#the way I've watched at least an episode of all of these

[petermorwood]

As someone who's also done some writing, this is all Extremely Sound Advice. :->

Here are a couple of point enhancements, and a rant about how a famous production torpedoed itself - IMO, anyway - by getting fixated on one of them

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(2) Head-hopping / POV change - think screen format and a change of camera angle. A "dinkus" (one or more asterisks, bullets or other symbol) between paragraphs is enough to indicate this, and you're good to go.

I do something similar in my own posts, including this one, though properly speaking the asterisks would be centred. I've done that with the next set, though since I've done the centring by inserting spaces, they may be well off-centre in other themes:

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(3) and (4) Treat info- and expo-dumps like pungent seasoning. Your recipe (story) needs them, but Not All In A Lump.

A good way to do this (the equivalent to "stir in gradually") is to combine them with other action - eating a meal, a walk-and-talk, watching some non-essential business like someone grooming a horse, washing a car, mowing a lawn etc., etc.

Intersperse the necessary dialogue of the info-expo with descriptions of and comments on the other business. If that business can be made relevant to the info-expo (comparisons, side-comments etc.) so much the better, but the point is to break up what can too easily be what TVTropes calls A Wall Of Text.

Thriller-writer Philip Kerr's later books are notorious for this: there are numerous instances where a character starts to talk ("Open Quotes") at the top of one page and - without interruption and sometimes even without paragraphs - doesn't finish ("Close Quotes") until halfway down the next.

Worse, the character is often reciting a chunk of background information from Kerr's research files which should have stayed there, or at the very least been pared down to its bare essentials as something a human being might say during a conversation with another human being.

Which Does Not Happen. :-P

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(8) about epithets, tackles something well-enough known that it has a TV Trope, "Burly Detective Syndrome". This has a cousin, "Said-Bookism", and no matter what you might have heard or indeed seen posted along with lists of sometimes-ridiculous alternatives on Tumblr, "said" is not dead.

It's alive, it's well and it's doing its job, which is to be the unobtrusive hook from which dialogue is hung. As I've said more than once, if a hook attracts more attention than the thing it's holding up, something's gone wrong.

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(10) If there's a scene that's likely to be fun to write, and another that's likely to be a slog, then if it works for your writing habits try to swap to and fro between the writing of them, with fun as a reward for slog.

If chop-and-change writing like this throws you off, then write the slog first and the fun after since once again, that's the reward, something to look forward to. Doing it the other way means you're looking at the slog to come, and that's not my idea of a reward.

Also, it can happen (personal experience) that after the refreshment of the fun, you'll come back to the first-draft slog bit and revise it into something better.

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I'd suggest (6) and (7) about subverting expectations - whether characters' or readers', and the one will become the other as reading happens - are something that need approached with care, and should always have a solid reason beyond (box tick) Not What They Expect.

Showing an unsubverted episode or incident - for instance the character's going-out preparations, or their commuting-home routine - is necessary, often more than once *, to establish Normality, so the character and reader are aware that This Time Is Different.

(* I've seen this done by cut-and-paste repeating the same description from one chapter into the next. It was imaginative and effective there, but could easily have tripped up on its own cleverness by seeming UNimaginative. YMMV.)

Why is the character including a concealed weapon in their party dress-up? Why is the character concerned they might be tailed during that commute? A comparison between ordinary and extraordinary is needed to show this doesn't happen every single time.

It's also a good way of racking up page-turning tension before invoking (5) that cliff-hanger chapter ending... :->

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And now the rant... :-p

Subverting expectations as a (box tick) action because it was So Effective That One Time is what transformed the final seasons of a once-popular fantasy adaptation into such a disappointment.

"Game of Thrones" is an excellent example of subverted expectations, such as the Red Wedding where - despite the way heroes are expected to escape at the last minute - a crapsack world like Westeros means bad things play all the way through to their bad conclusion.

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It's also an excellent example of how bad writing and a (box tick) attitude can lead to subversions that should have been left alone.

One instance is the way Jaime Lannister's redemption was abandoned "to subvert expectations" (box tick) complete with redemption-dismissive dialogue that was a slap in the face to several seasons of character development.

The lack of any hint or implication that such a thing was even possible suggests - to this viewer anyway - that it was no more than a (box tick) without additional thought as to whether it was logical in-story, as long as it generated yet another "Oh No, we didn't see that coming!" reaction from the audience.

(Of course nobody saw it coming, since neither plot requirement nor character development had any reason for it to happen.)

Sometimes a story should play out logically as a story because It's A Story, Not A Documentary. Terry Pratchett knew this and called it Narrativium, the element which drives stories. TV Tropes calls it The Theory of Narrative Causality.

Whatever the name, and however storytellers may tinker and tweak with it, they ignore its basic rules at their peril.

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Another example is Cersei's death.

When a writer as amiable as C.S. Lewis said:

"Let there be wicked kings and beheadings, battles and dungeons, giants and dragons, and let villains be soundly killed at the end..."

...just dropping a building on her without involving any of the many other High-Profile Characters she'd hurt throughout the series was ridiculous, especially with one of those High-Profile Characters already in the vicinity.

It may well have subverted expectations, but it was a lousy resolution.

It was also bad storytelling which abandoned at least one long-anticipated set-up (all too common in later GoT), and still vexes me since in a storyline filled with subversions for the sake of shock value, NOT subverting audience expectations but instead rewarding them with what they want (what they really, really want) becomes a subversion in itself.

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It's not hard to imagine more original and entertaining ways of bringing Cersei's pigeons home to roost, the most obvious being a fatal encounter with Arya-reFaced-as-Jaime.

This IMO would have been a much more satisfying use of her well-established Faceless Man sneakmurder skills than that no-setup leap from nowhere onto the Ice King, another Bad Guy built up to deserve a more spectacular termination than his you're-done-now-kthxbye demise.

Certainly after eight seasons of scheming, murder, cruelty - and infuriating smugness, oh yes, that too - having Cersei "soundly killed" should have involved something, anything, more conclusive, up-front and personal than a load of bricks landing on her head.

Subvert, yes. But not just for the sake of doing it.

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And as @writeblrfantasy concluded, no matter what way you're doing it, have fun in the doing of it...

my 10 holy grail pieces of writing advice for beginners

from an indie author who's published 4 books and written 20+, as well as 400k in fanfiction (who is also a professional beta reader who encounters the same issues in my clients' books over and over)

show don't tell is every bit as important as they say it is, no matter how sick you are of hearing about it. "the floor shifted beneath her feet" hits harder than "she felt sick with shock."

no head hopping. if you want to change pov mid scene, put a scene break. you can change it multiple times in the same scene! just put a break so your readers know you've changed pov.

if you have to infodump, do it through dialogue instead of exposition. your reader will feel like they're learning alongside the character, and it will flow naturally into your story.

never open your book with an exposition dump. instead, your opening scene should drop into the heart of the action with little to no context. raise questions to the reader and sprinkle in the answers bit by bit. let your reader discover the context slowly instead of holding their hand from the start. trust your reader; donn't overexplain the details. this is how you create a perfect hook.

every chapter should end on a cliffhanger. doesn't have to be major, can be as simple as ending a chapter mid conversation and picking it up immediately on the next one. tease your reader and make them need to turn the page.

every scene should subvert the character's expectations, as big as a plot twist or as small as a conversation having a surprising outcome. scenes that meet the character's expectations, such as a boring supply run, should be summarized.

arrive late and leave early to every scene. if you're character's at a party, open with them mid conversation instead of describing how they got dressed, left their house, arrived at the party, (because those things don't subvert their expectations). and when you're done with the reason for the scene is there, i.e. an important conversation, end it. once you've shown what you needed to show, get out, instead of describing your character commuting home (because it doesn't subvert expectations!)

epithets are the devil. "the blond man smiled--" you've lost me. use their name. use it often. don't be afraid of it. the reader won't get tired of it. it will serve you far better than epithets, especially if you have two people of the same pronouns interacting.

your character should always be working towards a goal, internal or external (i.e learning to love themself/killing the villain.) try to establish that goal as soon as possible in the reader's mind. the goal can change, the goal can evolve. as long as the reader knows the character isn't floating aimlessly through the world around them with no agency and no desire. that gets boring fast.

plan scenes that you know you'll have fun writing, instead of scenes that might seem cool in your head but you know you'll loathe every second of. besides the fact that your top priority in writing should be writing for only yourself and having fun, if you're just dragging through a scene you really hate, the scene will suffer for it, and readers can tell. the scenes i get the most praise on are always the scenes i had the most fun writing. an ideal outline shouldn't have parts that make you groan to look at. you'll thank yourself later.

happy writing :)

[enbypotat53]

(SPOILERS FOR TNM6!)

Holy fucking shit. Two years of waiting was so worth it. I'm not even kidding I have been sobbing and shaking for the past half an hour.

I have way too many screenshots so I'll try to condense it but FIRST OFF LOOK AT THESE CUTIE PATOOTIES??? Oh my god realising that this was a year onward from the murders was like a knife to the chest; seeing Tophat and Sketchpad living together and ACTUALLY HAPPY FOR ONCE?? AUGHHH I LOVE THEM 💔

I'm not joking when I say I went back and screenshotted almost every scene GPS was in, but I'll include this one when talking about the memories because GPS hiding behind the couch is SO damn cute 💙

And. Oh. Oh my god. My fucking heart. They care SO much about Tophat and Folder, and the new song?? PEAK. Average TNM W. Seeing all of the adorable moments of these three together?? Heals the soul, but it's SO bittersweet knowing they'll never see eachother again. I'm ABSOLUTELY redrawing some of these, they're too cute not to :,3

Okay but THEY ARE SO IN LOVE?? THEY. AJDJFJFJFJ THEY ARE SO IN LOVE. I. WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS. HOW IN LOVE THEY ARE. GOD. PLEASE ALLEN JUST. LET THEM BE HAPPY FOR ONCE. P L E A S E.

"You just.. wouldn't get the full picture. It's the same with memories for me. Would it still be me.. even if I was missing a few bad ones?"

This is.. genuinely such a fantastic line. GPS has always been my favourite character, but.. damn. The idea that even bad memories hold value because they're still memories; still a part of you, and still might contain the people you love most? They're genuinely such a well-written character, and it's plain to see just how much they care for their friends. And they have a point! Memories shape you, good and bad. As much as the bad ones hurt, it can also help to learn from them in order to make more good ones in the future. And it seems Sketchpad and Tophat did just that.

God. Codey's betrayal was definitely forseeable, but it still hurts. The "I'm just following my programming" line gives me similar vibes to Speech Bubble and Spraypaint in a way; everyone has their part to play, even if (in Codey and Binary's case) it's a harmful one. I'm glad they did the right thing in the end, though. And Binary for SURE gives me Airy vibes, I both adore and despise them and to be honest that's EXACTLY what I could've hoped for in an antagonist. They're GREAT.

Wait a sec..

Binary..

OH I GET THE JOKE IT'S BECAUSE GPS IS NONBI-

Oh.

OH.

Hear that sound? That's the sound of me wailing in agony as my heart shatters into a million pieces.

"This is.. really it.. huh?" THEY SOUND SO SCARED?? God this entire episode I wanted to give them a huge hug and a slice of cake and to tell them that everything would be okay, my hEART. This entire scene broke me, the fear in their eyes and voice hurt so much to hear, my BABY HE'S BEEN THROUGH SO MUCH 💔

And just. This. Entire scene. I cannot tell you how fucking PERFECT of an ending this was. The fact that Tophat was the last thing GPS thought of before he died? The happiest moment they could think of was their high school prom dance, spending it with the person they love most? One final memory to end it all, and it was the most important one in their life. I've said this before but god. They're so in love. It's genuinely gutwrenching watching this scene; they're so happy yet this moment is so fleeting. Knowing how temporary it was and how everything ended makes it worse. Tophat moved on, maybe not fully but at least he's happier. GPS on the other hand? They're stuck reliving memories of people they can NEVER see again; people they hurt.

It's bittersweet as hell, and honestly kind of a perfect juxtaposition to the puzzle scene. Then, they relived bad memories, yet still seemed happy. Now, they're re-experiencing a moment that should fill them with joy, and yet...

Nothing lasts forever.

The ending song being a response to Imaginary Friend, too? Perfection. 💙

Thank you, Nightly Manor. Thank you, Allen. This series was fucking phenominal, and the wait was worth every second. My heart is in tatters but good lord I wouldn't have it any other way. Now it's time to redraw some scenes and try not to cry any harder than I already am! :,D 👍💙

[redpandapirate]

Severance Episode 7

I've seen some people on reddit theorize that Gemma is being SA'd on the testing floor. One person said the dentist and "love you" scene were just fetishes.

I do understand where this idea comes from. It's probably the most fucked up scenario one (especially as a woman) thinks of when seeing people being severed in not just two but multiple persona. And let's be honest, it is also a very realistic threat women would face if severance were a real thing.

Buuut while I could see SA being brought up in the future, I do not think Gemma is being SA'd in the rooms. The experiences are clearly tailored to her. Mark said she hates writing thank you cards, so one of her innies does nothing but that + she gets taunted with the last exchange her outie had with Mark. I assume she also has a fear of dentists and flying (pretty common fears imo). I assume Lumon wants to either

1. Sell Severance as a way to get out of unpleasant situations. We've already seen this with the pregnancy cabin but they're likely perfecting this for easy everyday use.

2. Obviously they want to complete something with Gemma, somehow she will "sire a new world". They also say once she is done she will have to go and Mark will be free of pain (probably grief). This sounds to me like they want to find a way to delete the original person (outie) or be able to sever any negative emotion. In Marks case "deleting" all memories of Gemma and therefore his grief. Either to sell this or to do something more sinister (we still don't know what the revolving is for example, just profit is probably not the end goal of Lumon)

Of course the big question still remains. What is cold harbor? Why does that last door complete whatever they're doing with her? Since they're apparently able to simulate a crashing plane it really could be anything. Personally I hope it has nothing to do with SA or her miscarriage.

And my personal biggest question that I've had since watching season one: Why Gemma and Mark? Everyone is obsessed with Mark and him finishing cold harbor. The Dr. Maurer dude was already looking at Gemma while in the fertility clinic. Because she simply would be their next victim? Or because they had been waiting for her arrival? There has to be something special about them and I don't believe it's a cliche "Oh, because their love is just soo strong", at least I hope it's not lol.

(Also why tf do the people in the testing floor office look like MDR? Are these the ones they saw on their outdoor retreat or are there two sets of look-alikes? Wtf is that about)

While I don't want this season to end, I'm so excited for the last episodes.

[fr3sh-c0rn]

there's just something about crime shows made in the early to mid 2000s man

[helielune]

and stalling only goes so far when you've got a head start

[haaam-guuuurl]

Okay, I just figured out why the ending of episode 2 bummed me out so much.

Seeing every character get home to bad news felt really demoralizing, in a way that was probably more than it deserved, because it is natural that stuff like high school couples breaking up, or wealth disparities and future questioning, or academic trouble, or parental or sibling absence, happens in adolescence, but I just realized that it felt like a gut punch because we didn't see any of it build up.

We have no idea what happened with Gorgug and Zelda, and since they were golden when we last saw them, it feels so weird for it to be implied that they break up. We've spent very little time at Aguefort, so Fig and Kristen's near expulsion is total news to us. We haven't accompanied Sklonda's career shift or even just that much of the Gukgak's home life, so we weren't expecting it to affect Riz's future like that. We didn't get to really see Aelwyn's life change post SY, so it was jarring to have her be gone already. Even Gilear and Hallariel, we've barely seen them actually be together, so for them to be engaged already felt very out of nowhere to me. I think if we'd gotten to see stuff progress to this point, it'd feel a lot more natural and not upsetting at all.

But then I realized, too, that this is exactly what the Bad Kids are feeling!! They're getting home after being gone all summer and realizing they've missed all this stuff, and it feels out of nowhere to them, too!! They're tired, surprised, and feeling like they're lacking key experiences, and now so are we! They made this in a way that it not only depicts typical high school experiences and opens up story opportunities for the new season, but it also puts the audience, emotionally, in the exact same place as the characters!

Brennan Lee Mulligan, you evil genius. I cannot wait for the rest of the season, I simply need to see how they get through this. My emotional well-being depends on it!!!

[sskk-manifesto]

--

[extervus]

OK FINE I started watching Severance btw

[kennys-parka-jacket]

I am once again thinking about The Poor Kid

[skrunksthatwunk]

household enemy to the yyh watchthrough number one is the olympics. it's taken us a week to get two episodes into the gamemaster fight

[cinnamontoastcrunch-15]

The Ends of the Earth

GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS

I've finally decided it's time to share a long fic that I've been working non stop on secretly!!

I'm so fucking excited about this, so here you go!

Summary:

Sirius Black isn't what you'd call a 'good person'. He's just fine, and all, but who's keeping track, why does being good matter?

After he dies he realises that it matters... a lot.

A very long The Good Place AU fic in which Sirius is our Eleanor Shellstrop and Remus is the ever lovely Chidi Anagonye. I've been developing this for a while, and it's something I'm very proud of so far, and I've decided that it's finally time to share it with you!

So strap in, because this is going to be a JOURNEY (you don't have to have watched the show to read this!! It'll go off from the exact TGP storyline very VERY early on so don't worry about it too much)

It is Sirius (and wolfstar) centric, with some other POVs as a special treat every so often, and will also have Jily, Dorlene, Minerva x Poppy and possibly Rosekiller? I haven't decided yet lmao

Read the first chapter on ao3 now! https://archiveofourown.org/works/48301027/chapters/121815799

Cheeky little taster here:

Sirius is waking up. 

Confusion washes over him for a moment, being all too used to aggressive headaches, almost like he’s being stabbed, dehydrated and nauseous, punishment for yet another night out, but this feels… pleasant. He isn’t peeling his eyes open uncomfortably, hoping and praying that he has something in his cupboards to settle his stomach. Instead, he wakes easily, wondering when he even fell asleep. After a few short blinks, his eyes finally start focusing. 

Where the hell is he? 

It’s definitely not his dingy flat that he hasn’t been able to play electricity for yet. He should really get on that, not being able to charge his phone in the flat is getting really annoying, he doesn’t want to keep looking for McDonalds’ he can charge shit shit up in. 

His hands run over the light cream leather of the sofa he’s sat on, glancing around the room. Directly in front of him, on a wall that is such a stark white that it should be painful, a calming green text cuts through the paint. 

‘Welcome! Everything is Fine.’ 

Fine. 

Sure, he doesn’t actually know where he is or what’s going on, but somehow, and Sirius really isn’t sure how, he trusts it. He may be somewhere full of expensive furniture, but Everything’s Fine. Everything- 

[glacierruler]

I'll try liveblogging the roadtrip episode later, I do not have the energy to deal with whatever the fuck is happening right now.

[nemofil]

(wip) silly <3 what do you mean she massacred the humans nahh that never happened

[bonyato]

Sorry abt the occasional digiposting as of late, im coming to terms w/ the fact that it's starting to grow on me orz

[helpimstuckinafandom]

So long, Scrumptious Scoundrels!

[faint-taste-of-almonds]

yes there's a lot of things to criticize about Star Wars but one thing i will always love it for is being so unabashedly tragic

i'm sure it's been said before, but one of the main things i think powers the SW fandom (fics in particular) is the (in)evitability of it all

time travel fix-its are one of the most popular sub-categories of fics that i've seen (for the prequels at least) but i see it much more rarely in other fandoms. i know each fandom has their own niches that they dig into but star wars fic writers took one look at this decades long story of people who were doomed from the start and said 'not in my house bitch'

and i'm never tired of it, because there's so many places where just one different action could have changed the story entirely, but didn't

was it over the moment Palpatine succeeded in feeding Anakin's fears and his distrust toward the Jedi? the moment the Sith gained control of the senate? what about when the war started, when the Jedi were made generals of men designed to be their executioners? what about when Dooku left the order? when Qui-Gon Jinn died, leaving barely-knighted Obi Wan Kenobi to raise a child he had no idea how to care for? when the Jedi massacred the Mandalorians at Galidraan, leaving Jango Fett primed (hah) for revenge? when Palpatine, and thus the Sith, first gained influence? when the Jedi were tied to the Republic, all the way back at the Ruusan Reformation?

there are so many little moments that turn into this huge web of cause and effect when you take a step back. and in canon, these characters are dooming themselves while we watch, but what reason do they have to do anything different? they don't know they're in a tragedy - its dramatic irony at its goddamn finest

but there's this thing about decisions: for it to be a choice, there has to be another option. and our heroes make their mistakes because that's what they do, while we aren't privy to that other option, leaving that little what-if. it's a favorite human pastime, to think about what might have been.

we start at episode 4, though, fourty or so years after what you could arguably call the start, and find ourselves watching the dominoes fall in place throughout 1, 2, and 3.

and we can hate the choices, hate the tragedy, hate what happened to our beloved characters, but we knew. we had the luxury of knowing.

it's a love story, it's political intrique, it's sci-fi at its finest, and they were dead from the start.