#writing how to

[inky-duchess]

Fantasy Guide to Creating Your Own Language

When writer's set out to world-build, language has a huge role in creating new cultures and lending a sense of realism to your efforts. A world and people just feel more real when language is involved. As the old Irish proverb says "tír gan teanga, tír gan anam”. A country without a language, is a country without a soul. So how can we create one?

Do Your Homework

First things off, you should start by studying languages. Nobody is asking you to get fluent but it's important to understand the basic mechanics of language. You will start to see certain tricks to language, how verbs are conjugated and how gender effects certain words. It will be easier to make up your own when you know these tricks. For example, in Irish one doesn't scold but "gives out to" - "a thabhairt amach". In German, numbers are arranged differently to the English with the smallest digit arranged before the tens for example 21 - Einsundzwanzig. By immersing yourself in an array of different languages (I recommend finding ones close to how you want your language to sound), you can gain the tools necessary for creating a believable language.

Keep it Simple

Nobody expects you to pull a Tolkien or channel the powers of David J. Peterson (hail bisa vala). You're not writing a dictionary of your con-lang. You will probably use only a handful of words in your story. Don't over complicate things. A reader will not be fluent in your con-lang and if they have to continually search for the meaning of words they will likely loose patience.

Start Small

When you're learning a language, you always start with the basics. You do the exact same when writing one. Start with introductions, the names of simple objects, simple verbs (to be, to do, to have for example) and most importantly your pronouns (you will use these more than any other word, which is why I always start with them). Simple everyday phrases should always be taken care of first. Build your foundation and work your way up, this is a marathon not a race.

Music to the Ears

If your creating a new language, you're more than likely doing it phonetically. Sound is important to language and especially a con-lang because you want to trick your reader into thinking of a real language when reading the words on the page. I suggest sitting down and actually speak your words aloud, get the feel of them on the tongue to work out the spelling. Spellings shouldn't be too complicated, as I said before the readers aren't fluent and you want to make it easier for them to try it out themselves.

Also when you're creating the con-lang, it's important to figure out how it sounds to an unsuspecting ear. If a character is walking down a street and hears a conversation in a strange language, they will likely describe to the reader what it sounds like. It might be guttural or soft, it might be bursque or flowery. It's always interesting to compare how different languages flow in the ear.

Writing in Your Language

Now that you've written your language and created some words, you will want to incoperate them into your story. The way most writers do this is by italicising them. As a reader, I generally prefer authors not to go too overboard with their con-lang. Swathes of con-lang words might intrigue a reader but it can leave them confused as well. It is better to feed con-lang to your readers bit by bit. In most published works writer's tend to use words here and there but there are few whole sentences. For example in A Game Of Thrones by George RR Martin, has actually only a handful of short sentences in Dothraki despite the language being prevalent throughout the book. Daenerys Targaryen pronounces that "Khalakka dothrae mr’anha!"/"A prince rides inside me!" and it's one of the only sentence we actually see in actual Dothraki.

There's also nothing stopping you from just saying a language has been spoken. If you're not comfortable writing out the words, then don't make yourself. A simple dialogue tag can do the trick just fine.

Know your Words

I do recommend keeping an actual record of your words. Make a dictionary if you want or a simple list of words you need. This is one of the most entertaining aspects of world building, have fun with it, go mad if you like. Also here's a short list of questions you can ask yourself about language in general which might help your juices flow.

[scifrey]

Lots of talk happening on Social Media lately about Trade Pub vs. Indie Pub vs. Selfpub (not that one is better than the other, just the advantages or disadvantages of whichever route you pick.)

So, I thought I'd share this again.

This is how a book goes from a manuscript to a published product, regardless of which type of publishing you do.

Note that if you have an agent or publisher, everything from "Submissions" downward, you will have support teams for (editors, proofreaders, marketing teams). Unless it's Indie/Small Press, in which case, much like querying, the submissions process is on you.

But if you selfpub, you have to do that all on your own (unless, like me, you hire cover artists, proofreaders, typesetters, etc.)

I've got some more information about Pitch Packages for Query/Submissions here, and lots more articles about the business and craft of writing here.

[thoughtportal]

typesetting in google drive

[sohoscribblers]

Sharing an educational article written by one of our more experienced Scribblers for any new or hopeful writers out there. This is the first in a series on POV

______

An Overview of Point of View in Writing

by @adeptdragonfruit54

What is point of view and why is it important?

Simply put, point of view is the lens through which you tell your story. It’s the voice of the story and your perspective character.  It’s important because the POV you tell the story from will impact the details available to your reader and the reliability of the narrator among other things. “No decision you make will impact the shape and texture of your story more than your choice of Point of View,” says editor Dave Lambert. Surprisingly, it can also be one of the trickier skills to master for a new or inexperienced writer. A common problem is an inconsistent POV. You don’t have to stick with a single POV throughout a story, but if you’re new to writing, sometimes it’s better to stick with one POV until you have a little more experience under your belt. Another problem I’ve seen is using an incorrect POV for the story being told.  I’ll give you an example of this once we dig into the different types of POV below. So, what are the different types of POV?

Primarily, there are three types of POV. We’ll start with a basic overview in this article and then go into each, in depth, in subsequent articles.

First Person POV:

First person POV uses personal pronouns like “I,” “me,” “we,” and “us.” Stories written in the first person are personal narratives where the protagonist is telling their story or a side character is telling the protagonist’s story. Ie. Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games is written in with first person from the POV of the protagonist, Katniss Everdeen.

Finish Reading on AO3

[theprissythumbelina]

Hello! : )

thank you so much for answering so quickly it helped a lot but i have some follow up questions as i realised that the situation is trickier than i thought. Sorry i think this is even longer than the first one. Also warning: it has some mildly grafic description of an injurie and mentions the death of an animal brifely and non graphicly. I phrased it as palatabel as i could but my english is not the best so i don't know how well i did. I understand if you dont answer it due to this.

First of all that chase scene i think i about got what they would do but i realise it might not be enough. So there are no spare horses availibel because its on uninhabited land. Dismounting to let the horses rest is not an option because one of the riders is injured and cant mount or dismount the horse whithout help especial not while the horse is moving. These beasties would definitly have something like the Tölt gait if not exactly that and they are used for long distance rides normaly, the riders have experience with that too. Would that make this easier for bot parties? Another thing the riders could do is trow away most of the stuff the horses are carrying. Could that help?

What might cause troubel is the following.

They are not chased by humans who need to deal with the same barriers they do but predators. I don't know what their stile of predation is called, persistence or endurance predator i think, esencialy they follow prey at medium pace until it drops from exhaustion. So they don't need to keep breakneck speed but stopping is not an option. The horses are bonded to their riders so not likely to leave them to their death but what littel i know of horses i am not sure a horse fearing for its life would care much for anyone but itself. Would the predators' presence motivate them to keep runing even when they want to stop and work with their rider or would they become feral couches from hell and stop listening to any commands even if they let the humans stay on their back?

Another troubel is the horse to human ratio. One of the horses fell and injured itself fataly so one of the remaining horses is carrying two humans. Bot of them are pretty light and they fit on the horses back but i know multipel riders on one horse is best avoided. Could the horse still keep up its special gait or would the weight distribution make that hard? Could it have any chance in keeping up with the other horse? Its the stronger one and it had a more favorabel travel rout with more throughout preparation befor the chase and the rider on the other horse is the injured one so he is not mantaining ideal position for riding. Would the horse even tolerate two people climbing on its back under these circumstances even if it likes them?

As i mentioned the solo rider is injured, he can press on the horses side with his thighs but he cant stand in the saddel. his right lower leg has a pretty gnarly bite wound that messed up some tendons, its bandaged and sewn up properly but still a day old injurie. He also has some brusing and internal injuries that make it difficult for him to straighten. How dificult would that make his life? What injuries is he likely to suffer due to this?

Regarding the care for the horses after: resources neededfor that would be availibel. But there is no option to take them indoors as they are in a camp and not a city. How big of an issue would that be? Also no familiar face can attend to them because they are exhausted. Would a horse that gone through an ordeal like this tolerate a stranger right after? Would they be too tired to care as long as the person gives the commands they are used to and acts sensibel? How soon could they be riden again safely?

Thank you so much again.

Ahh, I love more specific questions. So, let's break this down. One of the really cool things about horses is that horses, humans, and dogs are incredibly well suited to each other as constantly mobile creatures. That is possibly one of the reasons that horses were domesticated, in fact. Horses are made to continually walk and graze, it is their optimal situation. However, being chased will slowly wear down any animal.

I'm not sure for how long this chase goes on, but if it is maybe a week or more without stopping at all, the horses are going to run into the issue of starvation quite quickly. There is no way to carry enough food for the horses so that they do not need to graze along the way, and even a few days of limited food and stress will begin to cause digestive issues. If walking is an option, horses can walk and eat just fine even with riders, but if they need to continually be moving at a trot, they will start to starve.

Regarding leaving their riders out of fear, that very much depends on the horse and rider. There are many real life instances where horses will actually attack predators to defend their humans, so that is up to you and what you want to have in your story. I mean, horses were historically used for war, they can be trained to go against just about any natural instinct.

Two people on one horse for any amount of time is a fantasy fabrication. In your scenario, those two would alternate time on the horse and running beside the horse. They would only both ride if they needed to gallop, and even then the second rider would most likely fall off. Again, your story, you can take my advice as you please, but unless one is a child of half the size of the other, it flat does not work. There is just not space for two people to sit on a horse. You could hog tie one to the front of a western-style saddle, but that would not be very comfortable for the hogtiedee.

As for the injured rider, he would be in extreme pain. Riding a horse is a very muscular exercise, especially for long distances. Even someone used to riding will have sore thighs and abs after a longer ride than usual. I would bet that with his injuries, he would have to be lashed to the saddle somehow, or dragged behind the horse on a makeshift travois. (illustrated below) He would be constantly moaning, possibly faint from pain, and the continual motion may cause additional bleeding, which is also not great. If he falls from the horse, he will have further injuries including possible broken bones, concussion, but even if he stays on, his healing will be delayed by the additional trauma. And infection will most likely set in with only field care, especially from an animal bite.

As for the aftercare, the horses will be far too exhausted to care who feeds and brushes them. They will want to drink, eat, and sleep. The person offering that could be anyone. Outdoors is also not a problem as long as they are properly cooled down. Horses have lived outside since horses existed. As for when they can be ridden again, if needs must, a few days. But if they can rest, I would let them rest several weeks before using them again. Forcing anything to continually work to exhaustion will make injuries more likely and decrease its lifespan.

Also, here are some current examples of special paces for you, including the Tölt. Many are American breeds, as most gaited breeds of Europe were extinct by WW2.

[so-many-ocs]

[on the verge of having a complete breakdown] i need to make some kind of list or perhaps sort things into categories

[pygmi-says-hi]

STOP DOING THIS IN INJURY FICS!!

Bleeding:

Blood is warm. if blood is cold, you’re really fucking feverish or the person is dead. it’s only sticky after it coagulates.

It smells! like iron, obv, but very metallic. heavy blood loss has a really potent smell, someone will notice.

Unless in a state of shock or fight-flight mode, a character will know they’re bleeding. stop with the ‘i didn’t even feel it’ yeah you did. drowsiness, confusion, pale complexion, nausea, clumsiness, and memory loss are symptoms to include.

blood flow ebbs. sometimes it’s really gushin’, other times it’s a trickle. could be the same wound at different points.

it’s slow. use this to your advantage! more sad writer times hehehe.

Stab wounds:

I have been mildly impaled with rebar on an occasion, so let me explain from experience. being stabbed is bizarre af. your body is soft. you can squish it, feel it jiggle when you move. whatever just stabbed you? not jiggly. it feels stiff and numb after the pain fades. often, stab wounds lead to nerve damage. hands, arms, feet, neck, all have more motor nerve clusters than the torso. fingers may go numb or useless if a tendon is nicked.

also, bleeding takes FOREVER to stop, as mentioned above.

if the wound has an exit wound, like a bullet clean through or a spear through the whole limb, DONT REMOVE THE OBJECT. character will die. leave it, bandage around it. could be a good opportunity for some touchy touchy :)

whump writers - good opportunity for caretaker angst and fluff w/ trying to manhandle whumpee into a good position to access both sites

Concussion:

despite the amnesia and confusion, people ain’t that articulate. even if they’re mumbling about how much they love (person) - if that’s ur trope - or a secret, it’s gonna make no sense. garbled nonsense, no full sentences, just a coupla words here and there.

if the concussion is mild, they’re gonna feel fine. until….bam! out like a light. kinda funny to witness, but also a good time for some caretaking fluff.

Fever:

you die at 110F. no 'oh no his fever is 120F!! ahhh!“ no his fever is 0F because he’s fucking dead. you lose consciousness around 103, sometimes less if it’s a child. brain damage occurs at over 104.

ACTUAL SYMPTOMS:

sluggishness

seizures (severe)

inability to speak clearly

feeling chilly/shivering

nausea

pain

delirium

symptoms increase as fever rises. slow build that secret sickness! feverish people can be irritable, maybe a bit of sass followed by some hurt/comfort. never hurt anybody.

ALSO about fevers - they absolutely can cause hallucinations. Sometimes these alter memory and future memory processing. they're scary shit guys.

fevers are a big deal! bad shit can happen! milk that till its dry (chill out) and get some good hurt/comfort whumpee shit.

keep writing u sadistic nerds xox love you

ALSO I FORGOT LEMME ADD ON:

YOU DIE AT 85F

sorry I forgot. at that point for a sustained period of time you're too cold to survive.

pt 2

also please stop traumadumping in the notes/tags, that's not the point of this post. it's really upsetting to see on my feed, so i'm muting the notifs for this post. if you have a question about this post, dm me, but i don't want a constant influx of traumatic stories. xox

[solarsyrup]

for whatever reason tumblr has flagged this post from a deleted blog as explicit so I can't even reblog it anymore which is a shame because it's one of my absolute favorites

[creativepromptsforwriting]

How to show emotions

Part V

How to show grief

a vacant look

slack facial expressions

shaky hands

trembling lips

swallowing

struggling to breathe

tears rolling down their cheeks

How to show fondness

smiling with their mouth and their eyes

softening their features

cannot keep their eyes off of the object of their fondness

sometimes pouting the lips a bit

reaching out, wanting to touch them

How to show envy

narrowing their eyes

rolling their eyes

raising their eyebrows

grinding their teeth

tightening jaw

chin poking out

pouting their lips

forced smiling

crossing arms

shifting their gaze

clenching their fists

tensing their muscles

then becoming restless/fidgeting

swallowing hard

stiffening

holding their breath

blinking rapidly

exhaling sharply

How to show regret

scrubbing a hand over the face

sighing heavily

downturned mouth

slightly bending over

shoulders hanging low

hands falling to the sides

a pained expression

heavy eyes

staring down at their feet

Part I + Part II + Part III + Part IV + Part VI

If you like my blog and want to support me, you can buy me a coffee or become a member! And check out my Instagram! 🥰

[noperopesaredope]

I wish we had more female characters like Eleanor Shellstrop. One of the most unlikable people you've ever met. Read a Buzzfeed article on most rude things you can do on a daily basis and decided to use that as a list of goals. Makes everyone's day worse just by being there. Dropped a margarita mix on the ground and tried to pick it up, only to get hit by a row of shopping carts which pushed her into the road where she was hit by a boner pill delivery truck, killing her instantly. Cannot keep a romantic partner despite being bisexual. Had a terrible childhood but will die before she gets therapy. Best employee at a scam company. Just the worst but also can't help but root for her to improve.

Absolute loser. Girl-failure. Bad at almost everything. Literally perfect female character.

[the-coffee-fandom]

Had to make a meme to describe me currently

[thoughtportal]

Writer Emergency Pack https://www.writeremergency.com/

creator https://linktr.ee/ecfullersbooks

[intermundia]

this is the single worst way i've ever read to describe an erection, frank herbert

[whatkindofnameisella]

can you believe that we have fanfiction. that we have websites dedicated to fanfiction. that there is a place that you can go and read tens, hundreds, thousands and thousands of pieces of writing that strangers have made. people who are not "writers". people who come home at the end of the day and have feelings and say, i am going to put that into words. i am going to share those words. short, long, sweet, sad, horny, funny, wonderful words. we are all just human and we all love to make and remake and share that with others. can you believe that.

[inbabylontheywept]

bad dating stories time: the shoe incident

so in highschool, my best friend wasnt allowed to go on dates unless there was another couple there to keep an eye on him. part of this was his parents being insane, but also, part of it was him being insane. in a problem with no reasonable parties, there are no reasonable solutions.

at some point in my junior year, my sorta-gf broke up with me, and i just wasnt feeling dating, which was bad for my friend, because he had a good thing going with a girl he met in court.

he kind of hounded me about it. kept pushing me to just put me feet back in the dating pool and i wasnt real thrilled about it, because i knew he was pushing me for his own benefit, not mine, so i kept telling him to fuck off, and after a few weeks of being told that i would date when i was damn well ready, he eventually said: okay. what if i paid for the date AND found you a blind date AND all you had to do was show up?

and i shouldve said no, i know, but i let him wear me down, and i will own my fault in that. a date starting on such a stupid premise could never have gone well.

but he still managed to find a way to make it worse.

i dont know how long he tried to set a blind date up. it couldve been multiple attempts. he couldve stooped to this immediately. but what happened in the end was that he called a girl from the ward he attended - a girl that he knew had a giant, mushy crush on him - and he said: hey! how would you feel about going on a date this weekend?

(you know, implying it was with him, but never actually saying it.)

and she said YES WOW I WOULD LOVE TO and he said great! and then he called me up and said he found me a date.

i did not learn about his crimes until several weeks later. i will die swearing before god almighty that i would never have allowed this travesty to happen if i had known.

that was on a monday. the date of the date rolled around that friday evening, and im sorry to confess, i really phoned the whole thing in. i showed up in my favorite comfy outfit, which was also a fashion crime: basketball shorts and flipflops and a baja hoodie. it was super comfy but it made me look kind of crazy. i picked him up first, and then i picked up his date next, and then we went to pick up my date, and thats where you're gonna get the play by play.

i arrived, walked across the yard, and knocked on the front door. she opened it almost immediately, like shed been waiting right by it, and i could see her expression go from OMG IM SO EXCITED to super disappointed, then disgusted and finally pissed. and because i didn't know about my friends sins, i thought it was from my outfit. which seemed... harsh. like, hey, im allowed to be quirky, fuck you. also its a blind date, i thought the deal was that we were both going to be sad broken sacks of mortality.

anyway, we looked at each other for several seconds before she slammed the door in my face.

i looked back at my friend. he was sweating bullets. i dont know what he expected from this, but there was this big long pause where we both tried to figure out what to do, and then the door opened up, and her dad invited me in, and he said she was gonna need a few minutes to finish getting ready, and that in the meantime we could sit and talk.

we did not talk. we did sit. i sat down on the couch, and he sat down in a chair across the couch, and then instead of talking he cleaned his pistol on the coffee table. i wasnt actually sure if it was a threat, or if it was just a fidget thing for 40+ year old republican men, but when i tried to help he got snappy so i just watched him put a pistol back together.

he was okay at it.

eventually my date came downstairs, still mad as hell for reasons beyond my ken, and i felt pretty guilty for being such a mess because i thought that was why she was so angry. i tried to make up for by walking her to the car and getting the door for her, just generally trying to be extra polite, but before i could make it back to the drivers side, her dad called me back to the door. so i flipped around, went to the door, and immediately regreted my decision.

soon as i was within range, her dad got waaaay too close to me, leaned in, and said "whatever you do to her, i will do to you," and my brain went into overdrive making three consecutive realizations.

realization one was, damn, the pistol thing was a threat. that sucks. what an asshole. realization two was, wait, im autistic and even i know theres a 0% chance me and my date even hold hands, least of all boink. does this guy actually think there's even a 1% chance of anyone in that car getting laid tonight? is he an idiot? and then realization three went through, which was wait, is this guy threatening to fuck me? and unfortunately, with my brain doing so much processing, my mouth was left to run amok, so somewhere between realization 2 and 3, i said:

"i can't get pregnant"

which, i swear, wasn't actually me trying to be a smartass, it was just me pointing out that he couldn't actually follow up on that threat. it just wasn't possible. we do not live in the omegaverse and im not scared of you.

still, it was an insanely catastrophic thing to say, and the moment we both heard it, we bluescreened. that single sentence obliterated both of our momentary streams of consciousness like a saltine in front of a sand blaster. problem was, he'd probably gone his whole life not even realizing someone could say something that stupid, and making that realization was going to cost him a lot of thinking time. me though? i had been saying shit like that for 17 years, i didnt have to rewrite my expectations of human nature, i just had to plan an exit and start striding. so i was already halfway back to the car before i heard "hey. hey come back. Hey. Hey. HEY. HEY WAIT. HEY GET BACK HERE. HEY-"

and then i was in my car, and i drove away.

if this happened today, he'd have called her, and the whole thing wouldve imploded then and there, but back then, there were still a decent number of teenagers without cell phones. especially the teenagers of insane, gun toting parents. so she just said: whoa what was that all about? and i said: dont worry about it, he'll tell you about it when you get home.

and she said: ok and went back to staring daggers at me and my friend.

WHICH SURPRISINGLY isnt even how the story ends.

we went to an improv comedy show, and it was a disaster. it shouldve been like, 7/10 tops, but between my date being mad, and my friend having a good time, and me having the existential terror of knowing that a guy with a pistol was probably waiting outside his house for me to come back, it was easily 11/10. i laughed way too hard at everything. especially the jokes that flopped. id sit there in this mostly silent room and laugh until i dry heaved a little, and my date was absolutely disgusted, and even my friend was a little embarrassed, which would just make me laugh harder. i laughed so hard that night i could barely talk the next day. and then the show ended, and my friend said, you know, that was a good time, but i think we should maybe do something a little chiller? who wants to walk around the park? and his date said yeah, and my date said no, and i finally had mercy on the poor woman so i said, look, im gonna drop you off. and i am so, so sorry about this, but im dropping you off like a block away. super duper sorry.

do talk to your dad about the pistols thing if you dont want this happening more in the future tho.

and she said: okay. so i dropped her off, and she walked a block down, and that was that.

then i drove my friend and his date to a park that was good for wandering. i figured they wanted something more private, so instead of following them around point blank, i chose a park with this 30 foot rope tower, and i climbed to the top and i said: hey i can see you anywhere from up here, you are officially chaperoned from a distance. get panopticoned idiot. except my friend really is an idiot, and he didnt really get the whole 'now i dont have to third wheel so insanely hard with you guys' thing so he climbed up the tower too, and then his date followed behind him, so there are three people basically sitting together on top of a telephone pole.

and then they started making out.

i was close enough to hear it.

i didnt really know what to do so i was just kind of sitting there, dissociating, when some college kids came around and started shaking the tower. my friend's date went aaaaaaaaaa im afraid of heights :( and my friend went oh, dont worry, ill hold you tight ;) and i went hey, im gonna climb down and ask them to stop.

so i did climb down, and i did ask them to stop, and they flipped me off, which i wasnt even mad about. at that point i was i was like yeah, it would be weirder if this wasnt a mess. gods plan has been to fly this day like a 747 into my metaphorical twin towers and brother he is close enough for me to see him grinning through the cockpit window. still, eventually the college students got bored, so they climbed up the tower, which gave my friend and his date a window to climb down, and together we walked back to my car.

now, i cant explain why this is, but sitting back in the drivers seat was my carriage-back-into-a-pumpkin moment. i'd been chill about all the chaos, just rolling with the punches, but sitting down made me realize how much of a shitshow the day had been, and while i couldnt go back and fix all of it, i could go back and fix one thing.

so i told my friend and his date, hey, you two, stay here and don't do anything weird. don't. then i walked back to the rope tower, and i started picking up the shoes the college students had left at the base in order to climb.

about halfway through this, i realized that if i took all their shoes, they might think i was in it for the money, and i actually wanted them to know i was in it specifically to spite them. fuck those guys. so i put all the right shoes back, gave myself a 100 foot headstart, yelled "nice shoes, assholes", did a little jig, and started running.

my advice to everyone is that college students are faster than you think. even with the headstart, and the whole climb down the tower thing, i was still only fivish seconds ahead of them by the time i got to my car. i flung the door open, looked in the backseat, didnt see anyone, flung the stolen shoes in the backseat, heard two "ow"s, took that as proof of presence, jumped in and pealed out of the lot.

my friend and his date popped up a few seconds later. they were, uh, doing something weird in the back seat. my one request - obliterated.

they climbed up to ask where the hell all the shoes had come from, and i was like yeah i stole them from the college students, and they were like oh. cool. hope you had fun. and i was like, i did. i did. but speaking of fun, what were you doing back there?

and for the first time in my buddies life, i think he was actually embarassed.

[words-and-coffee]

Alice Te Punga Somerville, Always Italicise: How to Write While Colonised - Kupu rere kē

[ID: A poem titled: Kupu rere kē. [in italics] My friend was advised to italicise all the foreign words in her poems. This advice came from a well-meaning woman with NZ poetry on her business card and an English accent in her mouth. I have been thinking about this advice. The convention of italicising words from other languages clarifies that some words are imported: it ensures readers can tell the difference between a foreign language and the language of home. I have been thinking about this advice. Marking the foreign words is also a kindness: every potential reader is reassured that although you're expected to understand the rest of the text, it's fine to consult a dictionary or native speaker for help with the italics. I have been thinking about this advice. Because I am a contrary person, at first I was outraged — but after a while I could see she had a point: when the foreign words are camouflaged in plain type you can forget how they came to be there, out of place, in the first place. I have been thinking about this advice and I have decided to follow it. Now all of my readers will be able to remember which words truly belong in -[end italics]- Aotearoa -[italics]- and which do not.

Next image is the futurama meme: to shreds you say...]

(Image ID by @bisexualshakespeare)