#i dont think i wrote his dialogue as accurately as i wanted but what can u do 😔
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20 Questions for Fic Writers
I WAS TAGGED BY @nooowestayandgetcaught THANK U ILY
1. How many works do you have on AO3?
- 158
2. What’s your total AO3 word count?
- 325,837
3. What fandoms do you write for?
- any and all that I know/like!! I have the most fics in kinnporsche, hp, and grishaverse, but I write for a lot of different fandoms
4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
- Meeting Your Maker (Literally)
Harry Potter, Time Travel AU, 64,543 words
- a colorful past
The Batman (2021), Jim Gordon/Bruce Wayne, 688 words
- Your Makers Meet (Figuratively)
Harry Potter, sequel to MYML, 30,726 words, incomplete
- I'm not leaving your side
Love in the Air (2022), Whump, 1,307 words
-no body, no crime
Kinnporsche: The Series (2022), MURDER, kinn kills vegas, 943 words
5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
yeah! I try to at least, I have a huge backlog to get through whoops. I started writing in the era of ffn where like half the experience was talking back and forth in the reviews and then pm-ing and that's how I made a lot of friends that I still have today. and without that kind of comment culture and the author replying to messages, I might not have ever started writing.
someone replied to my review very kindly and asked why I didn't have any fic, my ideas were awesome (hair flip) and that made me realize oh. I don't have to Just read, I can also write the stories
and the rest is history
but fostering that kind of community, just talking to people who love the things you love, is such a fun part of the fandom experience for me and so I'll always reply to comments (eventually. I'll always get there eventually.)
6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?
KDHAJCHSJXJSJZ I DONT KNOW HOW TO TELL YOU THAT I HAVE A WHOLE SERIES WHERE I JUST KILL PEOPLE AND WATCH THEIR FRIENDS GRIEVE
but that being said, the answer is
into the wind (Love in the Air (2022), prapaisky, MCD/suicide
7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?
uhh. this one I don't actually know but imma say
love me there (His Dark Materials, lyrawill, fix-it, lyra finds will again after the events of s3)
8. Do you get hate on fics?
yeah, sometimes! 👍 don't do that
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
sometimes. not very often, it's usually M-rated if I do, but just. yeah. I don't know how to answer this
10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?
nope!
11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
yep!
12. Have you ever had a fic translated?
nope!
13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
yes, many times! back in my OG ffn days, and then a few times with @nooowestayandgetcaught
14. What’s your all time favourite ship?
I'm gonna say percabeth but I don't think there Is a real answer to this question, bc I love so many of my ships So Hard that just thinking about them makes me cry
15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?
......I will finish every wip leave me alone (I WILL FINISH YMMF I PROMISE) work in PROGRESS and the progress may be slow but it's PROGRESS
16. What are your writing strengths?
dialogue I am so fucking good at dialogue, and character interaction. definitely my strengths
17. What are your writing weaknesses?
descriptions. I am too lazy to do them all out the way I want to and so I just kinda. skate by
except in guess I misjudged you (gods I loved you) that one is PACKED bc I spent 9 months on it so
18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?
mmm unless I know someone I can talk to and get accurate translations, I don't really do this bc I am so afraid of conjugating wrong and google translate is SHIT. but when I do I try my best
19. First fandom you wrote for?
Percy Jackson! in 2012 on ffn on an account that still exists but I will not give u the name of. 🥰🥰
20. Favourite fic you’ve written?
as of rn (October 2023) it's
guess I misjudged you (gods i loved you)
Percy Jackson, Royalty AU, Arranged Marriage AU, 56,438 words
it is my BABY and I think one of the best things I've written tbh
#2 would be
if you don't like it (lie)
KinnPorsche, kimchay, MCD, 3,516 words
it's just so delightfully painful and it's the one I show to everyone I show kp bc I'm obsessed with it
ANYWAYS THATS ALL THANK YOU!!!! if you wanna do this feel free to say I tagged you 💞
@seaweedbraens @perseannabeth @karin848 @waitingondaisies (y'all don't have to do this. but ✨✨)
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while i would say im personally not the biggest fan of the writing from the pontaff games, eggman was definitely my favorite character from that era. he was consistently written in character, funny, menacing, and just a total asshole. im a big fan of ian flynns eggman and have been since archie, but i really dont think its fair to say the pontaff era eggman is inherently inferior.
I totally respect not being the biggest fan of Pontaff Eggman and I think there are fair reasons for that, it's just unfortunate that a lot of people outright hate him all of a sudden despite how a lot of people used to agree he was the character they kept consistent and faithful the most of the entire cast. It used to feel like a fairly common opinion but now people completely ignore or put down all of Pontaff Eggman, despite the way it's dismissing a massive chunk of game Eggman as a result, over a decade's worth, which I feel was important and valuable and brought us some great portrayals and moments that are sadly overlooked or misunderstood now.
Pontaff personally aren't my favorite writers of all for Eggman but for me it's not for what they did write, it's what they didn't get to- which is hardly much of a criticism when it just comes to me thinking there was potential in some areas that weren't explored as far as I would've liked. And it's all plot related, not characterization in the slightest. I feel like in some Pontaff era games, Eggman could've and should've had a chance to shine more in some areas. But as script writers, they did their job well at understanding him and who he is, what he wants, how he thinks and feels and interacts with others, etc and capturing it well through dialogue.
But yeah I have a lot of high praise for them because I truly don't feel like there's literally a single moment and line written by them that felt out of character, and I've watched and analyzed it all over and over. They were great at writing his humor whether it was his silly goofiness or the darker more morbid aspects of it, I always find it very funny personally and their best of all are definitely the Eggman PAs in Colors, which I know a lot of people can agree on because they're pure gold. XD And the menacing threatening moments they got to write were fantastic, I actually even prefer their dialogue over some of the JP versions of the scenes in some cases. :O
I don't know why people have suddenly started acting like he was terrible because he's always been the most consistently well captured and written of all the characters. Classic, Adventure, and modern game era Eggman all feels the same to me, he isn't less evil and threatening than he was prior. It's just the overall story tone shift that makes the focus more on the humor in some games but Eggman's evil actions and goals aren't any less extreme and he isn't any less of an evil bastard. He's the funny evil asshole he's supposed to be, who can be silly but also pure diabolical evil and a serious threat. The balance is really well done in terms of characterization.
I also love Ian Flynn's Eggman, (which is why it's frustrating when people think I hate it or even Flynn himself just because of my criticisms. I criticize as much as I praise but people only pay attention to the former) game Eggman as a whole will always be my favorite version with my favorite writing over everything else, though I have to give credit where it's due. I really adore a big chunk of what he wrote in Archie when I felt it was accurate to game Eggman and there was actually a lot of that. Same goes for IDW Eggman. And even Frontiers Eggman now! I do think he understands a lot about him and I agree on a lot of his takes and his best work is some of my absolute favorites in all Eggman media.
So yeah I don't think it's fair to say Pontaff Eggman is inherently inferior either, their Eggman characterization wise isn't any less accurate than Ian Flynn's best work on it. I personally think Pontaff has been more consistent because my only sort of criticisms with Pontaff era Eggman lie in the story aspects, while with Ian Flynn's it's the actual characterization that I have some criticisms on in some cases, but I think both of them do equally great in all the things I enjoy and praise. But people seem to be quicker to overlook, ignore, or deny Pontaff's writing's qualities over Flynn's which is sad. I wish people would look back to see they're judging too harshly.
It makes me sad when people trash Pontaff Eggman to me on my posts, videos, or inbox because their Eggman has been so precious and loved by me for 12 years, I get endless joy and entertainment of him and always will. 💔 The insistence by a large majority of the fandom that Pontaff Eggman had next to nothing going for him isn't fair and I think they're missing out a lot in recognizing the great entertainment and characterization their writing brought to him, I wish they'd reconsider instead of acting like he sucks and Flynn "fixed" him. Game Eggman has always been great and has never stopped! Because he's wonderfully consistent.
Of course it's pretty obvious that game Eggman as a whole is my absolute favorite of all time and is the main form of inspiration behind all my fan creations as a result- but Ian Flynn's Eggman inspired me a lot too, all the way back from Archie and deserves credit. People deny that game Eggman is as evil as my favorite parts of Archie Egg- but I like them specifically because they feel accurate to game Eggman to me. And I know game Egg is evil enough of a bastard to do all of those evil things he does in Archie that I love so much too and he does in fact do stuff on that level in the games, the stories just often have a more lighter hearted tone overall.
Anyway I love and adore Eggman portrayals as long as he's both funny and also a threatening evil asshole and I think both Pontaff and Ian Flynn both do a great job at capturing that in their best works. When the humor makes me laugh and the threatening evil moments bring me great excitement and a thrill, especially when Eggman gets extra fucked up in both his humorous moments and his serious threatening ones, such as the darker humor and the darkest threatening moments Eggman for example that both have delivered in great amounts- that makes a damn good Eggman portrayal hehe 🥰 It's all super entertaining and appreciated!
Oops this turned into gushing about both because I couldn't help myself lol, I'm very passionate about it 💜
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for you my darling jamie: 3, 9, 19, 21, 22 (👀), 28, 29, and 33!! <3
THANK U MY DARLING SAV!!!!!!
3. How would you describe your writing style?
all over the place tbh!!!!!! i feel like i can very much be a writing style chameleon based on what the vibe of a piece needs, but i def gravitate to either silly goofy writing with lots of unnecessary asides (like lola fic or my reddie fake married disaster fic) OR like. insane ominous overly verbose dread hours (like o&t<3)
9. Thoughts on cliffhangers.
harrowing!!!!! what if the author never updates again???? i dont ever post chapter fics until ive finished or almost finished the entire thing for this reason, i dont want anyone to hurt the way ive been hurt
19. Share a snippet from a wip without giving any context for it.
“Ah, it’s rather smoky—Kristen, did you make cheese crackers? Is that why you—” He cuts himself off, looking genuinely touched at the idea that Kristen would go out of her way to make him his favourite snack, just the way he likes it (burnt).
She’s not sure how she feels about crushing the hopes of a man who’s had his hopes crushed so many times before, so she decides to just rip off the bandaid. “No, your kitchen’s on fire.”
Gilear’s eyes widen, and he takes one more step out of the hallway to where he can see the kitchen, the yells, “Ahhhh! My kitchen is on fire!”
“Great listening skills,” Riz mutters under his breath.
21. Can you accurately predict how long your fics are going to be? If you can, what’s your secret?
yeah for the most part i can! ive been writing fic for 8 years now (omg) so ive kinda just developed a sense for how long a particular idea will take me. i think it helps a lot that im a pretty heavy outliner, and i typically dont start writing something unless ive got most of the plot figured out
but whenever im wrong about a wc its always that i end up being way over. i have cant shut up disease and its terminal
22. What is it about watching the same two idiots falling in love over and over again?
djkglhbsdlj;ghsdfg woowwww i wonder what ship that eyes emoji is for sav!!!! tbh idk if i have a solid answer for this question! sometimes a dynamic just Grips you and youre like holy shit i have to read and think about these people interacting for the next 5-10 business days straight. when i figure it out ill let you know
28. Any writing advice that works for you and you feel like sharing?
yes! i think you should write whatever makes you happy to write because that will make you love writing more, which will make you write more, which will make you be a better writer. early 2021 i decided i wanted to write more stupid goofy shit and i had SUCH a blast writing it it made me wanna write more stupid goofy shit and i had so much fun writing stupid goofy shit i stopped caring about what would get the most hits/kudos/attention/whatever
also i think the secret to not giving a shit is having friends that are also writers. all my closest friends in fandom have been writers and when u can have people to go to who will Get and celebrate your work no matter what? game changer!!!!! opens up a whole world of possibilities like, "hey, what if i wrote this niche rarepair fic with my friend but its in second person and also the ship only has like 2 fics in their tag and also what if we wrote it in one night?" and then u have SO much doing it and dont even bother to check stats bc u already feel so fulfilled for having created it!!!! and also u and ur friend are so much closer now for it!!!
tldr put on some fun music, do a little dance, tell urself "who give a shit" and write whatever the fuck makes u happy
29. What’s the hardest thing about writing?
writing 💔
33. Give your writing a compliment.
aw this one is cute. mmmm i think im pretty good at capturing specific character voices/cadences/vocabulary in dialogue!!! 🥰
send a number for fic writer asks!
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Yes hi hello?? @reki-of-the-valley? your fic Summer Time (Family) Madness?? Chapter 7???? You better be paying for my health insurance because I just bawled so badly hello??
Help literally I haven't read the rest yet but I feel like I cannot move on without rambling about this omg?? omg so like? oh my god???
The chapter hit me SO badly because I related in a really really personal way omg I am not ok?? you are so good at this I will fucking break into your home and do nothing but scream for 10 minutes but as a compliment in an affectionate way omg
tl;dr kinda - you're so good at writing emotions that i evaporated
tw up ahead uh mentions of self harm and a lot of angst sorry i got ahead of myself
The way that argument went? The way the reason seemed so stupid at first but then turned out to have a root cause all this time? Not wanting to lose a loved one again omg? Also although mine were childish I've had many fights with my cousins too even though I didn't actually want to be that mad at him anyway like- omg I cannot
The way you handled the emotions? It's so good??? The pain the frustrations the guilt- the feeling of shame and feeling small- the feeling of wanting to go back again and wishing it could all be 'normal'? the sadness and angst of everything??? was portrayed so good? it was so accurate?? like I felt like I was watching everything go down in real time live action like I literally just walking walked into their fucking house ohmygodd???
and on langa too of all people? the way you made his emotions seem natural tho is so amazing?? like it never felt like all of those emotions were being pushed on him for the sake of plot- it felt like a real human being- real people struggles- its just so right? like the dialogues for all of them were so in character too? the whole thing feels so natural that this feels like its already literally canon??
the way langa is written in this,,,, reminds me of a friend of mine? langa the character himself already reminded me of them for multiple many reasons but? this?? this fic??? oh my god,,,, im literally crying bawling shitting tears streaming down my face,, i cant say a lot because its personal but just imagine me in a puddle of tears ok? ok
the way langa and nanako interacted? reminded me of my own mom?? and now im so fucking sad because ndjsn omg so like usually if i accidentally rant to my parents and cry infront of them they start laughing and making fun of me but? those few instances? incidents? where my mom just held me in her arms and told me everything was going to me alright?? that even if it took a while i was gonna be able to figure it out? and those fucking lines man oh my god,,, 'you're not broken' 'you're perfect' omg i cant,,,,,
when you mentioned how langa froze up upon seeing his own mother so,, terrified? its absolutely horrible seeing your mother look so sad and miserable?? and i know all too well??? the time i cut myself a few times months ago and she only noticed a whole week after? how mortified she was to find out her own kid was going through that?? without her knowing? i can still hear the way her voice cracked as she came to talk to me about it- her trying not to cry because she had to be the bigger person and give me the advice-
also also the dynamics between langa and emily? where its kinda complicated? reminds me exactly of my cousin and i. its literally exactly the same i dont know what to say man like really truly honestly? but its more like im both langas gayness and emilys teasing so like (worst traits of both sides <3)
ok but. ok. ok so,,, the main reason why this got me so so fucking much- the way you wrote reki and langa during the 3 days of silence- its so fucking personal to me? ive literally been through this?? i dont think using past tense to describe it is that accurate but nonetheless omg? rekis texts,,,,, was my breaking point- the way its written- is exactly how they wrote it??? word to word? its was exactly like that????? i have been through this and you captured that too well im actually fucking scared for myself and concerned for you too are you ok?? how are you able to write this good i cannot im gonna kick something into outer fucking space.,,,,,
the- the way reki sends reels and shit all the time non stop?? even if langa doesnt reply immediately? and just leaves it as a little present for later?? the way he still kept on doing it after days of nothing??? the way he was concerned for him- the way- all the ways- all the things?? every thing??? so fucking perfect i cannot describe enough,,, still feel guilty for being the langa inthissituation- amdcurrentlystill being-
okay that went a little more personal than i was expecting to write buts 1am and im infucking tears ok oh yes you better magically fix my sleep schedule too ok? ok,,,,, i wonder if that person would ever find this one day? and read through this? sob sob
#tw depressing stuff#tw self harm#but uh#dont mind this too much#just wanted to gush and ramble#it went way more depressing than i expected it to#but i blame the fic#/j /lh
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oh to be the target employee who gets approached in the baby apparel section of the target by a man wearing black nail polish and a mixture of gothic and cowboy fashion who's pushing a giant stroller and who asks me "good sir....tell me, where in this establishment to you keep the baby sized ties?" and when i tell them we dont carry baby ties he sighs and says "well, what say you about baby sized sweater vests? or cardigans? i beg you, its for my dear baby boy here" motioning to the stroller and when i look inside theres. a baby with a grown mans head
#scooter.txt#wwdits#what we do in the shadows#laszlo cravensworth#i dont think i wrote his dialogue as accurately as i wanted but what can u do 😔
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1, 2, 7, 8, 9. (Sorry, i know that's like...all of them)
1. what themes would you like to write about that you feel don’t get explored very often?
i love writing coming out storylines. it’s not really that they’re uncommon, i just find a lot of catharsis in them.
2. what are some common elements of stories you are tired of seeing? what would you avoid writing about?
i tend to avoid writing sibling dynamics bc i’m an only child and therefore not really. qualified. i love reading it though!!
7. favourite description in your WIP?
it was really hard to pick one so i have a few answers for this bc i love to talk about myself so. (under the cut bc JESUS this got long but spoilers for and i’ll do anything you say (read it here!) ahead!!!)
- from chapter 2:
Sokka looks at him, a fantasy come to life, and takes off his stupid sweatpants.
He throws them at Zuko’s head, and earns himself a short burst of that real laugh, shocked and unguarded.
“You asshole,” Zuko says. He sits up and grabs Sokka’s hand, pulling him down on top of him. Something comes alive under Sokka’s skin where Zuko’s fingers graze his wrist. He calls it lust and ignores the fact that it feels nothing like it.
Zuko kisses him, his mouth still in the shape of laughter, and the alive thing screams for his attention. Sokka buries it and hopes it won’t deafen him before they’re done.
im very fond of this whole chapter (i think it’s probably my favourite? it was definitely the easiest to write) but i really love looking back on this part particularly now that we’re in the angsty part of the story bc this is where it all started. yes technically it started in chapter 1 but this is when sokka starts to fall for zuko. this is the beginning of all those pesky non-casual feelings that he’s going to pretend don’t exist until someone else calls him out on them.
- also from chapter 2:
He’s forty-five minutes late already, and when he knocks, a woman made of pursed lips and sharp angles answers the door. She looks elegant and expensive the same way a skyscraper does. Or a cache of medieval weaponry.
“Oh,” Sokka says, digging into his pocket to find the map on his phone. “I must have the wrong place, sorry -”
She looks him up and down, her eyes narrowed in a way that feels violent and practiced, and her smirk turns distasteful. Sokka risks a glance down at himself, at his torn up jeans - not distressed, just torn - and the Madonna t-shirt he’s pretty sure actually belongs to Katara, and thinks she might have a point. The bag in his hand feels heavier when her eyes land on it.
“Zuzu,” the woman calls into the apartment, “your dinner’s here.”
“I didn’t order -” Zuko appears in the doorway, bitter frustration in his expression as he looks at the woman.
His eyes fall on Sokka, though, and his face clears into a light-pollution smile.
this is technically two so i will start with: i love azula. i haven’t found any room to bring her back yet but believe me i am LOOKING. she’s hot and mean and gay and i LOVE HER. oh also insider scoop but suki’s date from earlier in this chapter.......WAS azula. they probably won’t see each other again because once azula met sokka and connected his face to the Best Friends Forever picture frame on suki’s desk she stopped answering the phone.
pt 2: i’ve had a couple of comments mention the “light-pollution smile” line specifically and i am always so happy to read them bc yeah. YEAH. i’ll admit it. that line HITS.
- from chapter 4:
He sets his phone down - only, he doesn’t. He misses the table by a mile, and in his scramble to catch his phone before it breaks on the hardwood floor and wakes Momo on the cushion beside him, his hand finds the lip of his cereal bowl, and then that’s falling, too. He manages to catch the phone, but something in his head gets lost in translation on its way down his arms, and he ends up with a boxers-only lap full of soggy Cheerios.
Momo gets a splash of milk on his back and hisses at Zuko for his crimes, and somehow that’s the worst part of it.
haley @fruitysokka said that this passage reads like an action movie and i think about it all the time. (thank u haley i love u)
- lastly this extended metaphor from chapter 6:
The soup is good, once the heat of it clears him up enough to taste it. It’s thick and warm and there’s enough pepper that Sokka gets a kick from it even in his condition. He feels it all the way down his throat and into his stomach, where it mixes with the prickly nervousness he’s feeling from Zuko’s attention.
He sets the bowl down on the table and asks, eyes stuck on his hands in Momo’s fur where he’s climbed into his lap, “How was the date?”
“It was good, actually,” Zuko says. “Jet seems like a nice guy. He’s very - uh - passionate, I guess you could call it? He’s a climate and human rights activist.”
The spines of Sokka’s nervousness turn to daggers.
...
“I said yes. We’re getting lunch on Sunday.”
The daggers are swords now, and Sokka’s heart sinks down, down, down, right to the hilt.
...
“I’ll text you when I’m home,” Zuko promises, and Sokka’s heart skewers itself on a second sword.
Zuko’s smile when Sokka says, “Thank you for the soup,” is a third.
The door closing behind him is a fourth.
The silence as Sokka shuffles back to bed is every single one that remains.
something something canon swordsmen something pride comes before the fall something chivalry fell on his sword from eden by hozier. you guys get it i dont have to explain myself
8. favourite dialogue in your WIP?
ok so i cant share my actual favourite dialogue bc it's a spoiler for chapter 8 and i technically haven't written it yet (it's in my brain just.....plaguing me) but it's GOOD i SWEAR so. once again i have more than one answer bc actually? i love this fic and im proud of it. deal with it.
- from chapter 1:
“Hey, stranger,” Sokka says, still watching him in the mirror. The corner of Zuko’s mouth ticks up.
“You’re not following me, are you?” Zuko’s tone is seductive, endlessly so, and Sokka wonders while he dries his hands if he has to put it on or if he just sounds like that.
“You give a guy one compliment and he thinks you’re stalking him,” Sokka mutters, and Zuko laughs, low and enticing. Not the genuine, endearing laugh of this morning, but one with an agenda.
Well. Sokka always likes a plan.
“Are you following me? ” Sokka asks. He spies a miraculous dry patch on the sink bank and tries to be casual about the way he hops up to sit on it.
“I might be,” Zuko says, and at Sokka’s raised eyebrow, he continues, “I saw you at the bar and I wanted to talk to you. Sue me.”
“You wanted to talk.”
“Amongst other things.”
as a chronically awkward person i am INSANELY proud of the flirting in this fic. no idea if it would work in a real life situation. excited to never find out bc im not about to use lines from my fanfiction on real women.
- from chapter 2
“You must be Suki,” Zuko says. He meets her gaze, and his fingers go still under Momo’s chin.
“And you’re Zuko,” Suki replies, her smile all different shades of intimidating. “I’d shake your hand, but I know where it’s just been.”
i wrote this entire scene just so i could have suki say this. im not even joking. suki is my favourite part of this entire fic and its not even ABOUT her.
- from chapter 3:
When Sokka crosses the room and slips under the covers beside him, Zuko says, “I can leave, if you want. I can go home.”
...
He asks, still barely hovering over Zuko, “What if I don’t want that?”
Zuko swallows. “I can stay.”
“So stay,” Sokka says, and lays his head down on Zuko’s chest.
i just think it’s sweet. i like it a lot. makes my heart hurt a little when i think about it.
- from chapter 4:
[Suki // 15:13] there is a LOT of chmpagrjn
[Suki // 15:13] cahpmhagne
[Suki // 15:13] chsanpghn
[Suki // 15:14] alcohol :)
once again: suki is the best part of this whole fic. i love her so much. she is the reason the word bestie exists. im really proud of the texting in this fic bc it’s my first time actually including it in fic and it’s turned out really well!!
- ok last one bc i just realised this is turning into a novel. from chapter 4:
“How’s my baby?”
Zuko glances down at Momo, batting at the untied laces of his shoes with one determined paw. “He’s doing just fine.”
“And how’s Momo?”
“He’s - what?”
are there better written, more narratively important and emotive lines in this fic? yes. is this the best part of the entire thing? also yes. i invented the jin/yue wedding because i needed a reason for zuko to have a key in what became chapter 6, but sometimes i think the entire fic exists just for this exchange. best dialogue i have ever written.
9. what scene was the hardest for you to write and why?
the start of chapter 6 of aidays was difficult. i kept wanting to skip ahead to the meaty parts - i.e, zuko and his soup - but i didn’t want to do sokka a disservice like that. it was also really hard to maintain the balance of accurately describing the delirium of illness while still being coherent for the reader? so that took me a couple of days to get right.
#dreamrena#ask game#this got AWAY from me#anyway.#theres.....that#asks#mine#and ill do anything you say#might as well go in the tag since its all i talk about in this#uhhh. enjoy?#i have more thoughts on literally all of aidays so. at the risk of sounding even more in love w myself than i do in this already.#if theres anything else anyone would like to know more about (excluding spoilers obv) i am MORE than happy to talk about it#sam winchester voice The Lore
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I'd love to hear your commentary on "A Level Knife": It's one of my gold standard fics and I often revisit it to get a refresher on what feels like really accurate character voices/interactions! (also sorry for sending you the prompt "grief" when you were looking for fluff lol)
level knife
LMAO dont apologize, i might have asked for prompts but let’s be real...... i definitely went through those prompts and chose all the ones with angst in them because im an angst writer at heart :’)
im so 😳😳 that u think that fic has accurate characterization especially because it was the first shuake fic i ever wrote and i was PARANOID about messing up the characterization........ i was so worried hfmghfgmh
the original conceit was that goro wouldnt get his hair cut in public because he doesnt want to be seen in an inelegant state, but then it derailed because. akira is a silent protagonist.
because it was my first shuake fic, i really stressed over the characterization for both of them in this fic, so i was like, ok, i’ll start small and easy, and i’ll just try and replicate as best as i can one of the typical interactions that they have at the leblanc bar. i was very dead certain that i did NOT want to give akira a personality outside of what he has in canon, because i felt strongly that akira has a canon personality, even if it’s understated. but then that meant that i had to confront the fact that it would be incredibly unnerving to hold a conversation with a jrpg protagonist who barely spoke.
and i remember being like, aw, fuck, what am i gonna do?? should i cave and give him a personality? long story short i was SO god damn stubborn that i stuck to my guns and went with akira “silent protagonist” kurusu who says only four words at a time, even went out of my way to shorten his sentences and remove some of his dialogue, and then as soon as i did that the rest of it just sort of....... happened
once i decided that akira was going to behave the way he did, it seemed the natural conclusion that nervous akira’s silence and lack of expression would make anyone, but especially someone who wants people’s approval as much as goro does, how difficult it would be to figure out how to make a type of human connection when everyone else around goro seems to fall easily for the detective prince shtick, how uncertain goro might feel, never sure what akira is thinking, like goro’s shooting in the dark until he’d just nervous-talk on and on and on, trying to get any sort of reaction out of him and then being confused by whatever reaction he gets because akira has such a brick wall for a face.......... but that probably those are exactly the qualities that goro finds so interesting and even admirable...... it was kind of almost an accident that goro wound up behaving so skittishly, but ten i remembered that goro has a habit in vanilla cutscenes of just showing up in akira’s house and throws words at him like he’s desperate for a reaction until suddenly standing up and running the fuck away JSKJSKJ
all these characterizations were mostly an accident because i was thinking about transferring JRPG Silent Protagonists To the Fanfiction Page and i wasnt deep in the Goro Characterization Meta Sauce yet but i guess......... i think i always wondered if akira and akechi can be rivals if goro doesn’t feel genuinely threatened by akira on some level?? not even in an angry hatred way, but in an insecure and nervous way........ threatened by his abilities, his mysteriousness, akira’s apparent lack of emotional weakness, how much goro finds himself doing stupid shit around akira, or just the mortifying ordeal of being known......... LMAO
but i havent really written anything since about goro having soft weak sides of himself that make him uncertain and nervous ever since....... i mean it’s come up here and there but maybe i should reincorporate that idea more meaningfully into the way i write him from now on 🤔🤔
also i distinctly remember that when i wrote this fic, i was like, “well i dont REALLY ship shuake, it’s just a neat idea and a series of prompts that i saw on tumblr, i’ll just do these seven prompts and then go back to writing pegoryu and shukita” and obviously that. did not happen. as you can see. loooooooooooooooolololololol
ask for the director’s cut on a fic i’ve written
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Death Note Audio Drama 02
Disk 2: Collateral Damage - a summary / partial translation
Disk 1 and an attempted explanation of What This Is are here.
This episode also isn’t particularly wild as far as plot diversion goes, but it changes a key element of how Death Note manipulation works and.... introduces a whole lot of Matsuda trivia, somehow. We also say hi and bye to Naomi.
___________________
We begin with Naomi tracking down the bus driver of the busjacking. The driver is really annoyed that people keep tracking him down to ask him about it. Naomi asks about Raye. (Her vacation pic is from Honolulu in this version). Naomi presses the driver to tell her as much as he remembers about the other passengers.
_____
TITLE MUSIC PLAYS
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We’re back in time. Light is trying to think about how to get Raye Penber’s name. His dad’s computer has no notes about it. Light deduces that his dad doesn’t even know about the tailing. Ryuk brings up the eye deal.
RYUK: I can offer you the eyes of a shinigami.
LIGHT: U-uh, you mean a real pair of eyes? That’s disgusting!!
RYUK (amused): No, I just mean the power of those eyes.
The lifespan halving gets brought up and Light just goes “uhm... no thanks”, literally.
LIGHT: Are there any more surprises? Some kind of bonus point system? Fine print?
RYUK: Uuuuuhm, can’t think of anything much right now.
LIGHT: You could have written it into the Death Note, alongside the other rules. I don’t like to be led by the nose, I’m not your goddamn----
RYUK: ... what?
LIGHT: I am not your puppet.... But I can get one for myself.
RYUK: I don’t get it.
LIGHT: I know now, how to get my pursuer’s name. And that’s without making any kind of contract with you.
_______
A TV transmission. An attorney has issued a lawsuit against prisons for the way prisoners die. His client died of heart attack after writing a pentagram in his own blood. He was close to being pardoned. The lawyer says that the government has a duty to ensure safety of the prisoners, no matter what they are in for.
_______
L and Soichiro discuss the murder and other abnormal murders like it. They have Soichiro be the one to discover the “L did you know” message, oddly. But they don’t really detail how it is coded, so it might have just literally been written down word by word in this version.
L tells Soichiro to not tell anyone about this, not even his team. Soichiro immediately says he’ll only keep it in her personal data files.......
_______
RYUK: Are you really sure you should snoop around your dad’s office like this?
LIGHT: If you want a useful way to keep your eyes busy, why don’t you keep watch?
RYUK: I am not your partner. Oh, an apple. [eats]
LIGHT: Luckily, I can do just fine without your help. A-ha! Interpol listed them all!
RYUK: All your extremely dramatic deaths?
LIGHT: More or less. Seems like not all I wrote into the notebook actually happened.
They go over the stipulations of manipulation needing to be physically doable for the victim.
LIGHT: And now I just need... a catalyst.
_______
News transmission. A news entry about the killer of the Amane parents having died. Channel switch. A Christmas-themed advertisement for Space Land. Channel Switch. A news feature about Kiichiro Osoreda and his failed bank robbing.
______
Light meets Yuri and Yuri’s dialogue is kept pretty accurate to the manga, which is something that I found really disappointing actually. Light’s and Ryuk’s dialogue here is also very close to the original.
Raye Penber complains that he’d like to do real policework at some point again, otherwise he acts the same as in the manga here.
The whole busjacking is just really manga-close. But when Raye says he’s police undercover...
LIGHT: Oh, really? And how do I know you’re not in cahoots with this madman?
PENBER: And who are you? A detective?
YURI: His dad is a detective, that’s why he’s so smart.
LIGHT: Do you have ID? Otherwise I’ll have to deal with you first.
PENBER: Of course! Here.
LIGHT: Raye Penber... FBI? What is the FBI doing on a bus to Space Land?
PENBER: This isn’t really the time for that, boy.
LIGHT: Alright, cowboy, then toss your lasso already.
I cannot overstate that he literally says this. Word by word. After that, the scene returns to its canon version. The bizarre thing is that Ryuk explains the plan out loud, including telling Light’s name to Otoharada. Of course, Otoharada is brainwashed and acting according to script, but still weird.
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News transmission. The busjacking gets described. Light turns the news off and shows the Death Note entry to Ryuk, who reads it out loud.
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We hear a New Year’s countdown.
WATARI: What in Hercules’ name was that?
INTERPOL REP (still clinking champagne glasses): It’s the time difference, Mr. Watari! It’s midnight, here in the USA.
WATARI: Oh... I am so very sorry. I must have lost my overview.
INTERPOL REP: Forget about it. Just a moment.
She leaves the party room. She informs Watari of the deceased FBI agents. It happened three days ago, but she only got the report now, thanks to the holiday crunch. She now refuses to involve the FBI further.
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Soichiro calls L. He’s pissed about L involving the FBI, now that he’s heard.
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Back with Watari and the Interpol Rep (her name is Paula Virilio and she’ll be referred to as Virilio in the future) are still talking about the matter. She tells Watari that on Dec 28th all the agents asked about names and photos of their coworkers, so she gave the first four the file and asked them to pass it further.
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Soichiro is really mad about Virilio’s miss-step too. L and Soichiro work out that they need to know who sent the first email about the files. The phone call ends.
The Task Force is really mad about L still not taking the same risks as them. They actually seriously consider L being Kira for a moment.
______
The Task Force enter the hotel L is staying in. Pardon me for sometimes just saying ‘someone’ as the speaker, I find the Task Force really hard to tell about and without context cues I am often lost.
MATSUDA: A whole hotel suite? How do you earn the money for this stuff?
L: By being smarter than everyone else, Detective Matsuda.
MATSUDA: You are... [He corrects himself from the formal ‘you’ used to address adults to informal ‘you’ here] You are L....?
L: The one. Please sit down, gentlemen.
MATSUDA: He’s still a child...
L (laughs): I am old enough to vote, Mr. Matsuda. Old enough to carry a weapon, to marry, to fall in love... and to catch a murderer.
And you are Chief Inspector Yagami. I also know you from TV.
SOICHIRO: Yes, here’s my ID, for protocol. This is Matsuda, as you know. Detectives Aizawa, Ukita, Mogi...
L: A group of dead men.
SOICHIRO: Excuse me, what?
L: If I really was Kira, you’d all be dead now.
MATSUDA: How can we know that, boy?
L: Because you are not dead, detective.
MATSUDA: We call that kind of thing circular logic.
L: I call someone like you an idiot.
MATSUDA: I don’t need to listen to this from a civilian, you little shitty---
SOICHIRO (softly): Matsuda.
L: You name is Touta Matsuda. Graduated from Kumamoto University. Passion for sports cars and every Thursday, you go to the cinema. Big drama. Not in a relationship right now, but in pining hope for something complicated with Noriko Takai. Hm. A very concerning sympathy for both [???? I DONT KNOW THE WORD] as well as country music. Loves Korean cuisine, but....
SOMEONE: He’s got your number, Matsuda.
MATSUDA: So what? You all can easily figure out the same from social media.
L: Yeah, that’s what I can do. Everything. About you, and your sister, and your stupid aunt who doesn’t know how to properly set the privacy settings of her account. I know where you live, you tool--
SOICHIRO: I think we got it, L.
L: Really? Kira plays this game to win. I agreed to meet you, because you were all getting nervous about working with an anonymous specialist, so I am here. To get my hands as dirty as yours. But really, is this necessary...?
SOICHIRO: What do you want, L?
L: I want you to take this seriously.
SOMEONE: In the face of 12 dead agents, matters are serious enough, I think.
L: Correct, so you take care to not become number 13. All of you have to disappear. Get off social media, get new email accounts. If you address the public or the press, you will introduce yourself with these names. You are not going to tell anyone your real names. That’s exactly why I am still alive.
And this is how we get the fake IDs.
_____
Naomi at the NPA. The receptionist refuses to let her speak to anybody from the Task Force. Light steps in, to hand in the spare clothes for his dad. His dialogue with Naomi is similar to the manga, but audio drama Light’s insistence and volunteering of excessively much info he shouldn’t have.... it makes me laugh.
LIGHT: And you are looking for my father?
NAOMI: Uh, yeah, I--
LIGHT: I can tell you’re up to speed, miss. You’re definitely correct to not just tell your matter to the next best person. Especially after those FBI murders. We’re all suspects, am I right?
NAOMI: U-uh, I didn’t say that---
LIGHT: If you’d like, I’d gladly get you in contact with my father. I’ll get through to him, even if he usually rejects calls.
RYUK: Take the bait, missy, take it...
NAOMI: Would that be alright, u-uh, Light?
RYUK: Aaand, bullseye!
LIGHT: Why don’t we take this conversation somewhere else?
RYUK: There’s just too many video cams here.
LIGHT: As long as we don’t know how Kira kills his victims, I’d suggest a less public place.
_______
LIGHT: Okay, where were we? My name is Yagami. Light Yagami.
NAOMI: Shouko Maki.
RYUK: And my name is Ryuk, but you’re not actually able to see or hear me.
LIGHT: I think Kira is capable of more than simply killing people. It seems as if he could influence their actions before their deaths.
NAOMI: I think the same. And here I thought I was alone with it. Yes, he can control people before he kills them. But that’s not all. He can also kill them through other means than heart attacks.
RYUK: Who is this little snooper?
LIGHT: Should that be the case, we might be facing even more murders than thought. There are cases that haven’t been considered in connection to Kira yet.
NAOMI: Exactly. Those might be cases Kira hoped would stay secret. I am fairly sure that someone... someone I know... has met Kira.
LIGHT: Hah. It might be hard to get someone to believe this statement.
NAOMI: That’s why I came in person to explain the circumstances of the case.
LIGHT: Wouldn’t it be even more convincing if your friend told his own story?
NAOMI: He can’t. He was one of the murdered agents.
RYUK: Oh, now it’s getting interesting.
NAOMI: He was my fiancé. He told me that he got involved in this busjacking. By now, I assume that Kira was on that bus as well.
RYUK: She’s talking about Raye Penber, wow.
NAOMI: Something wrong?
LIGHT: Why are you assuming that Kira was on the bus?
NAOMI: Name and face of the culprit were on the media day by day. He was on the run after a totally miscalculated bank robbing. And then, 8 days later, shortly after Christmas... My fiancé dies. Together with his 11 colleagues.
LIGHT: The connection seems vague to me.
RYUK: What he wants to say is.... perfect match.
NAOMI: Something must have happened there. I think that my fiancé and the culprit were used by Kira to get to the other 11 agents.
LIGHT: The culprit was hit by a car, it wasn’t a heart attack. This is how you got to the conclusion that Kira can control actions?
NAOMI: Yes.
LIGHT: That seems pretty far fetched.
RYUK: It really isn’t, lady.
NAOMI: Even the first time I heard of the busjacking, the circumstances seemed strange to me. I kept asking my fiancé questions, I basically interrogated him to tell me the story again and again.
LIGHT: And... what was his story?
______
We flash back to Naomi and Raye talking. Both of their voices are tense.
RAYE: Yes, I showed my ID to one of the passengers, okay?! Are you happy now?
NAOMI: You shouldn’t have done that!
RAYE: I know that! It was complicated. The guy wouldn’t have cooperated without me proving that I’m a cop.
NAOMI: You were undercover, Raye!
RAYE: Stop that! You weren’t there.
NAOMI: You had explicit order to not blow your cover.
RAYE: And you are the only person who knows I have done that. If you don’t tell anybody, nobody will ever know.
NAOMI: But I am not the only one. Isn’t that right? We still don’t know how Kira finds and executes his victims. You can’t afford even a single misstep.
RAYE: You’d probably prefer he’d shot all the passengers then.
NAOMI: Ugh, Raye, that’s not the point---
RAYE (hitting the table): Of course that is exactly the point!!
______
LIGHT: This whole situation isn’t free of emotions.
NAOMI: So?
LIGHT: I just want to make sure your feelings aren’t influencing your analysis skills.
RYUK: Which are working quite excellently.
NAOMI: Hey, you. I was a special agent with several decorations before I gave up my career to marry Raye. I’m not just some random brat.
LIGHT: I agree with you, the suspicion warrants a closer inspection.
They keep talking, Light himself brings out the deduction that the person Raye identified himself to was Kira.
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We’re with Ukita on phone duty. Someone who thinks they are Kira is calling. Ukita is already pretty annoyed, even before the guy talks of other hallucinations. He hangs up quickly.
_______
SOICHIRO: is it important?
MATSUDA: No, boss. Ukita is just whining again. He doesn’t want to be on phone duty anymore. He texted: “When do I get a hotel suite with 24/7 room service?”
SOMEONE: Does he think we’re just chilling here?
SOMEONE: Probably. Uhm, do you want the final shrimp?
SOMEONE: Take it.
They then move on to talk about surveillance footage of the FBI agent deaths. They have footage from 3 deaths, one of them is Raye Penber. They have the most material on him. They realize he’s done more than a full round on the Yamanote line. They also notice him having an envelope that disappears. They conclude Kira was on the train, receiving it.
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Light makes his first attempt to kill Naomi, same cause of death as in the manga. Naomi wants to go back to the NPA building now. Light comes with her, as he notices she isn’t dying.
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Ukita on the phone again. Akiko Misora is calling about her daughter Naomi being misses. Ukita is pretty annoyed (”Oh really? Was she kidnapped by aliens or something?”). Akiko explains that Naomi came to Japan with her fiancé, but he died and shortly after Naomi also fell out of contact. Akiko complains about how much paperwork getting the ashes to the US was, and says how charming Raye was and how good his Japanese was...... Ukita wants to get rid of her, until Akiko tells him Raye’s name.
____
The Task Force discusses Naomi’s existence and disappearance. She left her hotel at Dec. 29th and has been missing since. They all suspect that Naomi, being an ex-agent, has started her own investigation. But they also worry someone found her.
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Light explains to Naomi that the Kira team doesn’t meet with people on principle, because of the risk. He calls them ‘us’ and Naomi picks up on it, leading Light to explain he is a member of the task force. (Ryuk: “And if you believed that one, you might as well buy a fake Rolex of him now.”) Light invites Naomi to the team, like in the manga. Naomi does a lot of nervous laughing in this scene, but she does give him her real ID.
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The task force think about Naomi, and her existence in connection to Raye being the first one to send an email to Virilio. They decide to place cameras and bugs in the houses of those who were investigated by Raye. It’s the families of Kitamura and Yagami.
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Light writes Naomi’s name down again, this time her real one. They walk together some more. Light points out that Naomi doesn’t just want to investigate but also to hear the full story about Raye’s death.
NAOMI: I already knew on the day of that something was wrong. Raye was acting really strangely. He got up and left, without a word. He even forgot his cellphone.
LIGHT: Oh, is that unusual?
NAOMI: I followed him downstairs. He was at the reception and made them print something for him. I gave his phone to him, but he said nothing at all. He was so.. empty.
LIGHT: Distracted?
NAOMI: ... empty. Not a smile, not a kiss. He took the phone and left. At the time I still thought ‘well, maybe an order’. Next thing you know, the police arrives at the hotel. Asked me to come with them... identify the body. I have no idea what happened in the final hours of his life.
LIGHT: I do. I know the details of Raye Penber’s death down to the very last second.
NAOMI: I haven’t even told you his full name yet...
LIGHT: He entered the station via the west entrance. Past the street musician who always plays there. He passed the ticket entrance at 11 past 3. He went down to the Yamanote line, in the direction of Kanda.
NAOMI: I don’t understand... That’s only too stations if you directly take the Chuo line. Why this giant detour?
LIGHT: Because someone was waiting for him. The Yamanote line is the perfect place for a meeting. It has stops everywhere and nowhere.
_____
We launch into a flashback to the Yamanote line. Light walks up to Raye and greets him, but Raye does not answer him. Light introduces himself at more depth, even using his full name and calling himself Kira right after. Raye continues to not answer. Ryuk realizes that Raye cannot answer because that is how Light has written it down. Light keeps chatting, explaining his plan to Raye. On the train, he makes Raye watch as he writes the names of all his colleagues. He also touches Raye with the notebook, to let him see Ryuk. Raye can’t do anything.
____
LIGHT: Well, Naomi, I’m afraid Raye was just sitting there. His eyes widened a little. Panicked, you know?
RYUK: Yes, panic just about cuts it. Just like the face you are making right now, darling.
LIGHT: But he couldn’t move. Just like you right now. I was quite precise with my orders, you see?
Light continues to explain that he needed the names of the other agents and that he can do anything to people whose names he has.
_____
The task force discusses the family surveillance further. Light says the chance of Kira being among those people is 5%, but this is their only lead. Soichiro tells L to be thorough with his surveillance, like in the manga.
_____
LIGHT: All Raye could do was sit there until the time was ripe. And then get up...
RYUK: Without a word, Naomi. Silent like a fish.
LIGHT: And he left the train at Kanda station.
RYUK: And then he died.
LIGHT: Right on the platform, so to say.
RYUK: He extended his hand like in a bad movie. As if he wanted to say ‘I am cursing you’ or something.
LIGHT: And thus, Raye Penber died. I find it regrettable.
RYUK: Because he wasn’t a murderer. Which you also aren’t, Naomi. Just wrong place, wrong time... Collateral damage.
LIGHT: But I think you understand, Naomi, that I can’t leave you alive, if I want to keep working. I know you want to move, to hit me. I know that you wish above all else to take the gun out of your pocket. But none of that will happen, because I already put your final moments into motion. And that means I’m the one who’s in power here.
Ryuk asks what she’ll do. Light explains that he wrote the same conditions as on the first try, about her suicide.
LIGHT: So Naomi, I think you know what to do. Now go.
RYUK: And there she went. A woman with a mission.
LIGHT: Hey, Naomi! Want me to call my dad? Still want to talk to him, tell him everything you learned today? Hm? .... and she just keeps walking.
RYUK: She didn’t even say goodbye. I hope it was worth it. This new direction you’ve taken, it’s going to change everything.
LIGHT: What new direction?
RYUK: Now you’re no longer simply a criminal. You’re a police killer.
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hiii
hello! these types of questions are great don’t worry! everyones different but yeah, let me tell you about my writing process :) (this is a long ass writing rant and hopefully it’s helpful)
so for headcanons tbh, i just write them. like. i sit down and write it all in one go and tbh not much thought goes into them there isnt really a plot it’s just notes practically so headcanons for me are not difficult at all. fics/oneshots are where things actually heat up.
so for my fics i do note form outlines. what this means is i have all the major things that have to happen already lined out. i put it on a word doc on half my screen and the fic on the other and there’s no plan on how to get to each note point but i know i have to get there somehow, but having basic goals makes it easier for me.
when it comes to fics there’s usually a brainstorming process. i have two wonderful amazing loves of my absolute life @hereforlukescruff and @glitterprincelu and usually it will start with me saying an idea and we all just kind of start shooting ideas and bouncing off of each other. this process can take hours. like. i remember when i came up with gang luke (penumbra) i was in class and we ended up chatting about it for 3 hours and coming up with shit. when the main brainstorm is done i plot it all out. i have a few ocd tendencies, one of which is linear stuff means a lot to me. like i can’t start a fic at the end. i need to start at the start. so i’ll plan as much as i can but sometimes i stop at the middle and i re-evaluate once i get there and have a better sense as to where the story is going.
for me, characters are huge. like. i have the plot points but characters drive everything else. so i’ll often have a sit down and reevaluate what has happened to them and how they’re feeling and see if it’s all making sense for them, but, because i brainstorm a lot, usually i don’t end up changing much. strong characters are key my dudes.
my biggest motivator to get to the end of the story is well, the characters. i love them so much and writing for them feels so comforting to me. LOVE YOUR CHARACTERS. but also. something ya’ll gotta understand about me is that i’ve been writing fan fiction for 8 years. i’ve probably spent an average of 2 hours a day (and that’s seriously low balling it) so thats 2x365=730x8=5840 hours that i’ve written and that’s probably too low to be accurate. so i’m a writer. i type fast as fuck and i’ve been doing this a while so writing comes very easy to me, ideas are constantly flowing. this is legit what im pursuing as a job so don’t be discouraged if you can’t write 10k in a day like I do because... well, i’ve had a fuck ton of practice. writing 10k in a day is pretty common for me i’d say, once i sit down with a oneshot i don’t want to leave until it’s done.
but. i also again, have a bit of an ocd thing and when it’s paired with anxiety, it makes it hard for me to stop. i need to get things done. to check stuff off my list. or i get bored. if i leave a fic for even a day or two, it’s likely i’m not gonna finish it. so for me, and i know this, its important to wait until i have a sufficient amount of time to bust something out and a plan makes it so easy because i don’t have to stop and ask myself “okay now what”
what more can i say about writing.... uh... characters. so important. dialogue. key.
like i’ll start a fic with a general idea about an OC but as the fic continues they grow and i really enjoy watching them grow. i think a good rule of thumb if you’re having troubles with this is immerse the story view point in the most solid character you have (i’ll give an example of this in a moment) and use their perspective and musings on a different character, like what they notice, to promote growth.
example of what i mean when i say this. i recently wrote prince cal and from the start, he was my strong character. Ostara was new, she’s ashton’s sister, she’s back for the first time in a while. the very first paragraph establishes that calum is taken aback by how much she’s changed. there’s still some similarities to how she was growing up and i weave that comfort of the known throughout the story (with things like chicken fights in the pool or musing about how they used to play hide and seek as kids) but from the start, Calum is knocked off his feet by how beautiful she’s gotten and that’s a very obvious symbol of change, not just outside but in. so as the fic continues calum notices things about ostara. for example. the second time i wrote she was wearing a print of some sort, calum and i both mutually realized, ‘huh. she likes prints i guess.’ because ostara is ostara, i dont control her, in my brain she’s her own person, she’s dictating whats happening and baby just likes prints. and calum notices which says something about him, but its also little details like that that bring these characters to life.
i mean. i don’t know how other people write characters. my characters are always alive to me. they have their own voice and knowing their reaction to things is second nature to me. but this can be attributed to the fact that i legit wrote fan fiction about actual characters (MCU, TVD, Teen Wolf, etc...) for 6 years and being able to step into those characters and do dialogue that seemed legit was the most important thing for me. so i have a FUCK TON of experience on characters. so once again, if its hard for you to step into your characters thats okay. maybe do those things where you have a fill in the blank sheet on whats their fav food, their fav colour, do they like summer or winter? etc....
i think there isnt one way to write. i think i’m blessed that i’ve ALWAYS been a writer. since i was like 4. you know in elementary when they made you write and they’d give you those little booklets and shit? other kids had like one or two at most but this whore was always on book number 6 or 7 like, im a writer. it’s what i am. it always has been what i am.
im also a multitasker. so most of my writing is done while watching shows. which means its a double whammy for me. like. im learning about characters and plot WHILE writing so... as you can see, i’m hard core as fuck about this shit.
my point is. my process is a process that i think is pretty particular to me. most people i know cant watch tv and write at the same time. most people don’t sit down and bust out 10k in one sitting. and thats fine. if you enjoy writing then do it. focus on what you can be doing better, this isnt a competition. at the end of the day, the only person you should be trying to be better than is the person you were yesterday, or last week, you know?
find people who are creatively inclined because holy shit it makes a huge difference. bouncing ideas off of supportive people is really important. without my friends, Birdie in Penumbra might be named Cherry, the Gang AU wouldn’t have an ending all planned out and ready to be written, and i would have missed out on so many hours of face time calls and back and fourth messages with two of the most important people in my life right now.
so lets break down what the fuck i’m even saying
-find supportive people (but it’s important you support them as well. if they’re gonna let you throw ideas at them and help you out and pump you up, reciprocate hoe)
-focus on yourself
-find what you’re good at. plots? characters? dialogue?
-find ways to strengthen the things you’re not so good at (character fill in sheets, plot planning, etc...)
-find what, at the end of the day, really works for you
-don’t put pressure on yourself. writing is for fun. it should be fun. and if it is fun, i think motivation will come easy? but i could be wrong, once again, i have an addictive personality and writing is a fix i need every day or i go insane.
yeah. if ya’ll have any more writing questions let me know. i love answering these because i think it’s so interesting to really look at the process :)
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HSE 4/20/19 5
On to Rose and Dirk. Phew: Where To Start?
MEAT 7:
ok: I really like how it is basically impossible to tell from this convo whether Rose and Dirk care for or despise one another, and how it’s writing and (apparent)outcome basically declares that question irrelevant(and vaguely insulting in its suggesting that it would be anything other than irrelevant). Which... I feel like will end up being Highly Ironic given Dirk’s(apparent) anti-troll alignment and how expertly that sentiment slots into Blackrom territory(auspisticism in particular, given the “supportive” nature of the convo).
Other than that:
Dirk is absolutely wrong and totally going to fuck things up horribly
Dirk needs to spend less time being smug about his Heart Aspect and more time being Concerned about his Prince Class. He’s a Wrecker, not a Machinist. Hell, “Wrecking Ball” is probably more accurate as he can’t really help himself, or easily understand what he’s doing is destructive except in hindsight.
Rose needs to recognize that Seeing everything isn’t the same as Knowing, let alone Understanding, any of it, and that her personal traits and context can interfere with successfully Comprehending what she Sees, or acting on it appropriately. As in: over-valuing family, desperate for relief from pain, and no stranger to self-doubt she is --without questioning anything(and being a Seer is all about asking the right questions)-- 1)trusting that Dirk knows more than she, a Seer, does, 2)isn’t misunderstanding it 3) is going through something like what she is, 4)is handling it better than her, and 5)can fix or relieve what she’s going through and that 6)he lacks any motivations or ambitions which might confuse his understanding or give him reason to want to muck with Rose’s abilities&godhood, something which could have really terribly bad consequences.
MEAT 8:
The callback to John’s tendency to gawp vacantly at confusing things is Appreciated uwu
I didn’t realize Cherubs could laugh and talk at the same time; that’s pretty cool owo I wonder if they could, like, talk with two voices at once? Or add an Ominous Echoing Undertone to their pronouncements.
The Caliborn dialogue felt a bit off, though. My first thought is that the vocab might be too highfaluten, but it’s been awhile since I read any caliborn so I’d need to go back and check
MEAT 9:
I like this description of events, it is both Evocative and Economical, and that’s all I have to say on the matter u_u
MEAT 10:
Night President is NOT a foolish idea, it’s the BEST idea, and shame on all of you for not thinking of it before |:(
I mean: thinking purely of the logistical benefits: No working nights for humans, no working days for Trolls; a truly 24 hour civ, staffed fresh-face and well-rested whenever you need to do anything; the ppl setting and managing nocturnal or diurnal policy are the one’s who understand the unique requirements and impacts of those lifestyles; effectively doubles the size of the economy in a stroke(though recognizing that, in a post-scarcity world, the economy is kind of inherently not a serious thing ppl need to worry about); and that’s just re: trolls and humans!
Ok, so I Wrote a Whole Big Thing ages about about Jake, touching on his intellectual abilities, and arguing that, like John, while he may want to appear to be dim he’s anything but. As such, I not only disagree with Jane’s assessment here but kinda find it a bit infuriating? Of course it’s supposed to be because she’s supposed to be wrong because she’s the bad guy.
I can’t say I like Jane being written as a badguy cuz I dont. I can see how she could go that way and thus don’t think it’s entirely out of character, but there was more to her than ambition and I can’t see her abandoning her morality to such an extent as this instrumentalist, “I’ll sleep with Jake to control him”, approach implies. Also I dont really see, at this point, how that tracks with her decision to “not be too nice” to Jake cuz he’s a bit masochistic? There’s a contradiction in her chosen approach and how this convo plays out that it leaves unresolved. Also this vers seems to totally ignore her genderqueerness/comfort with masculinity, aside from the misogynistic way she attributes traits and desires she dislikes to her femininity.
So is this a satisfying example of Jane being written as a villain, imv? I can’t say yet.
Ok; gonna wrap it up for now.
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thoughts on sylvanas’ short, they’re long, ignore me im ranting and really wish blizzard would give half as much of a fuck as I did about their stupid fucking game and had any more than 0.1% understanding of their characters
im pretty sure that whoever is/are in charge of writing world building premises for world of warcraft are not the same people writing the actual character motivations and dialogue for the characters enacting stuff. i get it. the dude who writes “sylvanas burns teldrassil” is not the same guy as the person who wrote for sylvanas’ warbringer short, and that might also be a team of writers who share motivations, dialogue, and storyboard
but minor irritations aside (sylvanas dies in a mission called “the fall of silvermoon” but its the sunwell map, where kelthuzad is resurrected, and the mission BEFORE that is the mission that attacks ghostlands/eversong altho presumably not silvermoon, and at the time the sunwell wasn’t on quel’danas yet so i GUESS the geography changed, which is fine since its been almost 2 decades since wc3, but the short should’ve more accurately reflected sylvanas’ place of death since she died at the very end of the elves’ bitter campaign and no where near the beginning, which the short implies since she dies outside of the city with the golden fields and a civilian outside, and i know im a die-hard syvlanas stan and lore purist but imo what this short reflects a severe mis- and under-representation of sylvanas’ death, especially since she becomes a named banshee unit that participates in killing the last of her people and what remains of her kingdom)
this was bad writing. which ever fucker said “sylvanas burns teldrassil” that couldve been written in many ways, without making the alliance responsible (even tho they lowkey are and should be), that doesn’t portray... this. whoever wrote this dialogue+motivations wasn’t just someone who knows nothing about WC3, it was someone who hasn’t paid attention to ANY of sylvanas’ dialogue over the years; not her click speech, her quest dialogue, her part during the Northrend campaign such as the Horde halls of reflection or the battle for the undercity. its hard to swallow ‘sylvanas is evil/misunderstood/warmongering’ but its not like theyre trying to make it easy to swallow or a worthwhile, interesting story put already in canon
sylvanas wants to kill the concept of hope? sylvanas EMBODIES the concept of bitter, bitter hope. she literally freed herself from arthas and continued to bide her time to hunt him, even during the halls of reflection she maintained determination, patience, and desire of vengeance. this desire for vengeance EMBODIES hope lmao. it was the only thing driving the forsaken - it wasn’t a ‘positve’ hope that we typically associate with the word, but the desire for vengeance in not only arthas’ demise, but through rebuilding a society (both pre and post cata these were the forsaken’s motivations) embodies a level of ‘hope’ that isn’t really seen anywhere else except in MAYBE thrall, pre-cata jaina and pre-legion anduin (honestly, even post legion anduin; i dont play alliance and can only judge from his dialogue at varian’s funeral)
the idea that sylvanas wants to kill all the living is not only antithetical to her modus operandi for the last 16 years; its an incredible misunderstanding of her character on a fundamental level. even if that wants/needs to change we can argue and argue and argue for a potential lore reason/character development behind that (which would probably boil down to “old gods” but w/e) and we argue post-wotlk sylvanas changes significantly from pre-arthas’ fall BECAUSE of arthas fall through char development and lore we never saw becuase blizzard hates women and they want to put that out NOW, FINE
but “wants to kill hope”? ... oke
look one misunderstanding? from blizzard? onto their female characters? dissapointing but not surprising. but wow fans have for a very long time been actively ignoring canon or twisting lore to have it make some sort of sense, because a lot of people very deeply care about this game and its story and its characters, and a lot of lore/timelines/character motivations have been twisted over the years and have been dissapointing but can arguably make sense within what semblance of lore we have (im not a fan of new jaina, but theres definitely enough lore+character building to have it become plausible for her to be who she is now, even if i dislike it, that fundamental change in her values didnt come out of nowhere even if it was horrifically orchestrated because blizzard wanted to see her suffer and portray her like this lmao) but sylvanas’ character is being utterly decimated on a level that even jaina hasnt experienced, and to be frank im fucking furious and genuinely hurt
say what you want abt chris metzen but of all his dumb shit he wouldn’t have pulled this. at least he KNEW sylvanas, even if that meant he never used her or wrote for her a ton.
in the quest dialogue, sylvanas says that the campaign starts as a preemptive defensive strike against the alliance re:azerite in silithus, and while i disagree/think thats kind of questionable we know that garrosh’s unwillingness towards preemtive strikes led to death of a lot of innocent tauren in the barrens, and led to the bombing of theramore as a reactionary result, and sylvanas has canonically been known to be bitter, practical to a fault, and morally “grey” so saying “burn this tree down lmao, we’re gonna have to do it anyway, at least now we prevent innocents dying first and we get the lumber in ashenvale, hope the warsong are happy” is... alright. acceptable to a degree within the confines of the narrative they’ve forced upon me, even if the narrative itself is shit. but this? kill all the living? kill “hope”? this fundamental misunderstanding of her character. her lack of remorse at the ranger, these were moments that could’ve significantly foreshadowed a redemption arc but ten bucks on a fucking reworked siege of orgrimmar =)
anyway fuck blizzard
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gotta vent about my day real quick
highlights of the day
> be professional ghostwriter.
Agreed to edit a 25000 word segment of a finished manuscript for a much loved regular client, who said the MC’s dialogue needed to be punched up. Easy enough. I figured it would take a few hours.
Was briefly excited to discover the manuscript was for a concept I had outlined and written several chapters for a few months ago.
Excitement rapidly dwindles as I realize that beloved client has hired another ghostwriter to write the majority of the book. Which would be fine, except this other ghostwriter has no fucking idea what they are doing.
Formatting is a god damn disaster and I spend several hours just getting the document into a workable condition.
You ever open a word doc, look at the navigation pane, and just see a wall of blank links, because someone applied the header formatting somewhere and then just hit enter a million times instead of using a page break like a civilized god damn human being?
in the middle of this forest of blank headers, actual chapter titles are scattered at random, and also they only applied the header to roughly one out of every five chapters or so, you know, just, when they felt like it. when the spirit took them. when the stars aligned. when the feng shui was right.
Also, apparently they like the way first line indenting looks but don’t know how to make word do that (spoiler: its easy as shit and takes like two clicks) so every once in a while they start manually hitting tab before every line, until they get distracted and stop for a while, luring you into a false sense of security before they remember and start doing it again.
Sometimes, when a scene transitions but they dont want to just end the chapter for some reason, they break it up with spaces. Other times, they like to use asterisks. Once or twice, just for flavor, they throw in one of those page width lines that word makes when you type a line of hyphens.
There is random highlighting in places, for no discernible reason.
Once I have the document formatted in a way I can bear to work with, I start actually reading through it. About the first seven chapters were written by the client. They’re cheesy but solid.
Then I get to chapter eight, and the suspicions i had begun to form while putting the formatting through traction (namely that whoever did this was a fuckwit) quickly crystallized into a shining certainty that my beloved client had mistakenly hired An Ass Clown.
Not just An Ass Clown, but An Ass Clown who thought 50 Shades was a beautiful love story, actually.
And they gave This Ass Clown, this literary reprobate, this paste eating remedial english mother fucker, my outline.
let me clarify that i did not expect to have sole control of this story when i produced the outline for beloved client, and I was okay with that. That’s how it works. If I’d been dead set on writing this myself, i wouldn’t have sold the outilne to beloved client. but it really rubs salt in the wound to have spent hours of my life crafting the bones of this story, which i really liked and was excited to see take shape
and then find out it has been put into the pie fondling hands
of An Ass Clown.
first hint that something has gone drastically wrong: the arrival of completely unnecessary and ridiculous fantasy names for things.
“oh we dont drink coffee in this book. it’s kofee. at least until three chapters from now when i forget and it becomes kofe. Oh, and watch out for those thornaby bushes! I’m going to misspell that one literally every time I use it! It’s entirely possible that this isn’t a fantasy name at all and I just have a small seizure whenever I try to type the word thorn bush!”
second omen of my impending anuerism: phonetically written accents which are so comically stereotypical and inaccurate that native speakers of that accent should be entitled to financial compensation, except they can’t even stick to the stereotype accurately, producing gems such as “It’s not safe in that there pen with ‘em swine, young miss.” I don’t even know what accent that’s supposed to represent. To top it off these accent abominations are sprinkled in with all the consistency and reliability of a lactose intolerant cheese enthusiast’s bowel movements.
But this, I tell myself, moving on, is not my problem. I just need to punch up the mcs dialogue. It’ll be fine. I can do this. I just need to take this shit:
“A fond idea, but I doubt I have that ability.” I joked. “I can’t imagine living without true sunshine. Even the triplet moons must shine less brightly without their sister sun.”
and make it… not like that.
Except, and here’s where I start hitting the real roadblock guys
this book is in first person.
essentially, the entire novel is the MC talking.
So sure I can change the spoken lines, but her internal monologue
which is, i remind you, the entire narrative
her internal monologue is going to keep being maggie gyllenhal’s character from The Secretary if her copy of the script had been swapped with just a binder full of sonnets written by a middle school english class during the Shakespeare unit.
I get to chapter ten around three in the afternoon. I have been working steadily, with an unusual degree of focus thanks to my recent adderal prescription, since ten in the morning.
this is where shit begins to go truly bananas.
this is a YA beauty and the beast type fantasy
that good fun indulgent shit that’s almost as enjoyable to write as it is to read
usually. previously. before i had to endure this traumatic twelve hour experience.
Chapter ten is the first big “dinner” scene. this book isn’t being shy about pulling from the source material, but that’s fine. the beast “apologizes” (heavy quotes there) for having earlier used magic to force the heroine to answer his questions truthfully. They talk and almost seem to making progress for a bit, and then have a fight and storm off. Standard stuff.
Except, uh, the beast’s apology is, essentially
“Yeah I shouldn’t have done that.”
“so you’re apologizing?”
“no but it’s the best you’re going to get so deal with it.”
and the headstrong, independent heroine who wears pants and wrestles pigs and dont need no man
just kinda rolls with this. There’s giggling.
They have their big dramatic fight, exit stage left, much angst and todo.
The next morning heroine wakes up to find the beast has (presumably) snuck into her room while she was sleeping and dumped a bunch of new dresses on her. he has also (apparently) replaced her brain with Bella Swan’s more vapid cousin.
She forgives him instantly. Because pretty dresses. She also starts calling him master, because why not. She has, over night, become the darling submissive Tumblr doms dream of.
This is not a bdsm book. I am eighty percent certain it doesn’t even include soft core smut. I’m telling you this so that you understand this transformation was not a contrivance in order to facilitate kinky sex. I have written a contrived set up to a sex scene or two in my day. This is not that. This is Not what is in the outline. I know, because i wrote the outline. It is My Outline.
No, The Ass Clown just… decided to do this. Apropos of nothing. I’m beginning to think the Ass Clown’s decision making process involves whipping pies at a comically large dartboard. And all the options on the dartboard are just “lol whatever”
By the time I get to chapter eleven, wherein our newly lobotomized heroine is
“excited to wear a new frock and please the master!” - direct quote
I have given up any pretense of editing dialogue and I am just straight up rewriting shit using the previous garbage as a loose outline.
I have eaten, maybe, three bites of a bowl of oatmeal all day. I have not taken a bathroom break since before noon. I have missed my deadline. Beloved client is concerned. I’m sure I can still do this, I just need a few more hours.
the words sound like truth but my soul knows i am a liar
I frantically restructure scene after scene, deceiving myself each time that it will be the last, and I will be able to get this crazy train back on the rails. But this crazy train has no interest in being on the rails. It’s a direct line no stops right off the edge of the cliffs of insanity.
The beast jumps unpredictably from homicidal rage and threats of violence to jokes and flirting as though he did not just declare her his property and threaten to rip her tongue out a few paragraphs ago. Heroine swoons and sighs and giggles regardless of whether she is dealing with Dr.Jekyll or Christian Gray on PCP.
But I’m still sure I can do this. I’ll just adjust these two full chapters to make her appropriately scared and angry, and then replace this weird conversation here with a heartfelt apology from him and an effort to do better. That will totally work. Unless, you know, it turns out that conversation I want to replace only starts out with them joking and laughing together, and turns into him berating and abusing her mid paragraph of a fuckin montage a page later! But, haha! Why would The Ass Clown ever do that? It would be completely irrational, tonally jarring and out of character! Only a seltzer slinging rainbow suspender-ed peanut butter fumbling son of six fucks would do that.
so of course The Ass Clown did that.
It’s eleven at night. I know when I’m beaten.
I inform beloved client that the Ass Clown has bested me and I can do no more.
She is very understanding.
I send her what I managed and I check the added word count while im at it
i added a full 6,000 words to that manuscript just trying to patch up this sloppy motherfucker’s lopsided prose and gossamer thin understanding of narrative structure
son of a bitch had about as firm a grasp of romance as i currently have on the trembling shreds of my sanity.
their grip on character writing could not be more tenuous if they had first dipped the target brand Hulk Hands which I assume they always have on their person into a barrel of adult-film-grade silicon lubricant and then taken their Leapfrog 2-in-1 Leaptop Touch down a waterslide.
Do you know how much I usually make for 6000 words?
$180.
Do you know how much I made for enduring this ass blasting, which I naively believed I could tackle in a matter of hours?
$100.
You owe me $80 Ass Clown. And I aim to collect.
Also I lost my damn mind for a minute and said the words "i dont know shit about fuck my guy” to my actual father on facebook
so there’s that.
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Creator Tag Game 2017
Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 favorite works you’ve created this year (fics, art, edits, etc!) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world in 2017. Tag as many writers/artists/etc as you want (fan or original!) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works. <3
Tagged by: @sufferthesea Thank you for tagging me and thinking of me :) you too sweet all the time.
Top 5 of my favorite works I created this year:
Oh gosh this is really hard. Not because I think I write a bunch of great stuff. Its more like... I have written so many scenarios this year. Plus when I write every scenario, I tend to think its great and makes so much sense and I think it has a good twist. Then few days later I’m like you know... I dont think my work is that great. I’ve could of done this or it wasn't remarkable enough.
But nevermind that! I’m not going to be self critical and try to pick my top five. Also I realized I did not draw as much this year as I did last year and idk how I feel about that. This new year though hopefully that will change :)
1. Sharing Emotions
Uh... this year I had started my sequel to my Stirring Emotions story and I was so excited to start writing more for Sai and my oc. I know I have mentioned this story multiple times on my blog already so... I’mma just leave the links and you can check it out if you want. I’m just proud that I am still going strong with this story even though it is taking me a little longer to write than my first story.
2. What I See
I kind of dabbled my hand in writing a Loki scenario from Thor. I’m proud of myself for branching out of Naruto a bit and trying to write something new for a different realm. Don’t know if I will continue to do so but who knows what the future holds. Feel free to check it out.
3. Sai x Saryie Doodle
I think this is one of the very few drawings I did this year and I am very fond of it. Mostly because it accurately reflects the characters and I think it looks like them. I only wish it was colored. But hopefully with my new tablet I can make that happen or create more art for my oc and Sai.
4. Itachi finding out his lover is pregnant
This scenario is one I am very fond of and proud of. There’s hardly any dialogue but that’s what I like to write half the time. I like diving deep into character’s monologues and try to imagine what must have gone through their minds. I think this scenario depicts exactly what I wanted it to. That a news of a baby that’s supposed to bring joy brings instead heartbreak for Itachi. I’m cruel. I know.
5. Reader’s Tsukuyomi dream with Obito
I like the imagery that I wrote within this scenario. Imagining being trapped in a world with an old lover but that old lover is gone and you secretly know it. Your mind is fighting to break free but your heart is yearning to stay out of reality. Idk, I like heartbreak like that.
Tagging time:
@little-naruto-things @onyxjdshadow @docmcarter @kishimoto-nagi @malazuzu22 @herukas @ninjaheroes @annalovesfiction
#sorry if i did not tag you#tag game#2017#2017 accomplishments#my works#tag you're it#if i was real ballsy i would have tag markiplier#or jacksepticeye#mostly to be funny
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(Same anon asking about writing from earlier) So like adding in small details and little things they do is a thing to do? Or like add dialogue as long as it follows the story line? I'm sorry if this is annoying I'm just trying to find ways to improve my writing skills!! Oh and tysm for answering my last question I really appreciate it!!!
its not annoying at all!!! I understand completely. Believe it or not I did start writing when I was 11 and I used to think that 1k was a long fic haha so I mean, I get entirely where you’re coming from.
As for your question, it completely depends on the feeling you’re trying to go for, and the situation. Sometimes having more dialogue is better than not. So for example, you could write an overview of what happened and their conversation by saying “They talked about everything, from this to that,” or you could write, “They talked about everything, and it was the best night of Dan’s life,” and then continue after that one sentence to write out some of the conversations they had. It depends on what feels the most accurate for you. When I wrote heaven scent, it made most sense for me to write heavy paragraphs implying the things tehy did or talked about, instead of writing it in dialogue form, and in that way I was able to write longer chapters, but in other fics I’ve done it’s felt more right to write more dialogue between them and explore their relationship/character development through interactions they had.
Its kind of a learning process, of what is going to work best for that situation. A really good example is the often skipped over period of Dan and Phil becoming new friends where they learn about each other. I’ve seen people do it via dialouge, but it turns into “Whats your favorite color?” “blue,” “Oh, mines green.” and then its all jsut dialogue for two pages. I’ve also seen it doen like this, “Dan and Phil talked about everything, including their favorite colors, ffavorite movies, and favorite tv shows. Tehy had so much in common and both loved muse.” Both of thse are... good approaches that just weren’t done in an effective way. So, what I suggest is that if you WANT to do a dialogue heavy conversation, think about how you normally talk to new friends. You usally dont ask questions like what your favorite color is and continue on down the list of favorites, you usally mention something like loving this one TV show and they say OMG ME TOO and then you start debating and talking about that TV show which leads into discussions about other tv shows or movies or books etc... you feel me? And in that way you can expand and not rush a dialogue heavy scene.
In the same way, you can do that wihout dialogue, by writing a few paragraphs of what they talked about and what led to what. “The first time Phil brought up anime, Dan thought he would throw up. His smile brightened until he was interrupting Phil to ask him what his favorite anime was. Dan had been surprised to find it was Free, of all animes, and they ended up debating what the ultimate ship for Free was. Of cousre, that led to Dan wanting to talk about inserrt anime heere etc etc...”
Does that make sense?
I’m considering taking an old, edited chapter of Steal My Heart and showing you the before and after, and how my co-author and I worked to re-write and expand/make the chapter better. Sometimes visual representation helps more. That would also be a huge post though lmao, so let me know if you guys think that would be helpful for you!
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A list of rejections of famous authors was circulating on Tumblr awhile back and, because Is It Fake was in exams at the time, Is It Fake got really into debunking them. It has now been more than a year and Is It Fake is just gonna put it up and let this roll.
See, they’re all or almost all from Rotten Rejections, a book written with a marvelous disregard for facts, and they’ve therefore been in circulation for more than twenty-five years. Some of them are entirely true; some of them are totally fake; a lot of them appear only in Rotten Rejections but can’t otherwise be disproven. Many of the stories behind them are fantastic.
As a general note, although this was only really useful for Plath, if you enjoy this we recommend “Publication is Not Recommended: From the Knopf Archives,” which is available on Project MUSE if you’ve got access and is just… it’s wonderful. Blanche Knopf was a riot.
Okay, let’s get going!
TRUE
Sylvia Plath: There certainly isn’t enough genuine talent for us to take notice.
Not only true, but actually much worse than depicted here. Internal rejection only. The editor, having been told that this is contest-winner Sylvia Plath’s book, rereads, and is marginally nicer and 500% more patronizing: "maybe now that this book is out of her system she will use her talent more effectively next time.” Accurate text available here: http://cloudyskiesandcatharsis.tumblr.com/post/57272275430/sylvia-plath-originally-submitted-her-novel-the
Emily Dickinson: [Your poems] are quite as remarkable for defects as for beauties and are generally devoid of true poetical qualities.
True! Thomas Niles to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, June 10, 1890— the brackets are wrong, because he was addressing another possible publisher, to say that he thought it would be “unwise to perpetuate” the poems, oh my STARS.
Ernest Hemingway (on The Torrents of Spring): It would be extremely rotten taste, to say nothing of being horribly cruel, should we want to publish it.
True, and directly to Hemingway himself. To F Scott Fitzgerald he managed to get up an “I am less violently opposed to Torrents of Spring than anyone else who has read it” but to Hemingway himself, nope, full no.
William Faulkner: If the book had a plot and structure, we might suggest shortening and revisions, but it is so diffuse that I don’t think this would be of any use. My chief objection is that you don’t have any story to tell. And two years later: Good God, I can’t publish this!
True. Both are true. They are so true.
The first refers to Sartoris/Flags in the Dust, and the story is really funny and sad. Faulkner sent it to Horace Liveright (his publisher) with enormous confidence: he called it the “damdest best book you’ll look at this year” and tried to ensure at this early stage that the printer not screw up his punctuation (“he’s been punctuating my stuff to death; giving me gratis quotation marks and premiums of commas I dont need.”) He also insisted that the title was perfect and that he had designed his own dust jacket which he would send by separate cover. Anyway, bye, he was going on a hunting trip, he looked forward to Liveright’s glowing acceptance!
Liveright did not exactly… do that. Besides the quote above he also noted how much he hated Mosquitoes, Faulkner’s last book, and how disappointed he was w/this one and how much he really wanted Faulkner not to submit it anywhere else, in case he got blacklisted, because the book was so, so bad.
WHOOPS
(Thanks to "Flags in the Dust and the Birth of a Poetics” by Arthur F. Kinney for those quotes.)
The second is about Sanctuary, a book Faulkner hated and described as a “cheap idea…deliberately executed to make money.” The full rejection, according to Faulkner in his introduction to the book, was “Good God, I can’t publish this. We’d both be in jail.”
Edgar Allan Poe: Readers in this country have a decided and strong preference for works in which a single and connected story occupies the entire volume.
Not quite the exact quote, because “(especially fiction)” should appear after “works” and “entire” should be “whole”— but true. Harper & Brothers rejected Tales from the Folio Club in 1836 with this phrasing, the second of their three reasons for turning the stories down. The first was that a lot of them had been printed already, and the third was that the papers were too “learned and mystical,” like spooky bonbons.
http://www.eapoe.org/papers/psbbooks/pb19781c.htm
Poe responded to this by writing The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, which he privately referred to as a “very silly book”, and which is a classic of American literature.
MIXED TRUE/FALSE
Jack London: [Your book is] forbidding and depressing.
Sort of true. This rejection is from the Atlantic on the 3rd of May, 1900, it’s about “The Law of Life”, and it was a lot nicer than this, because according to Ellery Sedgwick’s "A History of the Atlantic Monthly, 1857-1909: Yankee Humanism at High Tide”, this was a period in which the Atlantic was being very ruthless and cynical about what would run, because depressing things didn’t sell commercially.
The full quote is, “We have heartily liked the vigor of it and the breadth of treatment with which you have written it. But the subject is forbidding—in fact seems to us depressing, and so the excellent craftsmanship of it has not changed our mind."
Stephen King (on Carrie): We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.
True, but not about Carrie. It’s from Donald A. Wollheim at Ace Books and it’s about the Richard Bachman book The Running Man, which King had written after Carrie got rejected basically everywhere in the world. “The book, unfortunately, was not fantastic,” he later commented, which might’ve been because he wrote it over a weekend in a “low rage and simmering despair.” Thanks to the Stephen King Companion for this one.
UNATTESTED (AND, ONE SUSPECTS, NOT REAL)
Rudyard Kipling: I’m sorry Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.
Unattested. ID’d as the publisher of the San Francisco Examiner or Call writing in 1889, or is it 1899? Yeah, probs not, and Is It Fake couldn’t find it.
That said, the Call fucking hated Kipling. For example, the San Francisco Call did write about Kipling in 1899; it castigated him for his poem “the White Man’s Burden,” saying, “the white man’s burden is to set and keep his own house in order. It is not required of him to upset the brown man’s house under pretesce of reform and then whip him into subjection whenever he revolts at the treatment.” (Among other sources, can be found here.)
Another review of “The Lesson” from 1901 opens "KIPLING'S latest poem, 'The Lesson,’ must be very gratifying to Mr. Alfred Austin, for, if it does not confirm Austin's right to the office of Poet Laureate, it at least shows that Kipling has no better right.”
Dr. Seuss: Too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling.
Unattested. But he was indeed rejected 27 times for his first book.
The Diary of Anne Frank: The girl doesn’t, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the ‘curiosity’ level.
Unattested. The diary was rejected by 15 publishers before publication, but Is It Fake can’t find any of them who specifically said this. Here’s one from Knopf:
In the summer of 1950, Alfred A. Knopf Inc. turned down the English-language rights to a Dutch manuscript after receiving a particularly harsh reader’s report. The work was “very dull,” the reader insisted, “a dreary record of typical family bickering, petty annoyances and adolescent emotions.” Sales would be small because the main characters were neither familiar to Americans nor especially appealing. “Even if the work had come to light five years ago, when the subject was timely,” the reader wrote, “I don’t see that there would have been a chance for it.”
Joseph Heller (on Catch–22): I haven’t really the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say… Apparently the author intends it to be funny – possibly even satire – but it is really not funny on any intellectual level … From your long publishing experience you will know that it is less disastrous to turn down a work of genius than to turn down talented mediocrities.
Unattested. Catch-22 (or as it was called at the time, Catch-18) was rejected over and over again, but this exact language is just vapor.
On the other hand, we have some of the language of acceptance, thanks to Vanity Fair:
“I … love this crazy book and very much want to do it,” Gottlieb said. Candida Donadio was delighted by his enthusiasm. Finally, someone got it! “I thought my navel would unscrew and my ass would fall off,” she often said to describe her happiness when negotiations went well with an editor.
And this incredible rejection from Evelyn Waugh:
Dear Miss Bourne:
Thank you for sending me Catch-22. I am sorry that the book fascinates you so much. It has many passages quite unsuitable to a lady’s reading
You are mistaken in calling it a novel. It is a collection of sketches—often repetitious—totally without structure.
Much of the dialogue is funny. You may quote me as saying: “This exposure of corruption, cowardice and incivility of American officers will outrage all friends of your country (such as myself) and greatly comfort your enemies.”
George Orwell (on Animal Farm): It is impossible to sell animal stories in the USA.
Unattested. It was rejected for a lot of reasons, but most of the ones I can find histories of were basically for it being anti-USSR at a time when the Russians were war allies. One publisher was basically ordered not to run it so as not to hurt the war effort, by somebody who later turned out to be a Soviet spy, like a lot of people in wartime Britain.
If you want to read T. S. Eliot rejecting Animal Farm for being too pro-Communist (not a joke) (jazz hands), you can find that here.
Vladimir Nabokov (on Lolita): … overwhelmingly nauseating, even to an enlightened Freudian … the whole thing is an unsure cross between hideous reality and improbable fantasy. It often becomes a wild neurotic daydream … I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years.
Unattested. Could be real and internal, but it was never given to Nabokov, because Nabokov gave us a recounting of his rejections, and this wasn’t in them.
Is It Fake’s fave bit: "Some of the reactions were very amusing: one reader suggested that the firm might consider publication if I turned my Lolita into a twelve-year-old lad and had him seduced by Humbert, a farmer, in a barn, amidst gaunt and arid surroundings, all this set forth in short, strong, realistic sentences. (He acts crazy. We all act crazy, I guess. I guess God acts crazy. Etc.)"
Richard Bach (on Jonathan Livingston Seagull): will never make it as a paperback. (Over 7.25 million copies sold)
Unattested, and Is It Fake doesn’t even have anything interesting to say about it.
H.G. Wells (on The War of the Worlds): An endless nightmare. I do not believe it would “take”…I think the verdict would be ‘Oh don’t read that horrid book’. And (on The Time Machine): It is not interesting enough for the general reader and not thorough enough for the scientific reader
Unattested. It is the personal opinion of Is It Fake that they’re both false. The Time Machine was actually commissioned as a novel, so it’s hard to see why it’d receive a rejection like that, and both stories were serialized before publication, not run in book form, so the War of the Worlds one doesn’t ring true. Fun supplemental fact--War of the Worlds was immediately pirated upon release and rerun as “Fighters from Mars,” localized to New York and Boston respectively and run with a story called “Edison’s Conquest of Mars” about how Thomas Edison took over Mars and Is It Fake is not making this up.
Herman Melville (on Moby Dick): We regret to say that our united opinion is entirely against the book as we do not think it would be at all suitable for the Juvenile Market in [England]. It is very long, rather old-fashioned…
This must be false (no one ever appears to have been under the delusion that Moby-Dick was a children’s serial, and in fact he got it printed kind of as like an art book, a 500-book edition with great critical acclaim and no sales) but since one can’t actually prove that it is, “unattested,” but Is It Fake would like to register the strongest possible objections to anyone who would bother to make up a reason for Herman Melville to be sad, dude was like high king and priest of making his own ass sad in the desert, leave him alone
If for some reason your life has been missing negative reviews of Moby-Dick you can find the full spectrum of praise to castigation here. Personal fave goes to the writer who said “There is nevertheless in it, as we have already hinted, abundant choice reading for those who can skip a page now and then, judiciously....”
PROVABLY FAKE >:(
Oscar Wilde (on Lady Windermere’s Fan): My dear sir, I have read your manuscript. Oh, my dear sir.
False. Is It Fake can’t believe even people talking about Oscar Wilde are getting the Oscar Wilde effect. It’s attributed to a bunch of people, but the oldest attribution found was to John Clayton, from Albert Chevalier’s autobiography of 1895, as
“My dear sir, I have read your play. Oh! my dear sir! Yours truly, John Clayton.”
As Albert Chevalier was a comedian & music hall performer and this is part of a collection of anecdotes, one is perhaps not super convinced this was ever real, from anyone. (There’s also a fwithout the last line: “My dear sir, I have read your play. Yours, Fred Thompson.”
Gertrude Stein spent 22 years submitting before getting a single poem accepted.
Possibly true, in that Is It Fake can’t find the date of publication of her first poem, but not substantively true, in that Three Lives ran when she was 35, so unless we’re counting whatever she submitted at 13, this is false. Stein was constantly and continually rejected though. Like just absolutely constantly, and crushingly too. This rejection letter is particularly amazing.
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Dear White, Christian Trump Supporters: We Need To Talk
Plenty of pundits keep telling us progressives that we didnt listen to them in the heartland to you of the white working class, to you of conservative Christianity.
Actually, I grew up as one of you. Ive listened to you my whole life, but I dont think I know how to understand you at all.
I suppose now youd consider me part of the so-called liberal elite. Im a west coast university professor with a Ph.D. and almost 30 years of teaching experience. But Im the daughter of a Southern Baptist, working-class pipe fitter at a paper mill in a small, conservative town in northwest Georgia.
My parents did not go to college (my father finally earned a degree after hed retired from the paper mill). Only one of my four grandparents finished high school. I studied hard, got a scholarship, kept studying, kept working, and I moved into the white collar middle class.
My white conservative Christian upbringing had told me that was the American Dream to work hard and succeed. I did, and I feel youre holding it against me now that I no longer share your views. I think you must imagine the liberal elite as East Coast, Ivy League-educated, trust fund babies completely out of touch with how most people live.
Sure, some faculty members grew up with money. Some went to Ivy League schools. But a lot of us professors were you working class kids who did whatever it took to get a college education. Along the way, a lot of us developed progressive ideas, not out of our privilege, but out of our own experiences of discrimination, struggle, and oppression.
We read and argued and wrote and rewrote. We got peer-reviewed, over and over and over. Our ideas are held to incredibly high, rigorous standards, and so, when we speak we do so carefully, thoughtfully, with nuance, and with openness because sometimes we are also wrong. But because weve studied hard and held ourselves up to professional standards, we really do know a lot about what were talking about, and we have something to offer in a real conversation across our differences (including the East Coast Ivy Leaguers who arent as out of touch as you may think). But I dont think you want to hear us or me.
You tell me I need to get over Trumps election and stop being a sore loser. But politics is not a sport. We dont choose teams and simply cheer ours on to victory. My beloved Atlanta Falcons lost the Super Bowl, and, painful though that was, I will get over it. It hurts, but I wont protest, march, write letters, or otherwise resist the outcome, even if we discover New Englands balls were deflated. Its a game, but its not life or death.
This election, however, is exactly that. Perhaps you can tell me to get over it because you do not have to worry that Trump will appoint a Supreme Court justice that could play a role in invalidating your marriage. If Congress passes and Trump signs the First Amendment Defense Act, you probably wont have to worry that a bakery, restaurant, or hotel might legally deny you service. You dont have to worry about being stranded at an airport and refused admission to the U.S. because of the country youre from or the religion you practice. You dont have to worry about having your family divided across the world with a simple signature on an executive order.
You say you are aggrieved because you have not achieved what you think you deserve or you think some less deserving other has taken it. Despite having moved into the middle class, I have spent my career teaching about and advocating for labor unions, a living wage, affordable childcare, social security, affordable healthcare, accessible higher education. Progressives are actually the ones who support the economic programs and policies that could make a difference for the working class.
You have a right to be aggrieved, but I fear you are targeting the wrong people. Low paying jobs, job insecurity, companies moving work overseas, low benefits, little vacation these are the results of decades of policies that benefit the truly wealthy those whose wealth depends not on the labor of their hands but on their ability to exploit the production of poorly paid laborers. The problem is not that immigrants have taken your jobs or drained money from the safety net. The problem is that the system of wealth sets workers against one another so they do not target the real economic power that limits their work and financial security.
You say you want progressives to listen to you. Then prioritize truth. This election was filled with fake news, shared widely on Facebook, and this administration already has begun to create a language of alternative facts to misinform and mislead. If you want to talk, offer evidence, real evidence based on verifiable data and reliable sources, not wishful imaginings or fabricated Breitbart stories. An internet meme is not an informed and legitimate point of argument that facilitates dialogue. Weve reached a point where youd rather believe an overt lie if it supports a belief you already hold than pursue the truth if it might challenge your currently held belief.
The Bible tells us God is a God of truth and the truth will set us free. Yet you chose someone who lies with impunity. I want to understand how you choose to ignore the evidence that is right in front of your eyes photos of the crowds at two different inaugurations, for example. How do you accept what is proven to be a lie? How do you support someone who, rather than correct the record, doubles down on his lies?
Especially, how do you do this in the name of the God of truth? Before the election I saw one of you whod written as an evangelical Christian in support of Trump that God can use anyone. So help me understand why you thought God could use a man whod said hed never asked God for forgiveness, who serially committed adultery, who said he could grab women by the genitals, who cheated contractors and workers, but you didnt think God could use a woman who is a Christian, a lifelong Methodist and who, from the heart, quotes the Bible and John Wesley (when Trump didnt even know how to say Second Corinthians, which he called Two Corinthians, and when asked for his favorite Bible verse struggled to name one until he landed on an eye for an eye. And you know what Jesus said about that one).
I know youve been offended that progressives have called you racist for voting for Trump. I understand that. You dont see yourself as racist. But you did knowingly vote for someone who insulted Latinos, Blacks, Muslims, and Jews. And women. And LGBTQ people. And people with disabilities. Help me understand how that squares with the notion of Gods love for all people.
Can you really imagine Jesus using the words Trump did about these groups of people? How would you characterize voting for someone who is overtly racist? Help me understand how you align your Christian perspective with his racism, misogyny, homophobia, Islamophobia, and antisemitism.
Im afraid that what you want is a nation that conforms to your interpretation of the Bible. Thats where we really run into trouble because that would require you to force your particular conservative Christian beliefs on everyone else. I dont understand how people who want to claim religious liberty for themselves are so unwilling to give it to everyone, which is actually the premise of true religious liberty.
You say you want a Christian nation, but our founders were clear that was never their goal. In fact, the Constitution goes to great lengths to protect the government from religion and religion from government. I also get the sense that you think people are not Christians if they arent Christian in the same way as you. But cant we find some common ground? Cant we agree that all people should be free to practice their religion or practice no religion and should be safe from coercion based on religion? Cant we agree that we share values of love, kindness, respect, and community and then try to live those with each other? Do you really think a Christian, especially a biblical literalist, can want a wall built?
The Bible is clear about how we are to treat foreigners among us no matter how they got here. What if the Egyptians had built a wall before Mary and Joseph fled from King Herod? Our Christian story starts with a refugee family. Can we not practice our shared Christian values with immigrants and refugees coming to our country?
Cant we find common ground on issues like, say, abortion? I think we could have a common goal of lowering abortion rates. After all, you will never end abortions. Maybe you can end the safe, legal ones, but, one way or another, women will still have abortions. They will just be more likely to die from them.
And heres where I think dealing with facts is crucial to find common ground. We know that abortion rates are lower worldwide when there is no global gag order. We also know that what is most successful in lowering abortion rates is access to contraception, accurate sex education, and personal and economic empowerment for women.
To cling to overturning Roe v. Wade as the only way to end abortions is a fantasy based on ideology rather than medical science and social science, and it flies in the face of the evidence for what is successful. So the real question is are you more interested in actual effectiveness in lowering abortion rates or ideological purity? We can lower abortion rates together but not by denying women choices over their own bodies. We can be effective together by listening to the data and working together to ensure all women have access to contraception, education, and social and economic resources. Are you willing to have that conversation?
Ive heard some of you say that well just have to agree to disagree, but thats a problem. You see, were not talking about ideas here. Were talking about actual human lives. If we were talking about predestination or modes of baptism or premillennialism, Id say, sure, lets agree to disagree. The stakes are pretty low. But if were talking about the rights of people to access housing, clean water and air, and healthy food or the possibility of a nuclear arms race or discrimination written into law or women losing basic life-saving health screenings, or young black men being incarcerated disproportionately, or Native peoples having their sacred sites desecrated and their water poisoned, or Muslim people being targeted for their faith, then the stakes are much higher, and I cannot simply agree to disagree.
Thats why Im writing you now. We need to talk, and I dont know how to talk to you anymore. I need to know, is it more important to you to win than to do good? Or can we build coalitions? Listen to science? Rely on real evidence? Be effective? Put the needs and rights of all others above ideologies? Can we live the love of God we claim? You want me to hear and understand you. I get that. I also want you to hear and understand the rest of the world that is not you or your kind. Because they too are Gods people and therefore are in the circle of those whom we must love. You taught me that when I was a child. If we can agree on that now, we have a place to start.
.
Read more: http://huff.to/2lF3xqK
from Dear White, Christian Trump Supporters: We Need To Talk
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