I literally only have one rule in my writing and it is this:
No matter what I put my characters through, they make it. They get to make it to the end of the story and have everything work out and be ok.
Because that’s the story I need. So it’s the kind I write.
If you want a piece of writing advice: write a story that is what you needed to hear at whatever age your target demographic is. I can guarantee you there’ll be someone out there who needs to hear it as much as you did. And maybe you’ll help them the same way someone else’s story did for you.
For some reason, this hit home and I never realized it that I did this for my stories too
I’m becoming bored with the anti-feminization of fantasy novels. I’m all for heroines who take up a sword, or who chafe against the expectations of their society. But can’t we have more heroines who like dresses and housework and embroidery and family life? We don’t just need heroines who do stereotypically masculine things. Because that perpetuates the sexism–women are only welcome if they’re just like the boys.
We also need to show that stereotypically feminine tasks and roles can be heroic.
To that end, here are some suggestions:
The princess who arranges her own marriage, because someone’s got to make the alliance to save this kingdom and it may as well be her. (Extra points: her parents want her to be a knight, but she runs away from home because she would rather get married).
A heroine who really, really loves babies and want to get married and start a family.
Women who love doing embroidery,and comparing patterns and making up new designs. And maybe they embroider a map or two for the adventure, because paper can tear and get wet, and that’s not a problem for fabric.
A woman who has to wear trousers for a portion of the adventure–and hates them. They might be slightly more convenient for running, but they’re uncomfortable, and her legs are too warm, and can’t she please get into skirts again?
Mothers as fantasy protagonists. Caring for their children while also dealing with the demands of the fantasy plot. Queens who negotiate treaties and care for the demands of the castle and then go back to spend time with their children.
Women who don’t get married and aren’t pressured to get married, but have a happy, successful single life–working as a spinster or running a farm or having any other sort of successful business.
Fantasy societies that are built around the fact that women get pregnant and have children. Bringing your children to the meeting of the fellowship is totally okay! You can run the castle while your children play at your feet! Women aren’t trapped in the house caring for the babies because babies are welcome!
There are loads of interesting things that can happen if stories go beyond the tropes and include the reality of female life. (And if anyone knows of fantasy novels that include some of these things, please point me toward them).
IF IT HAS BEEN A VERY LONG DAY, YOU ARE ‘WEARY’. IF SOMEONE IS ACTING IN A WAY THAT MAKES YOU SUSPICIOUS, YOU ARE ‘WARY’.
ALL IN ‘DUE’ TIME, NOT ‘DO’ TIME
‘PER SE’ NOT ‘PER SAY’
THANK YOU
BREATHE – THE VERB FORM IN PRESENT TENSE
BREATH – THE NOUN FORM
THEY ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE
WANDER – TO WALK ABOUT AIMLESSLY
WONDER – TO THINK OF IN A DREAMLIKE AND/OR WISTFUL MANNER
THEY ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE (but one’s mind can wander)
DEFIANT – RESISTANT DEFINITE – CERTAIN
WANTON – DELIBERATE AND UNPROVOKED ACTION (ALSO AN ARCHAIC TERM FOR A PROMISCUOUS WOMAN)
WONTON – IT’S A DUMPLING THAT’S ALL IT IS IT’S A FUCKING DUMPLING
BAWL- TO SOB/CRY
BALL- A FUCKING BALL
YOU CANNOT “BALL” YOUR EYES OUT
AND FOR FUCK’S SAKE, IT’S NOT “SIKE”; IT’S “PSYCH”. AS IN “I PSYCHED YOU OUT”; BECAUSE YOU MOMENTARILY MADE SOMEONE BELIEVE SOMETHING THAT WASN’T TRUE.
THANK YOU.
*slams reblog*
IT’S ‘MIGHT AS WELL’. ‘MIND AS WELL’ DOES NOT MAKE GRAMMATICAL SENSE.
Petition to sit down all the people who make coma theories about Adventure Time and tell them “listen, this fucking show is about the last human living in a post-apocalyptic world where deadly magic has been reawakened following a global thermonuclear war that wiped out the rest of the human species, how much fucking darker do you want it to be”
Even though I thought my first Creative Writing professor was kind of a douche, he made a good point about this. One of our first assignments was to write in this eerie, otherworldly style (we were mimicking a specific author whose name escapes me), so we had to write about eerie otherworldly things happening. It’s no exaggeration to say that more than half the class had a “big reveal” where we find out that the story’s strange events and themes are all in the mind of some person in an insane asylum, or someone having a drug trip.
My professor said something like, “you just successfully wrote a world that feels separate from our own, but got frightened last minute and shoe-horned in normalcy. You showed that you were afraid to commit to something different and interesting.” Though I’m typically a contrarian and a piece of garbage, I am inclined to agree with my professor. I feel like people who write coma theories and the like are afraid to accept that the world of the story is separate from our own. They like everything wrapped up in this crazy little realism box where nothing out of the ordinary happens in fiction.
you win the Best Addition to a Post prize
Thank you 🙂
This pretty well hits the nail on the head as to why I generally hate coma/dream theories and people who think they’re so fucking deep for coming up with it. In my book it’s LAZY, plain and simple.
I think the only times I can think of where “It was all a dream” really works are in pieces like Over the Garden Wall, Ink, Coraline, and Mirrormask. In all of those, the characters ‘wake up’ again in their ‘normal’ world, but there’s a very strong implication that the dream world is as real, if not more so, than the ‘real’ world, and the things they did in the dream world had a very direct impact on the waking world– not in an “I’m gonna be a better person” sense, but literally who lives and who dies at the end of the story.
Notably, in most of those, it’s stated flat-out within the first couple of minutes that the character in question is dreaming. It’s not a big reveal, it’s a fundamental detail of the setting.
If you’re gonna do a dreamworld, actually commit to doing a dreamworld.
me writing dialogue: “what is man but a vessel through which a higher entity may see? what is his purpose? must he find a purpose? we are but stardust; the universe comprehending itself.”
me writing action: they ran real fast from the bad men aand legs hurty
me writing dialogue: “Hello fellow character! I am speaking words at your face with my face!”
me writing internal dialogue: It was the curve of her lips that reminded him of the warm comfort of childhood, and he could swear the scent of fresh cherry pie permeated the air, even now. He wanted to respond, but his throat was choked by an emotion he could not name – an emotion he could only identify through another three paragraphs of shit like this.
kinda funny when english teachers say stuff like “i can tell if you didnt read the book” or “i can tell when people bs their paper”
no you cant. you can tell when people are bad at bs-ing their paper. i didnt even read the sparknotes and i barely skimmed the wikipedia and you gave me an A. you kneel before my throne unaware that it was born of lies
“YOU KNEEL BEFORE MY THRONE UNAWARE THAT IT WAS BORN OF LIES” IS ONE OF THE GREATEST SENTENCES I’VE EVER READ AND I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE IT’S ON A POST ABOUT BULLSHITTING ON ASSIGNMENTS.
listen I’m an english teacher now and I don’t think people understand how bad people are at bullshitting. multiple people per semester will submit the most flagrantly clueless papers I’ve ever seen. one student submitted an “essay” about the book that was literally just rephrasing the chapter titles over and over. another student was supposed to write an essay on local history and turned in a 3 page paper about how she won a cheerleading competition in high school bc she didn’t do any of the research. Both of these students then wrote me angrily because they got Ds. I derailed my class for a full week JUST to teach these people how to bullshit because I thought everyone on earth knew how to use sparknotes, skim stuff, and fake their way thru an essay. it turns out that 50% of the class literally did not know you can and should get summaries, essay topics, and relevant research info online, OR how to fuckin skim a chapter. It was called Bullshit Week and it was the most valuable lesson I taught. people contacted me about it after and said it was their favorite english unit ever. when english teachers say “i can tell if u didn’t read the book” it’s because we expect you to SEEM like you read the book since “reading the book” is like the sole point of the class. If you’re gonna try to con me I at least expect to be dazzled. dazzle is how I got my job.
Maybe if high school teachers actually called it research and taught you how to do it, instead of calling it bullshitting, the students would actually understand it.
Instead, like me, they flounder and fail because they think it is cheating, and get in over their heads because they’re doing way too much work that didn’t have to be done.
That shit is on the teachers for not teaching it right, not on any of the students.
Slightly different concept but one of the best pieces of advice I ever received about writing scientific papers was, from my lecturer himself: “never read the whole paper. skim it. find the important bits. don’t waste your time”
When you only want to write certain parts of your story, but in order for those parts to make sense and have any impact you need to write other parts connecting them and you just don’t… wanna…
A: How did you come up with the title to [insert
fic]?
B: Any of your stories inspired by personal
experience?
C: What member do you identify with most?
D: Is there a song or a playlist to associate
with [insert fic]?
E: If you wrote a sequel to [insert fic], what
would it be about?
F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite
dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.
G: Do you write your story from start to finish,
or do you write the scenes out of order?
H: How would you describe your style?
I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading
or writing)?
J: Write or describe an alternative ending to
[insert fic].
K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up
with?
L: How many times do you usually revise your
fic/chapter before posting?
M: Got any premises on the back burner that
you’d care to share?
N: Is there a fic you wish someone else would
write (or finish) for you?
O: How do you begin a story–with the plot, or
the characters?
P: Are you what George R. R. Martin would call
an “architect” or a “gardener”? (How much do you plan in
advance, versus letting the story unfold as you go?)
Q: How do you feel about collaborations?
R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise)
you consider an influence?
S: Any fandom tropes you can’t resist?
T: Any fandom tropes you can’t stand?
U: Share three of your favorite fic writers and
why you like them so much.
V: If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to
any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?
W: Do you like more general prompts, or more
specific ones?
X: A character you enjoy making suffer.
Y: A character you want to protect.
Z: Major character death–do you ever write/read
it? Is there a character whose death you can’t tolerate?
XI's Archived Tumblr Blog 