the racism towards south asians is so normalized, that we grow up as children without the language to understand that when the white kid starts talking to you in a shoddy 'indian' accent and expects you to laugh, that's wrong and intolerable.
when the non-brown person on tv is wearing a kurta with no pants and a bindi and is holding their hands in prayer for a religion and culture they cannot pronounce the name of, that's wrong and intolerable.
it's not funny to imitate my grandparents accents or make mockery of my dance or stamp sanskrit on your ass or passive aggresively insult my mother's food. we are more than your comedic relief, it workers, and doctors. I am angry, but more than that, I am tired.
when the brown children are told that they are attractive âfor a brown person,â thatâs wrong and intolerable.
harrassing south asians and calling them horrible names and saying shitty things when south asians call out people (especially celebrities) who make fun of south asian culture or appropriate south asian culture doesnât make you a better person. it makes you look like an ignorant asshole. poc, you are not immune to this behavior. donât act like youâre holier than thou just because youâre a poc if you defend people for making fun of south asian culture.
Iâm past anger. I just want you to apologize, learn, grow, and change. you are better than your mistakes, but you need to apologize and work to do better.
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some notes on POV
I wanted to type up a little rundown of quick n dirty writing tips based on things I see a lot in fic/ amateur original manuscripts, and, uh, it turned out that they all revolved around POV. Nailing point of view in fiction writing is both crucial and one of the least intuitive building blocks of writing to learn: an understanding of POV has been the only useful thing i took from my college creative writing classes, and god knows how long Iâd have stumbled along without it otherwise.
So! I am saving you, baby writer, the trouble of slogging through a miserable writing class with a professor whoâs bitter as FUCK that genre fiction sells better than his âsad white man drinkingâ lit fic novels. Here are some assorted writing tips/ common mistakes and how to fix them, as relating to POV:
(this turned into a WALL OF TEXT so i will be using gifs to break it up)
> âI watched the ship tiltâ âhe saw the sky darkenâ âshe noticed flowers growing on the rusted gate.â no. If the character who felt/saw/noticed etc is your POV character, whether in first or third, then this is called filtering and it takes the reader out of the story by subtly reminding them of the separation between the POV character and themselves. in most styles of writing, this is bad, not to mention it unnecessarily complicates your prose. try again: âthe ship tilted.â âthe sky darkened.â âflowers grew on the rusted gate.â Readers will instinctively understand that the POV character is witnessing the story happen, they donât need to be told it.
Iâm not telling you to never refer to your character âwatchingâ something, of course: âI watched the birds dart around for hours,â isnât filtering because watching is a notable activity, here, rather than an unnecessary obfuscation of the ârealâ thing happening. But understand how phrasing can jar readers momentarily apart from the character viewpoint, and use it with intention.
> Close Third Person POV still requires you to be mindful of your POV character. this is a rookie mistake i see allllllll the time. âJosh cried stupid tears at the beautiful display by the dancers,â is a sentence in Joshâs POV. âStupidâ tells us how he feels about the tears, âbeautifulâ tells us how he feels about the display. ok. all good so far. BUT.
âJosh cried stupid tears at the beautiful display by the dancers. It was everything heâd wanted from this production, from the lighting to the costumes to the exquisite choreography. Martha had to suppress a fond smile at his reaction; he was always so sweetly emotional after the curtain fell.â
Do you see whatâs wrong with this paragraph? The first two sentences are Joshâs POV, and then the third one suddenly becomes Marthaâs. A lot of amateur writers donât even realize theyâre doing this, which in its most egregious form is called âhead-hopping,â but itâs disorienting and distracting for the reader, and makes it harder to connect with a single character. In multi-person close 3rd POV story, the POV should remain the same for an entire chapter (or at least, for an entire scene/ segment,) and change only between them. If youâre new to POV wrangling, watch your adjectives/ interiority (weâll get to that in a second) and think âwhich character am I using as a lens right now, and am I being consistent" every once in a while until you get the hang of it.
> Related: letâs talk about interiority. Interiority is a more sophisticated way of thinking of a characterâs âinternal narration,â IE bits of prose whose job is not to advance the plot, set tone, or describe anything, (although it CAN do any of those things as well, and good prose will multitask) but to give us a specific sense of the characterâs internal life, including backstory, likes, dislikes, fears, wants, and personality. In the above example paragraph, the middle sentence âIt was everything heâd wanted from this production, from the lighting to the costumes to the exquisite choreographyâ Is interiority for Josh. It tells us that not only did he love the show, heâs very familiar with this art form and thus had expectations going in; likewise, listing the technical components is a way of emphasizing his enthusiasm while pointing out that itâs informed, implying that Josh himself is intellectually breaking down the performance even in appreciation.
âThatâs a lot for a throwaway sentence you made up for an example.â Well, yeah, a little interiority goes a long way. Interiority is what creates the closeness we have to POV characters, the reason we understand them better than the non-POV characters they interact with. Itâs particularly key in the first couple chapters of an original work, when we need to be sold on the character and understand the context they operate in.
If readers are having trouble connecting to or understanding the motivations of your character, you might need more interiority; if your storyâs plot is agonizingly slow-moving (and you donât want it to be) or your character is coming off as melodramatic, you might need less. Itâs not something you should necessarily worry about; your amount of interiority in a WIP is probably fine, but being able to recognize it for what it is will help you be more mindful when you edit.
(Fanfic as a medium revels in interiority: thatâs how you get 10k fics where nothing happens but two characters lying in bed talking and having Feelings. Or coffeeshop AUs that have literally no plot to speak of but are 100k+ long.)
> try not to describe the facial expression of a POV character, even in third person. rather like filtering, it turns us into a spectator of the character when theyâre supposed to be our vessel, and since itâs *their* POV, there should be other ways available to communicate their emotion/ reactions. There are ways of circumventing this, (the example sentence where âMartha had to suppress a fond smileâ is an example) where their expression is tied up in a physical action, or something done very deliberately by the character and therefore becomes something they would note to themselves, but generally, get rid of â[pov characterâs] eyeâs widenedâ and â[pov character] smiled.â
so thatâs what i got! go forth and write with beautifully deliberate use of POV.
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I think midnight is considered to be the witching hour. but Iâve always felt that magic is the strongest at 4am. itâs the precipice where the sun meets the moon and much of the working world has been asleep for hours but there are the specific few who are so so alive and fiery and brimming with energy. Iâve been scraping the edges of my soul for so long, and I often can see the demons creeping in at 4am. right now, I fear their presence in the corners of my vision. but I think one day I will sit on the couch with them and we will drink tea and Iâll ask them, tell me a story. what are you afraid of? and I hope by then I will be able to tuck them in blankets and tell them stay as long as you need. you donât need to be afraid here.
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One of the best writing tips Iâve encountered on this site is, when writing scenes with a lot of dialogue, to write said dialogue with no action until youâre done with the scene. Once the dialogue is all written, go back and add actions, details, dialogue tags, etc. itâs super helpful because it helps you ground yourself in two separate things - a good speaking flow and keeping track of what the characters are doing as they talk.
1000/10 would recommend
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everything in this house is rotting.
the fruit are going dark, oozing juices, flesh breaking at the slightest pressure.
the churros are fuzzy, a soft wispy sugar encrusted layer on the sweets.
the plant is gray, leaves hanging limply over the sides of the pot, the fight gone from its body.
the people, moving like ghosts through the house, clattering cupboards the only reminder of their presence.
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Give your characters traits that the reader has to pick up on, donât announce them
Let me realize that Person A is a hugger after three chapters of them hugging folks they havenât seen in a hot second, and casually putting their arm around their friends. Donât introduce that fact to me by Person A saying âjust so you know, Iâm a hugger!â
Let me realize that Person B gets excited easily when they clap and bounce on the balls of their feet at really good news, then also for just good news, then just average news.
Make a characterâs traits completely unlabeled to the character themselves. âYouâre an old soul, arenât you?â Shouldnât be answered with âyou know it.â It should be answered with âhuh, I guess you could put it that way. Havent heard that phrase since X.â
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quick writing tip of the day
maybe it isnât what happens thatâs wrong in your scene, but why it happens. if a scene isnât quite working, a good first step is to analyze what internal elements brought your characters to this point. the fix might be as easy as changing one line of internal dialogue.
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why is sharing clothes so intimate like.. broâŠ. are you cold⊠hereâŠ. borrow my sweatshirt⊠it smells like the brand of washing powder i useâŠ. a little glimpse into the oddly private domesticity of my own life broâŠ. its still warm from where i knotted it around my waist (i dont feel the cold)⊠here bro⊠take itâŠ
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