not-actually-smart

[not-actually-smart]

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[not-actually-smart]

The ballroom is decorated in shades of gilded gold.

Not silver, of course. Never silver. The Master would be so angry if there was anything silver. So gold it is—the gold denoting royalty, power, status, wealth. The gold that makes the Master king. 

You are golden. Your dress, hanging off your body in satin waves, sheens of light flickering across the surface as you delicately step under the crystal chandeliers. 

The orchestra plays hauntingly beautiful music, ghost-like, ethereal. You do not look at the musicians—you were warned against it. For rumour speaks of the fae, the fae with eyes slightly too bright and ears slightly too sharp, with faces so beautiful that with simply a glance, you would never choose to return to the human world.

So you do not look, and instead keep your eyes shut, listening to the melody echo in the chamber. You are surrounded by hundreds of figures, all golden and glittering, just the same as you, faces covered by bejewelled masks betraying none of their identities. But you see, just a little, and just enough. The sharp glint off the teeth of the woman who is simply too pale, the yellow slitted eyes of a person who seems neither male nor female, the blushed cheeks and bright colours worn by a man who is trying too hard to be human.

You are out of place, in this room of creatures. 

And so you dance the night away. 

(Inspiration: x)

#vampire #writing #writing prompt #creative writing #descriptive #descriptive writing #writers on tumblr #my writing #fantasy #castle

[not-actually-smart]

wrote a 2.5k word ff oneshot at 3 in the morning.

anyway. check it out here <3

[not-actually-smart]

why does the american media only start caring about anti-asian hate once a mass murder happens

[not-actually-smart]

as an editor and writer, do you think the "no flashbacks ever" unofficial writing law is accurate or flawed? or does it depend on the editor/writers involved? is there a way to get away with doing them that isn't dreadful?

I think saying something can never be done is in the same snobbish vein as people who say “prologues and epilogues are dead!” like excuse the entire fuck out of you, but who died and made you king of the slushpile.

I’ve seen some truly awful flashback/prologue/epilogues in my time, but just because some authors fail to find a way to use them correctly, doesn’t mean the rest of us need to suffer from the restrictions of their ineptitude. A good editor will tell you if something isn’t working, or if there’s a better way to do it. A bad one will tell you you ought never to do something simply because it’s currently out of fashion.

As for how to do it well? I dare say if I sat down and tried it I could think of ways to do it, but the main questions to ask yourself are: does this add to my narrative in a way I could not otherwise achieve? Do flashbacks and visions work well within the world I have created? Is there another way I could relay this exposition in a way that is more effective? Does it feel convoluted and heavy when I do it? Does it slow the narrative down? Do I want to slow the narrative down? What effect am I trying to achieve by doing so?

If say, I were writing a fast paced contemporary piece, I would not use the above writing tools in my narrative. Now, an epic fantasy sci fi where the lines of reality are blurred and I can get away with heavier world building exposition? Sign Me The Fuck Up. 

Prologues and the like are very good for creating a sense of oration, like you are being sat down and read to from a text long since forgotten to the passages of time by an old man with a snowy white beard and the zeal of madness in his eyes. But, in the hands of a different author, it could also be used to give the narrative equivalent of an introductory handshake. This is my world, this is the narrative tone we���re going for, bathroom is down the hall on your left, bedrooms to the right, and yes, sorry about the mess on the carpet. The cat’s just been sick.

Flashbacks, dreams and other forms of internal and external analepsis (that’s injecting backstory to you and me, internal being central to the character experiencing it, external referring to the world they are in) can perform a similar role. It can either serve to break up or cement the narrative as the author desires. Breaking it up may create a sense of instability or fragility pertaining to the internal state of your main character.

Or, like the pensieve in Harry Potter, (which I didn’t see a lot of people bitching about the same way they do “flashbacks” even though it’s a literal vessel for retaining and reliving memories, making me believe that most people bitching about certain things don’t actually know what the fuck they’re complaining about. The time turner on the other hand was handled like a piece of shit, but that’s another argument for later.) it can be used creatively to give the author more narrative freedom to introduce their main character(s) to elements of exposition in their world, that otherwise they wouldn’t get to experience, and would perhaps, need to spend several pages of conversational dialogue imparting. So what would have been worse in that instance? Fourteen pages of dialogue telling you the story, or a quick hop skip and a jump down memory lane that lets the author show it to you?

It’s almost as though sometimes, not using valid narrative tools….could be worse…

At that’s what it is, at the end of the day. It’s a narrative tool and one worth having in your toolkit, even if you never foresee yourself using it. Like that miniature blowtorch you picked up at Home Depot that one time on an impulse buy cause it was on sale. You only went in for a hammer and nails but it was there and while the higher reasoning part of your monkey brain is telling you it was a waste of money and you’ll never use it, not with all the other tools you have, there’s another smaller, more ancient part of you, grinning in the darkness. Because it knows. It knows that what no matter others might say, fire is indeed sometimes the solution. How you use it however is up to you. 

You can either burn down the village by doing it poorly, or, you can figure out how it works and how best to contain it to better fuel your purposes. And if you decide you prefer to do it another way, great, fantastic, we are glad you found your way. But it’s just exactly that, your way. So I guess to answer your question a little more briefly than I have up until now: 

Said is not dead, there is no one correct way to write. Anyone that claims otherwise is, in all kindness and honesty, talking out their arse. 

[not-actually-smart]

don’t criticise something that hasn’t asked to be criticised.

there is nothing more soul-crushing than showing your work to a friend, and in return they tell you what they don’t like about it. i don’t care how many compliments you give. the criticisms stick, especially since i didn’t ask for them. you can tell me the description is good and the characterisation is excellent and the words flow well but what sticks is the criticism. i won’t remember your compliments, i’ll remember that you told me the dialogue is choppy, that the world building is unrealistic.

even if you have nothing nice to say, just tell the creator “thank you for sharing your work”. criticism needs to be sought out by the creator: it hurts, regardless, but it hurts less when we get the chance to steel ourselves against it. we know we are not perfect, we know we can always improve, but seriously.

don’t tell me my work is unoriginal, but well written. don’t tell me my descriptions are too complex even though the sentences flow well. if i didn’t ask for criticism, don’t give it. i want to improve, but if you tell me what i did wrong, all i’ll do is try and defend myself instead of really exploring why what i did could have been improved.

an important part of creating is recognising that we have space to improve. but i will never have that chance to improve if all i can hear is everything i did wrong and nothing i did right.

do not dish out criticism if the creator hasn’t asked to receive it. it takes us time and effort to produce what we can. you are not expected to love everything we make, but at the very least, keep your harsh words to yourself unless you know it’s something we’ve asked for. explicitly.

thank you.

#psa #creative writing #writing #writers #vent #yes i’m mad #criticism #like holy shit yes we know we have space to improve but that doesn’t make it hurt any less

[not-actually-smart]

Just so you guys know, I’m heteroromantic asexual and am very willing to be a sensitivity beta reader!

Here’s some things that people have said in the notes so far that I’m summarising so everything is together and more cohesive:

Don’t try to “fix” an aromantic or asexual character. It’s not an illness or a disease, and isn’t something that magically turns off when you meet “the right person”. An example of this being done badly is in the TV show House (this video explains very well why the episode is aphobic). Thanks to @serpentski for bringing this one up!

Don’t make aromantic allosexual characters sex-crazed, or obsessed with sex, and it’s helpful to ask someone with such an orientation on their experiences with sexual and romantic attraction. Thanks to @sof-ingtired for this one!

Tips for writing a character with a traumatic backstory and is aromantic or asexual without using the backstory to validate the character’s orientation can be found in @angels-and-dreamers reblog, who very succinctly explains a good way to move forward with this! 

Do note that aromanticism and asexuality are spectrums, and that everyone who is a-spec has had different experiences with their orientation and you don’t have to capture a “universal” experience in your writing.

Also, an important thing I’d like to note: it’s amazing that people are seeing this post and sharing it, because aro/ace erasure and phobia is a real thing! However, a lot of the discussion is focused on asexuality and not aromanticism. As erased as asexuality is, aromantics experience this far, far worse, and we should do our best to make sure that we discuss aromanticism together with asexuality, or even aromanticism without bringing up asexuality. It is its own identity, it is valid, and it should very much be seen.

Writing Asexual and Aromantic Characters

Aromanticism is defined as the lack of romantic attraction to other people. Similarly, asexuality is defined as the lack of sexual attraction to other people. These two identities are widely misunderstood and vastly under-respresented in popular media, and hopefully, that will be remedied. That said, here’s a short guide on what to do and what not to do when writing a-spec (a-spectrum) characters.

DO:

Show them having regular friendships with other people. 

Remember that a-specs can still have relationships. Just because someone is asexual does not mean that they cannot have sex.

Allow your non-a-spec characters to be single as well. Characters, regardless of orientation, don’t need to be in a relationship to give them agency. Unless your story is a romance, there is no reason to force characters into relationships that don’t make sense. 

Explicitly use the words “asexual” and “aromantic”. Having canon a-spec characters is so important, especially since it’s too easy to dismiss a character as “just hasn’t found the right person yet”. Canon a-spec characters is much, much better than headcanoned a-spec characters.

DON’T:

Do not give them a traumatic backstory to explain why they don’t feel attraction. While some members of the a-spec community have experienced trauma, it is not necessarily the cause of their aromanticism or asexuality, and to assume that all a-specs are “the way they are” because of trauma is ignorant and aphobic.

Do not forget that they are normal humans with normal, human feelings. Just because a-spec people don’t experience a certain form of attraction doesn’t make them emotionless. 

Absolutely, absolutely do not imply that they are “broken” or “damaged” because of their lack of a certain form of attraction. Aromanticism and asexuality is completely normal and should not be stigmatised in any way, shape or form. Note that this doesn’t mean you can’t give them a traumatic past, it just means that you cannot declare that their aromanticism or asexuality makes them any less “whole” or “fulfilled”.

PS: If you aren’t a-spec, please let a friend who is a-spec read over your story to make sure that you haven’t accidentally written anything insensitive or harmful.

#aromantic #aromanticism #aro awareness

[not-actually-smart]

Writing Asexual and Aromantic Characters

Aromanticism is defined as the lack of romantic attraction to other people. Similarly, asexuality is defined as the lack of sexual attraction to other people. These two identities are widely misunderstood and vastly under-respresented in popular media, and hopefully, that will be remedied. That said, here’s a short guide on what to do and what not to do when writing a-spec (a-spectrum) characters.

DO:

Show them having regular friendships with other people. 

Remember that a-specs can still have relationships. Just because someone is asexual does not mean that they cannot have sex.

Allow your non-a-spec characters to be single as well. Characters, regardless of orientation, don’t need to be in a relationship to give them agency. Unless your story is a romance, there is no reason to force characters into relationships that don’t make sense. 

Explicitly use the words “asexual” and “aromantic”. Having canon a-spec characters is so important, especially since it’s too easy to dismiss a character as “just hasn’t found the right person yet”. Canon a-spec characters is much, much better than headcanoned a-spec characters.

DON’T:

Do not give them a traumatic backstory to explain why they don’t feel attraction. While some members of the a-spec community have experienced trauma, it is not necessarily the cause of their aromanticism or asexuality, and to assume that all a-specs are “the way they are” because of trauma is ignorant and aphobic.

Do not forget that they are normal humans with normal, human feelings. Just because a-spec people don’t experience a certain form of attraction doesn’t make them emotionless. 

Absolutely, absolutely do not imply that they are “broken” or “damaged” because of their lack of a certain form of attraction. Aromanticism and asexuality is completely normal and should not be stigmatised in any way, shape or form. Note that this doesn’t mean you can’t give them a traumatic past, it just means that you cannot declare that their aromanticism or asexuality makes them any less “whole” or “fulfilled”.

PS: If you aren’t a-spec, please let a friend who is a-spec read over your story to make sure that you haven’t accidentally written anything insensitive or harmful.

#asexual #asexuality #lgbtq #lgbtqia #writing tips #ace #ace positivity #psa

[not-actually-smart]

“tumblr is dying” okay thanks for telling me that, instagram screenshot of a tweet screenshotting a reddit post screenshotted from tumblr

[not-actually-smart]

Image Prompt #1

Image source: myself

There were thousands of them, scattered across the mountainside. Tiny dots of explosive colour clustered against the vivid green landscape, bursting with life. Even thousands of metres above sea level, tiny bumblebees floated around lazily, the sound of their wings buzzing in the air almost lyrical. 

You lay on your back, the earth warm and dry and soft and springy. The sun's rays embraced you, filling your heart up with joy, and you breathed. Fresh air. Clean air, away from everything, from the city, from life, from stress. Here, you felt free.

Your eyes drifted over to the side. Endless mountains, tipped with the lightest powdering of white, even in the peak of summer. Towering cliffs of rock, peppered with deep green carpets of grass at every crevice. 

You felt like you were in heaven.

Your eyes turned, gazing over to the other side. There was a field of flowers, in full bloom, bright and colourful and vibrant in thousands of indescribable ways. But you focused on a single, white bud—a stark contrast to the rainbow in the background, yet somehow seamlessly blending into the flamboyancy of the field. It calmed you, grounded you, its tiny petals smaller than your smallest fingernail. 

You closed your eyes. In that moment, you felt loved.

#creative writing #descriptive writing #descriptive #writing #image #image prompt #picture prompt #flowers #mountain #switzerland #summer #this was a school assignment #it's not been edited #it's really bad #i was too lazy to improve it

[not-actually-smart]

in need of other writeblrs to follow! my dash is dead. reblog and follow me if you want to be mutuals :)

[not-actually-smart]

Helpful things for action writers to remember

Sticking a landing will royally fuck up your joints and possibly shatter your ankles, depending on how high you’re jumping/falling from. There’s a very good reason free-runners dive and roll. 

Hand-to-hand fights usually only last a matter of seconds, sometimes a few minutes. It’s exhausting work and unless you have a lot of training and history with hand-to-hand combat, you’re going to tire out really fast. 

Arrows are very effective and you can’t just yank them out without doing a lot of damage. Most of the time the head of the arrow will break off inside the body if you try pulling it out, and arrows are built to pierce deep. An arrow wound demands medical attention. 

Throwing your opponent across the room is really not all that smart. You’re giving them the chance to get up and run away. Unless you’re trying to put distance between you so you can shoot them or something, don’t throw them. 

Everyone has something called a “flinch response” when they fight. This is pretty much the brain’s way of telling you “get the fuck out of here or we’re gonna die.” Experienced fighters have trained to suppress this. Think about how long your character has been fighting. A character in a fist fight for the first time is going to take a few hits before their survival instinct kicks in and they start hitting back. A character in a fist fight for the eighth time that week is going to respond a little differently. 

ADRENALINE WORKS AGAINST YOU WHEN YOU FIGHT. THIS IS IMPORTANT. A lot of times people think that adrenaline will kick in and give you some badass fighting skills, but it’s actually the opposite. Adrenaline is what tires you out in a battle and it also affects the fighter’s efficacy - meaning it makes them shaky and inaccurate, and overall they lose about 60% of their fighting skill because their brain is focusing on not dying. Adrenaline keeps you alive, it doesn’t give you the skill to pull off a perfect roundhouse kick to the opponent’s face. 

Swords WILL bend or break if you hit something hard enough. They also dull easily and take a lot of maintenance. In reality, someone who fights with a sword would have to have to repair or replace it constantly.

Fights get messy. There’s blood and sweat everywhere, and that will make it hard to hold your weapon or get a good grip on someone. 

A serious battle also smells horrible. There’s lots of sweat, but also the smell of urine and feces. After someone dies, their bowels and bladder empty. There might also be some questionable things on the ground which can be very psychologically traumatizing. Remember to think about all of the character’s senses when they’re in a fight. Everything WILL affect them in some way. 

If your sword is sharpened down to a fine edge, the rest of the blade can’t go through the cut you make. You’ll just end up putting a tiny, shallow scratch in the surface of whatever you strike, and you could probably break your sword. 

ARCHERS ARE STRONG TOO. Have you ever drawn a bow? It takes a lot of strength, especially when you’re shooting a bow with a higher draw weight. Draw weight basically means “the amount of force you have to use to pull this sucker back enough to fire it.” To give you an idea of how that works, here’s a helpful link to tell you about finding bow sizes and draw weights for your characters.  (CLICK ME)

If an archer has to use a bow they’re not used to, it will probably throw them off a little until they’ve done a few practice shots with it and figured out its draw weight and stability. 

People bleed. If they get punched in the face, they’ll probably get a bloody nose. If they get stabbed or cut somehow, they’ll bleed accordingly. And if they’ve been fighting for a while, they’ve got a LOT of blood rushing around to provide them with oxygen. They’re going to bleed a lot. 

Here’s a link to a chart to show you how much blood a person can lose without dying. (CLICK ME) 

If you want a more in-depth medical chart, try this one. (CLICK ME)

Hopefully this helps someone out there. If you reblog, feel free to add more tips for writers or correct anything I’ve gotten wrong here. 

[not-actually-smart]

Writing Dialogue: the Basics

(Disclaimer: I saw a post similar to this before, but I can’t find it, so here’s my version of it.)

Dialogue grammar in the English language is ridiculously complex, and can easily be messed up if you aren’t paying attention or are unfamiliar with how dialogue is structured. So, here’s a simple guide. Note that a lot more complex dialogue structure has not been included. Pay attention to punctuation.

“This is an incomplete sentence,” they say, “that continues after the dialogue tag.” e.g. “Just because you think you’re so cute and pretty,” she sneered, “doesn’t mean that you own this place.”

“This is a complete sentence.” There is an action. “This is a new sentence.” e.g. “I don’t care.” He smiled. “I don’t care at all.”

“This is a complete sentence,” and this is the relevant dialogue tag. “This is a new sentence.” e.g. “The sky is blue,” she gasped in wonder. “I never knew that.”

They do an action before they speak. “This is the dialogue.” e.g. He blinked. “Why are you like this?”

They speak, “This is the dialogue.” e.g. They whisper, “I love you.”

Dialogue paragraphing will be discussed in another post.

#writing #writing tips #creative writing #dialogue #dialogue tips #writing help #writing guide #dialogue guide #writing basics

[not-actually-smart]

The queen stared down, her face impossibly stoic. Nothing betrayed her emotion - not a twitch of her lip, not a blink of her eye. The Statue Queen, they called her, for she was often mistaken for naught but a piece of art.

The warrior, however, grovelled. Their face betrayed their fear, hands trembling even as they braced against the floor. Under the harsh white lights, they looked less like a weapon, and more like a child; less like a warrior and more like an eleven-year-old who was dragged into a war ten times their age.

At that moment, the room was silent. Silent, except for the sobs that the child let out, echoing in the large stone hall. Silent, in the wake of the child’s begging, as they waited for what was surely their death.

“You failed,” said the queen, her voice quiet and yet booming through the ears of the child. “I required you to do a simple task, and you returned with four dead soldiers and news of one more battle. One more fight we cannot afford.”

The child opened their mouth, wishing to say something, anything, but they found that all they could manage was a pathetic, wracked sob. The queen was right, of course. She always was. And they - they deserved to pay for their mistake.

The queen continued to speak, her face still impassive. “Because of your failure, we will lose countless more lives. Because of your mistake, because of your carelessness, you have caused this nation more death and destruction. Your actions will force this war to drag on for even longer, just as it was about to near its end.”

The child closed their eyes. “I know,” they whispered. “I know, I know, and I’m sorry, I’ll do better in the future, I’ll do anything you ask! Please, just let me live!”

For some inexplicable reason, the queen laughed. It was a cold laugh - there was no feeling in it, no joy: it was a laugh of pity.

“Oh, darling -” and she smiled “- you will not face your death at my hands. Why would I waste another life? That serves me no purpose, and brings me no joy. No, child, I will not be ending your life today.” Her smile never wavers.

Her eyes are still empty.

“Here’s what you will do, weapon. You will go down to the southern lands. Give my sister my regards. If you can do that for me, I will spare you from the battle that you caused.”

The child looked up to her, their skin grey and sickly as neon lights illuminated their face. “Yes, my queen,” they choked out. “I will... give your sister my regards.”

They stood up, shaking, and bowed, digging into the palm of their hand with fingers shaped like knives. Their eyes, a flashing red, held back tears - their tongue ran along sharpened teeth.

“You may take your leave.”

The child nodded, and unfurled a pair of bat-like wings.

Soon, the stone hall was silent again, and the Statue Queen did not move.

(Two weeks later, the child was locked inside a Southern prison for the murder of their queen. They received a letter, smuggled in by a wide-eyed servant boy who scuttled away before the child could say a word.

Well done, was all it said, in carefully printed letters. There was nothing else there - no hidden message, no new orders. No hint as to who would come to save them.

The child sank down and cried, inside their cold, iron cell. Alone. Unwanted. Rejected by everyone. They were a weapon, and they were used, just like the thousands of other ‘weapons’ that the Statue Queen controlled. They cried, because they realised that in the eyes of their ruler, they were not worth saving.

They were a weapon: a tool needed to win a war, and nothing more.)

Prompt #2476

“I’m a good weapon,” they promised, fervent and almost pleading. “I’m powerful, and easily controlled, a-and I’ll do anything you ask, anything at all!”

#prompt #writing prompt #fantasy #nonbinary character

[not-actually-smart]

Better plotline than 90% of teen novels.

#meme #covid19 #slowdance #youtube #youtubecomment #cute #romance #funny #my friend sent this to me #romantic #they had us in the first half not gonna lie

[not-actually-smart]

Not going to lie, it’s genuinely upsetting to think about the new “fans” who are going to judge Legend of Korra, without knowing about all of the horrible things that Nickelodeon did to Bryke.

[not-actually-smart]

The sun is setting. It looks beautiful, does it not? The golds and the oranges, the pinks and the violets. There is no sunset quite like this one, no other sunset that captures the beauty as well as the forest does. See the clouds, painted lovingly with the sun’s rays? See the trees, lit bronze under her warm gaze? See the creatures, all standing still, watching her bring light for the last moments of the day?

Oh! Oh no, don’t look straight at the sun, you’ll hurt your eyes. No, no, look up. Look up! Watch the clouds as they darken, as they bleed out their colour and turn silver in the shadow of the endless sky. There is no moon, not tonight. She hides under the shadow of the Earth, as her brighter and more beloved sister brings a new dawn far, far away. The moon, oh, she stares down at us from her sky-high perch, bathed in the endless, starry blanket that is her home. Tonight, she lets us appreciate the millions of blinking lights, scattered across the black expanse, carving out stories and paintings as they sparkle in the sky. The moon smiles down at you, my sweet, and she whispers, in a voice that doesn’t sound but feels, feels like the silken touch of a midnight breeze. Stare up, stare up at the sky, she tells you. The black forest will not fail tonight.

The trees whistle, the shadows purr. Life creeps out from every corner and crack in the bark, and yet, the black forest maintains its eternal silence; never raises its voice above a whisper. Darling, reach out, deep into the woods, walk upon dry earth that sinks under every step. And never speak - never make a sound - for the legends say, those who give their voice to the forest will never get it back.

Close your eyes, my darling, my sweet, let the arms of the forest wrap around your chest. You are safe, you are loved. You are protected in the heart of the forest. Here, you can rest, under a blanket of stars and a mattress of moss. You belong here, darling, and nothing will come to harm you. For as long as you keep your voice, the forest will protect you.

You may rest, my sweet. Rest, until come morning light.

#creative writing #freeflow #no prompt #i don't know where i was going with this #kinda poetic #forest #second person pov