#the type is: dumb blonds cursed by the narrative

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I know death doesn’t hold as much significance in Limited life as it did in the past life seasons but Martyn running off for the majority of the ep and then coming back to Scott after losing 2 lives has the same vibes as when Jimmy lost 2 lives in the same episode in 3rd life

Ether time is a flat fucking circle or Scott definitely has A TypeTM and it shows lol

[langernameohnebedeutung]

Ask the Author

I was tagged by @78669! Thank you! ok!

1) is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

A third installment for Un/Hurt - I have a pretty good idea what it would be about, but I started about five times and I was never. quite. happy. I feel a bit guilty because I hinted at a third one. I think the longest version I’ve written about it is about 2k words so. not much.

2) what work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?

Aaah. aaaaaaaah. That one. Snow White.

ok. So if I ever critise other writers - professionals or friends or anyone ever - I do so in the full knowledge that I gave life to a monstrosity.

Okay, let me talk about Snow White (a title that - in retroperspective, also describes the main-cast pretty well)

One story I started writing in 9th grade. 

It basically ticked all the edgy-teen stereotypes. Little village: check. Edgy teen protagonist who’s Not Like The Other Girls: Check. Dumb parents who JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND: Check. Lots of casual drug use and alcohol: check. 

I guess the only strong point was that she didn’t have a love interest (because she was Too Smart for anything but casual sex with her best friend). Oh and her neighbour was a murderous, torturous rape-y cult member and if I had finished the thing she would have killed him and gotten arrested for it and stayed quiet about her (pretty valid) reasons for killing him because in prison she would be away from her parents who I don’t think ever did much wrong except tell her that she’s got issues. Oh I think one of her teachers was a spy or something. Also there was a lot of references to Japanese stuff in there because again. I was in 9th grade and I loved to plaster Kanji on things. (Although now that I looked at the document again, WHICH I DID, I ACTUALLY OPENED THE KURSÉD DOKUMENT FOR YOU) the Kanji chapter titles are gone. So I came to my senses about that one.

So far you’re going to say: Wow so you wrote an annnoying, slightly problematic story when you were That Age we all did, big deal. That doesn’t make it a monstrosity.

Well.

The thing is -

The whole story might even have had potential if I had thrown out some of the bullshit and given the main-character some sort of personality, but unfortunately it’s also basically almost unreadable. Like. At that point of my writing, every tip I ever gotten from teachers and advice books was: “Take your time, don’t rush! Describe!” Because that’s young writers tend to do - rush - but unfortunately they didn’t expect Josie’s dumb ass, who quickly concluded: 

The Longer The Story - The Better!

and that was the downfall of the entire story. Because bitch, I can talk for ages without saying anything and the result was:

464 pages of Word Document,

Times New Roman 12pt, smallest possible spacing. 257k words. And it wasn’t nearly finished. There hadn’t even happened much.

Just to give you a sense of how unreadable it is. I’ll allow you (if you speak German) a peak at my greatest shame. Or at least the opening.

What 9th grade me wanted to say: “It was warm outside.” What 9th grade me actually wrote, because she’d been told not to rush and to describe:

The entire scene is just about Protagonist and Friends being angst-y in the garden. Literally nothing plot-relevant happens (like in most scenes). Aaaah. 

Just to make you realise the extent of this catastrophe, I randomly just scrolled for a while and then here we are at page 264.

What 9th grade me wanted to stay: “Main Character is lying on her bed. She’s looking at the ceiling. Probably looking for a personality.”

What 9th grade actually wrote:

(Did I mention that this goes on for almost 300k words? Like. These days I’m proud when I write 20k words. Ninth Grade me, where did you find this much energy and why was this what you invested it on??? this giant chunk of text with no content - like yeah there’s characters and stuff happening but it’s mostly just...endless mind-numbing descriptions of things happening in metaphor) 

3) what order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?

Usually chronologically, but ever so often I jump ahead to a scene that I really look forward to writing. The problem is that sometimes when I get there, something changed inbetween - because I’m a bit too spontanous and I love details - and then usually I have to re-write it anyway.

4) favorite character you’ve written

Usually the current one. And at the moment I’d probably answer the story from my latest original work - because they’re pretty fun and feral and also pretty simple. But with some distance this Victorian Demon Detective who gets hired by the murder-victims to avenge them was pretty fun. Was a giant dick. I enjoyed the entire 20 pages I wrote with him in them, before my attention wavered and I moved on.

5) character you were most surprised to end up writing

I’m pretty much suprised every time I write a nice, likeable character.

6) something you would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late/complicated to change now

I wish I’d ever really bothered to learn how to right good transitions. Mostly it’s just: Scene SMACK Next Scene SMACK Another Scene. Also I wish I could describe the passing of time more naturally.

7) when asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

I don’t talk about it with strangers much. Except you people on tumblr.com. Depends on how it’s going. When I got a project I’m excited about and it’s going well, I’ll talk about it. If it’s not going well, I will pretend I haven’t ever written aything.

8) favorite genre to write

I don’t really have one. Although I don’t do Romance much and Crime/Thriller isn’t my cup of tea either. Mostly I beat the trope: Unlikely partners forced to work together - to death. 

9) what, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

Buy notebooks and scribble into them.

10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?

I usually have music on - I got a Spotify playlist for my current story and listen to it on Shuffle - but I can write anywhere, university - even on the underground I type on my phone (when I’m in the mood). In school I got called out for writing in the lessons so often I learnt to write Kurrentschrift so that the teacher wouldn’t be able to tell what I’m doing lol.

11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

I feel like I used to be better at some point in the past, actually. But mostly the characters?

12) your weaknesses as an author

I can never really stick to an outline, so I will go into one direction with the plot and then I’ll have another idea and I sometimes worry there isn’t enough of a red thread.

13) your strengths as an author

Hmm...I can throw a lot of problems at my characters at an astonishingly efficient rate?

14) do you make playlists for your current wips?

For the last one I did, as I said. It’s a very weird mixture of Viking music, Electro-Synth, Opera and pop-songs.

15) why did you start writing?

I just always did, I think?

16) are there any characters who haunt you?

Most of my major characters while I’m writing them, but it’s usually the current one. So at the moment it’s Nith, the main-character of my current story, because they deserve so much better and everyone fucks my magic child over and they just want to be accepted but at the same time the thought of living around actual...people terrifies them, because they’ve been considered cursed and were rejected for the biggest part of their life and now they’re kinda twisted and due really dubious shit so that they don’t have to be alone in their icy wasteland. Then they met a literal prince and they were forced to work together (because that trope is my jam) except Nith panicked and poisoned him so they’re in even deeper shit now. 

17) if you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be?

YOU CAN’T WRITE COLD CASE FANFICTION IF YOU NEVER WATCHED THE FUCKING SHOW AND DON’T EVEN KNOW THE CHARACTERS’ NAMES oh, ok you already did. And they go to Mars. ofc.*

(No, but serious advice: Don’t let anyone ever tell you it’s useless. As long as you enjoy yourself, just keep writing.)

*yep that’s a thing 11 year old me did. I liked the blond woman in the trailers on Kabel1 ok?

18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?

When I was about 18 we had Tauben im Gras in school and I got obsessed with writing like that. I got pages after pages just filled by me writing in that style. It’s like a dubstep remix of what my 9th grade self wrote, but I won a price for one of those so there’s that.

But usually, whatever I’m currently reading influences me. Like, not even because I want it to. For example I was once switching to and fro reading fanfiction and writing something of my own. But the fanfiction was in English and my writing in German and I first adopted the same tense, then the POV and suddenly my brain insisted I need to write this in English. fuck.

19) when it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

- I take a lot of notes in a document which are mostly written as me dragging and insulting my characters

- then I split it up into scenes and write down plot-points for every scene

- I also note what it does for the characters individual storyline.

- then I start writing and ignore all of that because the character saw a butterfly and it sparks an entire dialogue with another character and they decide not to save the princess at all but to start an ice-cream truck.

20) do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?

Little spurts are usually draft-versions of scenes. Long sessions happen when I’m really inspired. What works best for me is putting a bowl of snacks in front of me and having a chip or a peanut every 100 words and to keep writing until the bowl is empty (at that point, usually there’s a sunrise outside)

21) what do you think when you read over your older work?

I don’t ever do that much. but since you made me look at The Cursed One, I was actually surprised that it was not quite 100% as horribly cringy as I made it out to be in my soul. I didn’t want to spoon my eyes out of my skull.

22) are there any subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?

Not really. Nothing I would want to write in the first place.

23) any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?

not really obscure, no

24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

At the moment a lot of norse mythology stuff

25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of

I’m never really proud of anything I write, but I’m kinda fond of the opening for one of my story-ideas, because I think it’s pretty efficient when it comes to world-building and setting the scene and explaining how the people in that place tick: