This helps you define your active worldbuilding area - not just geographical but thematic areas—which helps  streamline your world and your project, so you can be sure you’re spending your time where it counts!

Also, be clear with yourself WHY you’re worldbuilding the element you’re working on. Keep clear notes in your series bible about how this new element fits into your novel. If it’s little more than set dressing, you only need a few words. For a core concept, you might need more.

2. Lovers of Prose

As writers, we love to write (duh)! But for most of us, writing in prose in our series bible can cause serious problems. Not only does it mean that you write MORE than we should (your get in flow, words happen!), it’s also harder to reference your ideas quickly later on. Stick to short, organized articles in note form. Make sure the salient information is there, and link in anything relevant. You can always expand to prose later if you need to.

Keep your series bible in brief notes with clear headers! This character article took 5 minutes using World Anvil’s character template which automatically adds the headers. The linked articles help me easily reference related people and places as I’m writing.

3. Fear of losing our ideas

Fear of losing our ideas is actually one of the most common reasons for worldbuilder’s disease—that we’ll forget or lose our notes if we don’t write them out in vast detail. To combat this, make sure you have somewhere to keep your world details safe, organized, tagged and searchable. Then you can reassure yourself that you can go back and develop more later if you need it. 

Obviously, World Anvil is custom made for this, backing up everything in one place and linking everything together, so you can easily search, reference and update your series bible whilst writing your manuscript and not have to worry about losing things!

Anything here ring true for you? Or maybe you’re struggling with another worldbuilding mistake or problem? You can always hop into our live streamed Q&A sessions on our Twitch channel and ask us directly! We go live three times a week to answer questions about writing and worldbuilding, as well as helping our community with World Anvil queries too! Maybe we’ll see you there. And happy worldbuilding :)

Janet Forbes is a published fantasy author and RPG writer, whose recent credits include the Dark Crystal RPG with the Henson Company (coming 2021). In 2017, she and her husband created World Anvil, the ultimate worldbuilding and novel writing platform. World Anvil helps you organize, store and develop your worldbuilding and series bible privately, and market your books to the world too! The inbuilt novel writing software, accessible from anywhere, integrates seamlessly with your worldbuilding. And when it’s time to publish, you can export, or publish directly on the World Anvil platform and monetize YOUR way! Check it out at World Anvil.

[shihalyfie]

Kizuna itself vs. the two versions of the novel

Written on request from a friend who wanted to remain anonymous. This is more of an editorial than a meta, and while I usually have a policy of “this is an analysis blog, not a review blog” it goes into more of my personal impressions and opinions than usual, but it’s something I write hoping to be helpful.

There are basically three “official” full versions of Kizuna: one being, of course, the movie itself, one being the Dash X Bunko version of the novel, and one being the Shueisha Mirai Bunko version of it. While it’s certainly not to say that any of the three is an “incomplete” version of the narrative, if you really want as full of a picture of the story as possible, somehow, each of all three versions of the story happens to have really important information that the other two do not. If I had to pick only one of these three versions to recommend to people, I would of course pick the movie itself; it’s obviously the base story everything else is based off of and was the one the production centered around as a priority, but the novelizations have a surprising amount of info that provide a lot of insight into the movie’s story and themes.

I get the impression that the creation of Kizuna involved making a lot more story and background details than could fit in a 95-minute movie, so these novelizations, which were based directly off the original movie script, ended up being an outlet for a lot of these details (and as much as I could be harsh on the movie itself for being a bit “reliant” on extra material, I have to admit that Adventure and 02 were both like this too -- a lot of our current understanding of the series comes from the Adventure novels and drama CDs -- so frankly I’m thankful we at least got this with a 95-minute movie instead of a yearlong series). On the flip side, while I'm not going to say that the novels are completely and utterly inaccurate representations of the movie, in a perhaps too-close approximation of Adventure and 02's writing style, this is a movie where even the nuances in a single line or split-second moment carry heavy implications, which become much blurrier or harder to identify when they’re presented differently (or not even presented at all) in the novel’s context, especially when they emphasize very different things from what the movie itself was emphasizing.

The short version of this is that I believe the Dash X version contains the greater amount of “plot and story” information but significantly misses out on the emotional themes and presentation, whereas the Shueisha Mirai version abridges and cuts chunks of content but is much better at conveying the intended message. More on this below the cut. (Note that the following post spoils Kizuna’s plot events.)

The movie itself

Since the following parts are more “in comparison to the movie”, I’m not going to go too much into this in this section, but one thing I will say is that the official English subtitle translation for the movie is really not great. Even if you take out nitpickiness about the fact it misses several significant nuances (the difference between “unchangeable fate” and “changeable destiny”, or the fact that Gennai refers to partnership dissolution as a “case” and not like it’s something that happens overall) at really plot-important moments, some lines (thankfully, usually not plot-important ones) are just straight-up incorrect. And worse, there’s evidence the official English dub was based on that translation! (I’m not faulting the people in charge of the dub for this, but whoever handed them that translation to work with.)

The dialogue in the Dash X Bunko version is transcribed effectively word-for-word from the dialogue in the movie (or perhaps vice versa, given that the novel is based on the original script), so I highly recommend checking that version as a reference for dialogue or if you want to do any intimate analysis on it. I don't want to go as far as to suggest not supporting the official version of the movie because of this, but at least please be aware that the translation used there is not entirely reliable.

Dash X Bunko

If you talk about “the Kizuna novel”, this is the one that people usually tend to be referring to, for two reasons. Firstly, it was translated shortly after the movie’s release, and due to the unfortunate circumstances of Kizuna being delayed in accessibility outside Japan for several months, this basically served as the only comprehensive source of info about the movie outside Japan for a very long time. Secondly, in Japan, this one was marketed as “the one for adults” in contrast to the Shueisha Mirai one being “for kids”, which meant that a lot of people assumed that the latter one was just an incredibly stripped down version that was otherwise disposable or replaceable. (This is very, very much not the case, and is extremely ironic when it comes to a movie that partially centers around the dangers of looking down too much on things associated with childhood.)

When it comes to “plot and story info”, this is the one that probably serves as the best reference (especially for fanfic writers or those who need a refresher on certain plot events or to look up something quickly), and probably has the most “comprehensive” listing of plot events surrounding the movie. The dialogue in it is a word-for-word recreation of the movie’s script, and actually includes more scenes than the movie itself does, including two that I suspect to be deleted scenes (a detailing of the specifics behind the initial plan to pursue Eosmon, and a conversation between Koushirou and Tentomon) and adaptations of the first and second memorial shorts within their context in the movie. It also contains some interesting background details and extra context for some things in the movie that you might think would normally be animation flair or something, but take a very interesting implication of story importance if they’re going out of their way to write this in the script. (There’s a scene where Agumon and Gabumon appear in front of their partners when they’d been behind them a minute before, and it’s easy to think this might be an animation error, but not only does the surrounding context make this unlikely, the novel itself actually directly states that their positions had changed.) Given that, I think it was very fortunate that this novel was available to us for those outside Japan waiting for the actual movie to come out, because this level of detail was very important to have on hand rather than fragmented spoilers on social media.

However, the part where I think the novel is significantly deficient in compared to the actual movie (and also to the other version of the novel) is that it describes the plot events in too blunt of a manner and doesn’t bring out its themes very well. (It’s kind of like having a long and very detailed Wikipedia article plot summary; it definitely got all the hard facts down, but the emotion is gone, which is still a pretty significant issue when media’s all about the feelings and message in the end.) While “considering the movie to be more cynical than it’s probably meant to be” happens regardless of which version someone’s working from, I’ve talked to perhaps an unnervingly high number of people who started with the novel and were absolutely convinced that the movie’s message was about adulthood sucking and needing to just accept it, until they saw how the actual movie pulled it off and the surrounding atmosphere and realized it definitely was not. (I think one really big factor here is that a lot of the visual imagery makes it extremely, extremely hard to miss that Menoa’s mentality is completely screwed up and her way of seeing things was dubious to begin with; prose descriptions really just don’t capture the way they slam this in your face with visual and musical cues during the climax of the movie.)

You can figure this out from the novel itself, but you have to really be looking closely at the way they word things, and on top of that it’s hard to figure out which parts you should be focusing on and which parts aren’t actually that important -- in other words, the “choice of priorities” gets a bit lost in there. Even the little things lose a lot of value; it’s theoretically possible to use the novel to put together that Daisuke is wearing his sunglasses indoors during his first scene, but you have to put together the context clues from completely different paragraphs to figure this out, none of which compares to the actual hilarity of visually seeing him wearing the thing in a very obviously dimly lit restaurant because he’s our beloved idiot. (For more details, please see my post with more elaboration on this and more examples of this kind of thing.)

I wouldn’t say that the movie itself isn’t guilty of (perhaps accidentally) having some degree of mixed messaging, but I would say this problem is rather exacerbated by the novel’s way of presenting it due to its dedication to dropping every single plot detail and event without much in the way of choosing what to contextualize and what to put emphasis on (as it turns out, treating practically everything in the movie as if it has equal weight might not be a great idea). So, again, for that reason I think the novel serves as a good reference in terms of remembering what happened in it and knowing the movie’s contents, but I also feel that it’s really not the greatest deliverer of the movie’s message or themes at all.

Shueisha Mirai Bunko

The second version of the novel was not translated until several months after the movie first released, and shortly before the Blu-ray and streaming versions of the movie itself came out anyway, so my impression is that on this end a lot of people don’t even know it was a thing. On top of that, even those who know about it often dismiss it as the “kid version” -- and to be fair, it did baffle quite a few people as to why this version even exists (Kizuna is technically not unacceptable for kid viewing and its plot is still understandable regardless of age, but since the movie is so heavily about the millennial existential crisis, it’s not something kids would really relate to). So a lot of people tended to just skip over it...which is really a shame, because it contains some interesting things that actually aren’t in the other two versions at all. For instance, did you know that, as of this writing, this is the only thing that plainly states the specific explanation for why Yamato decided to become an astronaut, for the first time in 20 real-life years?

While there are still some things that weren’t in the movie proper (mainly the Eosmon initial plan and the adaptation of the second memorial short), for the most part, the actual events are somewhat abridged compared to the movie and the Dash X version, and other than a few stray lines, there’s not a lot of extra information that would be as helpful for referencing the events of the plot. The version of the novel here is rather broadly interpretive of the scenes in the movie, so several things are condensed or taken out (and, amusingly, because it’s assuming that the kids reading this don’t actually know the original Adventure or 02, it has to describe what each character is like in a quick one-liner).

However, interestingly enough, it’s because it’s so heavily interpretive that it illuminates a lot of things that weren’t really easy to glean out of the Dash X version. For instance:

Some scenes are described with “other perspectives” that give you info on someone else’s point of view. (For instance, we see more of Yamato’s perspective and thoughts when he has his first phone call with Daisuke, or a bit more detail in the process of how Eosmon kidnappings work.)

We get a lot more information on what’s going through everyone’s heads during each scene, and what emotions they’re feeling at a given time. (This is something that you could at least get to some degree in the movie itself from facial expressions and framing, but would often be a lot blurrier in the Dash X version; here, it’s spelled out in words.)

When things are abridged, you get a clearer idea of what the intended point and theme of the scene was because it’s stripped down to include only that part. In one really interesting case, the scene with Agumon finding Taichi’s AVs has a “censored” equivalent where Taichi’s pushed to a corner because he can’t find anything non-alcoholic in his fridge -- so when you look at the two versions of the scene and what they have in common, you can figure out that the point isn’t that it was a lewd joke for the sake of it, but rather that Taichi’s forcing himself into boxes of “adulthood” that are actually meaningless and impractical.

Some of the descriptions of the characters, scenes, and background information make it a lot more obvious as to their purpose in the narrative (it outright confirms that Miyako being in Spain means that her personality is getting overly enabled there).

The scene where the circumstances behind Morphomon’s disappearance are revealed makes it significantly less subtle what the point is. In the actual movie, a lot of this involved visual framing with Menoa seeming to become more and more distant, but in this version of the novel they basically whack you over the head with the final confirmation that Menoa is guilty of neglecting her own partner, which contradicts her own assertions that “they were always together” (maybe not emotionally, it seems!) and helps clarify the commonality between her, Taichi, Yamato, and Sora in what exactly led to their partners disappearing.

Bonus: this version of the novel really wants you to know that the ending of the movie is about Taichi and Yamato fully having the determination to turn things around and lead up to the 02 epilogue. (The movie’s version of this involves the extended version of Taichi’s thesis and the credits photo with Yamato obviously next to a rocket, while this novel’s version involves more detailed fleshing out of how Taichi and Yamato decided to use their experiences to move onto their eventual career paths and what kind of hope they still have at the end. The Dash X version...didn’t really have a very strong equivalent here.)

In other words, while this version of the novel isn’t the greatest reference for plot or worldbuilding, it does a much more effective job being straightforward about the intended themes and message of the movie, and even if the scenes in it are much more loosely adapted, it’s much better at adapting the emotional nuances of the things that would normally be conveyed via visuals, expressions, and voice acting. (Although I would still say that the movie itself is the best reference for that kind of thing, of course.) If you just want lore or plot ideas, I don’t think it’ll help you very much, but since this series is so much about characters that had their ways of thinking fleshed out in such incredible detail, and about strong theme messaging, this is all still very valuable information in its own way.

[yurimother]

LGBTQ Manga Review – If I Could Reach You Vol. 4 & 5

If I Could Reach You remains an incredibly emotional and powerful story

I vaguely remember once staying home from school as a child for a somewhat extended period with an illness, and upon my recovery, I was loath to return. However, my father said that the longer I wait, the harder and more awkward it will be to return. It is with that spirit that I drag myself back towards review for the first time in over a month after the ever-grueling modern reality of isolation, paranoia, and working remotely sapped my strength and excess energy for the ninth time. However, if I have to force myself to write a review, groaning and whining all the way, I may as well make it something good, and fortunately, that part was easy to find. Indeed, the end of 2020 and opening of 2021 is stuffed with more Yuri than my lesbian vision board. I chose to go back to the most recent entry in one of my favorite series, If I Could Reach You. Perhaps this shattering and emotionally draining series is not the best medicine to cure the quarantine-blues. Still, it is nice to have a reminder that there are people in the world, or at least in manga, that are as miserable as us.

The fourth volume of If I Could Reach You kicks off when Uta’s mother reenters her life after apparently staying overseas for several years. She intends to start her relationship with Uta over. She insists that the high schooler come live with her, throwing the delicate balance she, her brother Reiichi, and sister-in-law Kaoru have. On top of this, Uta is struggling after her confession to Kaoru failed to reach the older girl, who seemingly interpreted it as a statement of familial friendliness.

During much of this volume, characters avoid the seemingly inevitable, which builds a sense of foreboding or even dread for what may come. Uta devotes more time to her friends, leading to a narrative focus on Chloe and Miyabi’s relationship and the Konatsu telling her story of a relationship with a young teacher. These side stories are compelling enough, but they at least feel like a joined part of the narrative, rather than a distraction as they occasionally drifted towards in previous volumes. Uta learns and grows from seeing her friends’ struggles and appears affected by them, incorporating their experiences into her journey.

Uta’s experiences are mirrored perfectly by Kaoru, who is apparently more suspicious of Uta’s feelings than she let the younger girl believe. Ultimately, this leads to their big confrontation at the start of volume five and, while I will not spoil anything, the results of it are stunning. The author is uniquely able to convey the complex emotions of the characters. Utas feelings after the encounter are ones of guilt, joy, and overwhelming relief. The story is rapidly barreling towards its conclusion as she prepares to leave behind her brother, the woman she loves, and, she hopes, her feelings.

If I Could Reach You’s story is as devastating and shocking as ever. The characters are complicated, and their motivations and feelings are not always clear, but not for lack of clues. Upon repeat reading and analysis of the images, their true feelings become more apparent, showing more detail the more time you spend with it. It is brilliantly paced and rewarding to invested readers who spent the time with the last few volumes and stayed invested and critical during the build-up.

However, the real reason I adore If I Could Reach You is the artwork. Few of the illustrations appear breathtaking at first, or epic in their achievement, but the more so their subtleties. Every shot’s framing, the arrangement of panels, and the characters’ expressive faces and bodies all serve to prop up the story and communicate it and its intricacies perfectly. Indeed, tMnR is the master of visual storytelling and has enough confidence in their art to relieve dialogue and let the art do the work’s brunt. On more than one occasion, back before the series concluded serialization, I would browse the latest chapters in Comic Yuri Hime and just observe the art, without looking up any of the Japanese, and was consistently impressed.

A lot of the time, I feel art, especially dramas, exists only to serve as secondary visuals for the dialogue and stories, a sales banner clamoring for attention and then serving only as talking heads for text which could easily be rewritten in prose or else rearranged into a large group text chat. If I Could Reach You is one of a few works that only really works in visual mediums. Much of this I have said before, but I want just to highlight how astounding and tight tMnR’s focus and artwork is.

If I Could Reach You remains an incredibly emotional and powerful story. The tension continues to rise in volumes 4 and 5, as both our heroines press forward and finally reveal the truth and hurt. The series is subtle yet exceptionally direct, pulling no punches in this complex and devastating whirlwind. It is all accompanied by precise and wonderfully crafted artwork that instills a profound relationship and understanding of its subjects unique to other works. It is one of a select few series that holds my attention and investment, and for an excellent reason.

Ratings: Story – 8 Characters – 7 Art – 10 LGBTQ – 5 Sexual Content – 3 Final – 8

Check out If I Could Reach You volume 4 and 5 digitally and in paperback today: https://amzn.to/3rAHAHi

Reading official releases supports creators and publishers. YuriMother makes a small commission from sales to help fund future content.

Review copies provided by Kodansha Comics

[gaussianray]

Some tips for studying in STEM

So, I'm a TA for an engineering class and I often see a number of similar problems popping up again and again and I thought I'd write down some of those tips to see if they'd help anybody else.

I guess they'd work well enough for most STEM classes too.

In no particular order: 1. Units matter and they can help you a lot When doing anything that you're not quite sure if it's right or not, work out the units and see if they make sense. Some basic rules you should probably be aware: - Derivates (df/dx) have units [function]/[variable] - Integrals have units [function][variable] - You can only add or subtract things with the same units This can help you catch some mistakes regarding unit changes or when you have two similar concepts that have different units (e.g.: capacitance and capacitance per area, both of which are written out as C) 2. Always do a Common Sense Test Does it make sense for a load bearing beam to have a 1 km length (about 0.62 mi)? You have a circuit with a 1 V battery as the sole power source, does it make sense if the current you calculated would dissipate more energy than the UK generates in a year? Sometimes you can get some weird and funky results because you made a mistake somewhere and just stopping to check if the answer makes sense can save you some grief later on. Some common checks you could do: - Is the answer in the expected order of magnitude? - Would this answer waste more energy that's being given to whatever system you're working with? - Does the answer make physical sense in some easy to check special cases? E.g.: If the input is 0, or if the input is infinity or things like that. Some of those checks only really become easy to do after you get some experience but getting used to doing these kind of checks is a useful habit to get into. 3. It's OK to not know something, but know you don't know it in advance As a TA, I try to help people as much as I can and sometimes that includes giving a refresher (or in some cases even teaching) on some things from other subjects. But if you show up the day before the exam or the worksheet deadline and want me to explain the entire subject to you, it's not easy to help you.

Which brings me to another tip ...

4. When asking for help, have actionable questions. If you show up and say "I have no idea how to do this", trying to help you becomes a lot harder because I don't know what I need to say to get you to understand and I won't just tell you the answer or the exact algorithm.

But if you show up saying "I don't understand X" or "Why do we do Y instead of X?" there's a foot in the door to start explaining things and trying to figure out where the foundation is wonky.

Sometimes you can't help it, and that's fine, but try to avoid this if possible. 5. Read carefully and to the end. Sometimes you'll see a problem statement, think "Oh, it's an X question, I know what to do" except it was asking something slightly different. Or was asking you to do X and Y, or was giving you some information that would have made your life a lot easier (or just possible). And even when just studying, most books, tutors or whatnots begin with the "textbook answer" or procedures and will only give the tips and special cases after. If you stop reading as soon as you find something that works you might end up doing more work than necessary. 6. Prose makes all your assignments that much more readable. If you explain your thought process when you're doing something instead of just writing down things you get a few benefits: - You'll have an easier time assimilating the content - Whoever's grading might see you know what you're doing and give you half marks if you messed up the math - If you do make a mistake somewhere and you're trying to figure out where it went wrong, having your thought process written out helps 7. You do the thinking and the computer does the math Using a programming language to do the math avoids a lot of common math problems, mechanical errors (the calculator button was stuck and didn't register) and is easier to debug if anything went wrong. That's all I can think of right now, maybe I'll do a follow up if I remember more stuff and of course, your mileage may vary, these are just things that were useful to me and would help with some of the mistakes I see happening a lot.