#you know the post is serious when i bring out the semicolon

[commonboa]

I feel like a lot of people on here say cishet white man when talking about men they perceive as being unequivocally privileged because they know they should but don't really understand what the differences in experiences are between a white and black man a cis and trans man etc

it's like they think every man regardless of identity gets unlimited access to male privilege with just a little bit of discrimination on top if they're marginalized. this also plays into the whole “thats just transphobia” or “thats just racism” schtick; seeing the male experience of oppression as the default and completely ignoring any semblance of intersectionality.

tldr: people on tumblr dont see marginalized men's experiences as meaningfully different from the experiences of patriarchal men

[trulycertain]

Tru’s Writing Notes

I’ve had people ask me after seeing my feedback on stories if I’m as overanalytical with my own stuff. The answer is yes. My stuff may often be written at 4 AM and typo-laden, but yes. 

Because of that and @thesecondsealwrites talking about process (though unlike her post, this is more the why/how than the everyday practicalities of writing), here are some of the notes I’ve left myself in my journal. These apply mostly to the way I write my original rather than my fic, but they can apply to both. Can I add: a lot of these probably seem very obvious, I know, and I don’t always manage to bear them in mind. Also, I’m not a pro or even a talented amateur, and these aren’t addressing an audience, they’re addressing me - and they apply more to the way I write than writing in general. But if anyone might find this interesting or wants to know if I worry about my writing, here’s your answer.

People tend to like a strong story, with good reason. The best plots tend to be simple, and then you build outwards and maybe twist. A compelling central arc, certain genre tropes or something familiar tend to be what work: forbidden romance, or an unsolved murder and a maverick. We have a fair idea of what’s going to happen, but it’s the anticipation - and/or the eventual subversion - that brings the fun. Plot and drive.

Again, try to have a strong idea of where it’s going, or the spirit of it. Terry Pratchett once said that you want to be able to write your own blurb: it’s a good sign if you can distil the essence of your story into a hundred words or so.

Just like real people, characters have verbal tics, peculiar turns of phrase and certain mannerisms. Learn them, and use but don’t overuse. Keep it natural.

Some people just don’t like present tense, or past, or first person, for whatever reason. You may be buggered from the start, and sometimes all you can do is try. Try and know your audience, try your best. Try not to bang your head against a wall.

However, present tense is a slippery bastard. At its best, there’s almost nothing that can match it for immediacy and visceral intensity. At its worst, it can either be staccato, bleak and overly clinical - or at the other end of the scale, it can be overwrought sensory overload. Either way, a reader will be put off. Ideally, I try to balance the two and end up somewhere in the middle: punch and verve, but with restraint and room for the reader to infer. I rarely manage this, but God do I try.

Speaking of inference: don’t assume the reader is an idiot. Sometimes the best punchline or explanation is the one that’s never given. Myself, my favourite horror stories are the ones that don’t go for shlock and shocks: they’re the ones where I finish them feeling mildly unsettled, go and do the washing-up while my mind puts the pieces together, and then go, five or ten minutes later, “Oh God, it was behind the door the whole time! That’s... Argh.”

People are terrifyingly complicated. Every reader brings something to the text, whether they’re aware of it or not. This can add unexpected beauty or poignancy, but it can also make implication, idioms, dialect and offence into total minefields. People can come out with things that would never have occurred to you. Something might fly over someone’s head, or something might turn out to be an incredibly offensive phrase in their country and perfectly innocuous in yours; someone might find your happy ending the most depressing thing in the known universe, and someone else might hate your likeable romantic hero because he reminds them of their arsehole ex. Sometimes you can anticipate this and take countermeasures for clarity’s sake; often you don’t need to because theirs is a perfectly valid interpretation and part of the joy of making a cake is seeing people eat it; and mostly you just can’t know, because people come in so many different permutations and you’re not actually psychic, so leave them to it. Gah.

Watch your tenses. Things like flashbacks are nightmare territory and ripe for grammar slippage. Never be afraid or too proud to read up on usage.

Same with semicolons. Tricky little gits.

People mangle language. Doesn’t matter whether you’ve had the “perfect” education, everyone does it at least sometimes. People lose words, misuse vocabulary (me, all the time), go for double negatives, mix metaphors. You always want your dialogue to be readable, and you don’t want your portrayals to be hackneyed or offensive, but it’s generally unnecessary to aim for perfection in dialogue unless it’s for effect: say, if you want to make a character less approachable, if you want to show they’re not human, or if rose-tinted dialogue is a stylistic choice. Generally, true-to-life dialogue is inherently descriptive rather than prescriptive.

Sometimes said mangling leads to fascinating new quirks, dialect and expressions.

Speech is very different from thought. A character’s narrative voice is often quite different to their dialogue voice. Thought is much faster than speech, and sometimes someone will answer their own question before they’ve finished saying it. Thought is by nature more disjointed, and thought is also a monologue, unless everyone’s suddenly turned telepathic or you’re dealing with dissociation/multiple personalities. In contrast, speech has a listener, which changes it. Nerves can make phrases choppy or make them fail completely. Often people interrupt each other. Realistic dialogue should reflect this.

On a similar note, let your characters talk. Know where to draw the line - no-one wants the tension ruined by a half-hour conversation about socks - but very few people are all business or all dramatic emotion all the time. (Those who seemingly are will have reasons for it, and those are often worth exploring, too.) Unless you’re on a particular word and/or time limit, let your characters occasionally be real people whose eyeliner runs, or who dislike artichokes, or who make bad jokes - and people who don’t revolve completely around your protagonist, with their own internal lives. When done right, relateable is not boring - especially if you’re working in a fantastic or dramatic canon. The odd anchor to reality can grab your heart and tug.

But do know where to draw the line. Let them be enigmatic and heroic when they need to, because often the magic is in that contrast between the epic and the mundane. Characters can do and be what we can’t. Don’t take away all their mystery and more idealised qualities.

There’s no one way to do funny, and there’s no way to write an instruction manual for it. Again, like most other things, it’s a matter of interpretation: everyone’s tickled by different things. But often humour relies on the subversion of expectation - bathos and anticlimax, for example, or giving an established word/phrase an entirely new meaning - or it relies on particular character idiosyncrasies, or on the other side, the utter, crushing fulfilment of expectations. (”Save the world, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.”) A good source of jokes is often that “I bloody knew it!” feeling.

Characters have biases, too. Always try and account for this in the narrative.

Foreshadowing is your friend, and often a key to emotional closure for the reader. Unless you can do some serious, stylish authorial sleight-of-hand, deus ex machina endings will prompt pissed-offness rather than satisfied applause. Even if you don’t introduce your secret weapon/s early on - best right near the beginning, if possible - at least get the key themes and characters down. You want to get an, “Oh, of course,” not “Well, that was a total arse-pull.”

Screenwriters sometimes talk of an A-plot and a B-plot. The A-plot’s the main one, and B is a seemingly separate subplot that inevitably turns out to be all tangled up with A. It’s pretty standard for detective dramas: there’s a murder, they start investigating, and the seemingly unrelated corpse on the other side of town always ends up being central to the case. A and B always converge. Often, if it’s a story with depth and a well-reasoned plot, the B plot will grow naturally. Of course, that’s only one way of doing it: some stories have a strong, driving A plot that drives everything and stands on its own, and have some C, D, E, F, so on plots. I admit, I’m not much good at the A + B plot thing, so I don’t tend to do it. If I have subplots, they tend to be less connected and a bit more character-driven, rather than about world-saving/murder-solving like the A plot. (I tend to half-jokingly call these C plots, where the C stands for “character” or “crying.”) Good characters usually write their own C plots - they have ulterior motives, hidden aspects, unexpected connections, and if you let them wander off they’ll make trouble for themselves. C plots are connected to the main plot, but unlike B plots, not a fundamental part of it. Sorry, screenwriters, for the terminology mangling.

Another trick to nick from Hollywood: the meet-cute. Sometimes you want someone to enter the narrative sneakily and unobtrusively, but often, especially with protagonists and love interests, never underestimate the power of a good, memorable character introduction. Audiences remember the ways they meet your characters, and the ways that characters meet eaxch other.

It’s not necessary for every story, but often it’s good to have a rock-bottom moment where everything looks hopeless. It reminds your audience viscerally of the stakes and penalties for failure, and it makes eventual victory even sweeter because it’s against the odds. Unless the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train. In that case, rock on with your downer-ending self.

Often the best plot comes from character. (After all, Greek dramatists went on about this all the time with concepts like hubris and hamartia.) Even when nations clash, nations are run by flawed, corrupt people. Antagonists ought to have strong motivations unless you’re writing senseless violence/cruelty intentionally. So on. People often talk about the heart of drama being conflict, and some people, taking that to heart, write a war or their couple arguing. Yeah, that can work brilliantly, but there are other ways to do it, and conflict can be smaller-scale, too. It can be as simple as different aspects of the same character clashing; for instance, if they’re torn between love and duty (there’s a reason that one’s so popular), or the conflict between their past and present selves.

[aviatrixanna-blog]

A Letter to Mattie

Hey friend. I’m sorry I put your picture on this heathen website, but it’s where my blog is, so here you shall also be. You are my first non-aviation related post; in other words, I love you more than airplanes ;). 

What can I say? You were my first friend here at Trevecca; you have been my confidant and comforter; you have never failed to be kind and caring; you were forgiving when I did the unforgiveable (use your toothbrush and forget to replace the toilet paper); and you have politely pointed out my consistent overuse of semicolons in all my writing.

You were right when you said I was scared and nervous when we first met. I had more or less the same fears as you. What if you didn’t like me? What if you thought I was boring, unintelligent, or weird? What if we hated each other on sight?

One day went by, and I certainly didn’t hate you. I learned that you were introverted, but you made friends quickly.

One week went by, and I still didn’t hate you. I learned that you had a nasty habit of leaving small comforting notes that encouraged me on scary days (like the first day of classes).

One month went by, and I still didn’t hate you. I learned that you had a knack for bringing common sense into emotionally charged situations and that you are an incredibly empathetic person.

One semester went by, and I still didn’t hate you. I learned many things in those first four months. I learned that you are loyal, intelligent, and kind; I learned that you are hard-working, truthful, and God-fearing; and most importantly, I learned that Florence, Alabama is the Best Place on Earth.

Mattie, I’m being serious when I say I’m not sure if I could have gone through freshman year without you. Who would have been there to let me crawl into their bed at 2 am? Who would have been there to tell me that an awkward social situation I had had two weeks ago no longer mattered? Who would have listened to my endless ramblings about boys? Who would have helped me through a number existential crises? I don’t think I’ll ever be able to express how thankful I am for your friendship.

True friendship is an elusive thing. Sometimes it takes years to form, sometimes it takes an instant, and sometimes a computer algorithm puts it into place for you.

Mattie Clemmons, I never for one second hated you. I am and forever will be, an active and proud supporter of the Mattie Clemmons’ Fan Club. Years from now, I will still be cheering “THAT’S MY ROOMMATE!” while you do something utterly amazing. Years from now, I will look back on our time together in fondness. Years from now, I will still visit the Best Place on Earth, but it won’t be for the renaissance faire. And years from now, I hope you know you will always have a family and home in me.

I love you friend.

 Anna