#if I read this process in a fantasy book I’d call the author a hack

[momowho34]

Christians (specifically Protestants): we have little versions of our sacred text that we carry around in our pockets to pull out if we encounter something and want guidance. The version used during sermons and in church are the same ones that we carry with us

Jews: you can read the torah and Tanakh in a normal book if you want. But if you want a torah you can use as a congregation? *cracks knuckles* you must prepare paper made from the skin of a kosher animal and special ink and a quill made from a turkey feather and you must use no metal in the preparation process because metal is used in the creation of weapons for war and before you even think about actually started to write you must take The Holy Bath to purify yourself and ritually blot out the name of Amalek, the sworn enemy of the Jewish people and every time you write the name of god on the scroll you must say it out loud and recite a special prayer and if you mess up one letter you have to start over and when the scroll is finished you must wrap it in tapestries and pretty cloth and shit and then put little crowns on the end and then put it in a Super Special Box in the synagogue so every time it’s time to read it you can open the Super Special Box and everyone can gawk at the Ultra Big Boy Important Text and the words of god within the scroll. this entire process takes about a year to complete and is done by special sofer’s that devote their lives to making Torah’s specifically and when you read from the torah you must use a little tiny pointer in the shape of a hand so your hands don’t mess up the paper. Oh, you think I kid? You think I jest?

Think again.

(rb encouraged for everyone. Share the sacred baby hands with the goyim. Everyone deserves to know about the sacred baby hands)

#jews #judaism #jewblr #christianity #bibles #bible stuff #torah #torah study #jewish #I love those little hands #they’re so fucking satisfying to point with #they’re called yad’s by the way #jews love their fuckin scrolls man #that’s because we do so much shit to make them #it’s unreal #if I read this process in a fantasy book I’d call the author a hack

[d-l-dare]

“Near Existence”

The imagination is a powerful thing. You can dream up worlds of great fantasy, create characters that you can easily fall in love with or hate. You can do anything and be anywhere your heart desires. But sometimes your imagination can play tricks on you. It can leave you believing things that couldn't possibly be real.

Being the author of a best selling book is one thing, but having an entire series that's sold more copies than you even dreamed possible is a feeling completely different. It is one that, ironically coming from a writer, is hard to describe. It's like all the hard work you put into a silly little something you enjoyed every moment of creating, suddenly sprouted wings and flew off to a crowded city of admiration.

Going around to book signings is something I enjoyed, though I wasn't much of a people person. Big crowds make me incredibly anxious, and the fact there were so many people supporting me on a dream I've attached myself to since I was a kid was about to bring me to tears, didn't help the situation. But no matter what life threw at me in the wake of my success wouldn't stop me from enjoying every moment of it.

Even the nerve wracking phone call I'd just received wasn't going to ruin my fun. I'd just got off the phone with my agent. She said I needed a new book in my series to be finished and mailed in by the end of the month. I was relieved because I still had three weeks left. I was also terrified because I'd have to write quickly and do a rewrite for a final draft before mailing it in. It would almost seem doable, if not for the fact that I had no plan for this book. I'd just got back from a short vacation I'd taken my family on from all the money I earned off my books. I had no time to plan.

I paced back and forth in my small writing room in my apartment, trying to come up with a concept. It didn't take long to come to the conclusion that this book would be a filler. I'd load the book up with a bunch of killings from my main character, the Unseen Killer. I'd then sprinkle in a little bit of a plot that I'd further explore in the next book.

My next thought was, who should be the first death? I figured in order to do some quick writing, I need to base it on people I actually know. I knew just who it'd be, my mother. She told me when we were on vacation that she wanted to be in a book. What better way to honor her than to make her the first victim in the newest book? She'd be ecstatic.

I sat down and began to write. I had her on front of the kitchen counter, making a quick snack for herself before bed. A peanut butter sandwich. She finishes spreading the peanut butter on the slice of bread when she hears heavy footsteps coming up from behind her. He brings his axe over his head and slams it down over her head.

After the graphic scene I'd created in the book, I figured I should call my mom. It was probably from the guilt I felt from killing her off. The phone rang for a few minutes before it went to voicemail. I hung up the phone. She must be asleep. I didn't want to keep calling and wake her up, so I followed suit and crawled into bed.

*** I awoke to my phone buzzing. I glanced over and turned the screen on, squinting hard to read what it said. I had several missed calls from my sister. I sat up and dialed her right back.

"Hey sis, what's going on?" I asked, my voice groggy from the slumber.

She responded in sobs. "It's mom. She's dead." She began crying louder.

I fell silent, tears beginning to stream down my cheeks. I couldn't help but think back to what I'd written the previous night. There's no way this had to do with what I wrote, I thought, this had to be a coincidence. A twisted one, but a coincidence all the same.

"Are you still there?" she asked, sniffling.

"Yeah, I'm still here." I replied. "Where are you?"

"I'm outside of her house," she said. "The police won't let me inside to see her."

I told her I'd be right there and headed out the door. I had to continue wiping tears from my eyes as I made my way to her.

After meeting up with her, I took her to get some coffee. She told me everything she knew about how she died, which wasn't much, between sobs. I kept reminding myself of the story I wrote. I know what I wrote didn't cause it, but I couldn't help but feel guilty for it. We shifted the subject of conversation to the good times we'd spent together and scrolling through the pictures we took on vacation and laughing. It made us feel a little better.

As we were about to go our separate ways, she asked me if she could stay the night with me. She was afraid that what happened to mom might happen to her. And she didn't want to be alone right now. I know I didn't either. We needed each other more now than we ever have.

*** It had been a few days since our mother's death. Her funeral was yesterday. My sister and I felt it was time to go our separate ways and continue our lives as normal. We had grown closer the last week. We agreed that if anything happens we'd call each other and let them know.

I was reminded that the deadline for my book to be finished was drawing nearer. I needed another person to kill off in my book. I knew exactly who I'd base it on. He was an old school bully in high school. We'd since made up and talk every once in a while online.

I wrote that he would be drinking a beer and watching television. Suddenly, he hears the door swing open behind him. He turns to see the killer swing an axe toward his head and it topples to the floor, along with his body.

It was a little twisted the way I wrote the killer to be. The way he kills his victims was simply by checking to see if their door was locked. If it wasn't he'd go inside, sneak up behind the person, and kill them. I know, it sounds like a cheesy way to get people to lock their doors. It wasn't always meant to be that way, that's the way the character kind of shaped himself.

I mean, this was an oddball book series in general. The main character was the killer. It was supposed to paint the picture of why the person kills. He's not supposed to be some kind of anti-hero, he's just the main character bad guy that somehow always gets away with it. That's why they call him the "Unseen Killer" because he never gets caught.

With all of this in mind, I drifted off to sleep, knowing that the book I was in the process of writing was shaping up the be the best one I'd written yet.

*** The next morning, I found myself thinking about Thomas, the guy I wrote about last night. After writing about my mom and her ending up dead, I was worried about him. I got onto my social media account and scrolled through his page with the intent to message him. I was about to click the message icon when I caught a glimpse of a post that someone had made and tagged him in. I skimmed through it and saw that he had died last night. Apparently he was murdered but nobody could prove it.

I staggered back and when I felt my back hit a wall, I found myself sliding down to the floor. I was lost in shock. This was impossible, how could the exact two people I'm writing deaths for, die on the same night I write about them? There's no way this could be a coincidence. I got in my car and made my way to the police station.

*** I stood before a cop at a police station, begging for them to listen to me. I told them about the stories I'd written lining up with two deaths. They rolled their eyes.

"So what are you trying to tell us?" the cop asked from behind his desk. "Are you suggesting that the killer in your stories came to life and killed these people?"

"No," I replied, scoffing. "I'm saying... I don't know. Maybe someone hacked into my computer and looked at the story as a motivation to kill people."

"Do you realize how ridiculous you sound right now?" he said, leaning forward, his elbows on the table. "What would the hacker be after anyway, trying to get your book promoted?"

I rolled my eyes and walked away. If they weren't going to listen to me, there's only one other thing I can try.

*** That night after getting home from grabbing food at the nearest burger joint, I propped open my laptop and began to write.

This time the story was about a man, sitting home alone. He was in the kitchen, typing away on his laptop. He heard the door creak open but paid no mind to it, he was lost in the story he was writing. He hears footsteps creaking behind him. He feels the wind off the axe as the killer raised it above his head.

I was about to type up the next line when I felt hot breath on my neck. I turned around and to my surprise, there was nothing.

"FINISH IT!" a voice boomed behind me. I knew this was it. The killer was behind me. The Unseen Killer. I now knew why he was never caught. He was invisible. I figured I could run and call the police, but how were they going to arrest someone they couldn't see?

I realized with terror, the only thing left to do was finish the story.

"The killer swung the axe down on the man's head with all his might, burying the hatchet in his head."

[ginnyzero]

Being Comfy in Your Writer Skin

I recently used the phrase “comfy in your writer skin” in response to a post by @the960writers. Being comfy in your writing skin is extremely important in your career as a writer and it’s something that you learn over time. In a nutshell, I was trying to convey being comfy in your writing skin is an author who is secure about themselves and their writing. Someone who is confident and willing to work on their writing, learn, and improve rather than someone who is arrogant.

If you’re comfy in your writer skin you know your craft and know that your craft is in a constant state of improvement. Each book/story is a new learning experience with new problems and new techniques to tackle. If you know your craft, you know the general guidelines, and which ones you can break, and which ones that you need to stick to because no one likes that holy batman where is the back button. (Passive voice, I’m looking at you. Grammar, I’m looking at you. Decent formatting, I’m looking at you.)

And if you know your guidelines and rules, you most likely know your audience. You know what the readers of your type of books like to read. And you know that not every reader is going to be down with what you’ve written and that’s okay. You might not know how to find the readers you need and want, but you know they’re out there somewhere. (Marketing is a different skill.)

I know that I’m looking most likely for a female reader who loves science fiction and fantasy, is into fan fiction, enjoys comic books and action movies that revolve around the characters rather than aliens invading or being attacked by zombies. (This is by the way called upmarket book club style fiction.)

This means, you don’t talk down about readers in general. You don’t whine and moan about ‘where are they’ and concurrently do no marketing. If your books aren’t selling, you don’t moan about ‘maybe this isn’t for me.’ You, as an author, realize there are things that are simply out of your control. You can’t make readers read your story, click the AO3 link, buy your book. You can’t force them to write a review or leave likes and kudos. All you can do is put it out there, do as much marketing as you can afford, and pray it find the right person at the right time. It’s a lot of luck.

And yeah, there will be down days where you feel like you’re a hack and you want what you think every other author is getting. You don’t know what the other authors are actually getting in sales. You only see what you perceive what they’re getting as sales unless they’re broadcasting each one. (Some do. Most don’t.) So, your perception might be wrong!

It’s okay to feel down. As long as you don’t wallow and keep on writing. Because the only way to gain an audience is to keep going.

Because not everyone is going to like your work, you’re going to receive criticism. If you’re comfy in your writer skin, you’ll be able to parse out the good criticism from the bad. It may sting. But you aren’t going to throw a tantrum over it. There might be reader biases at play. Or, you may need to improve.

Writing is difficult work juggling a lot of different pieces like dialog, characterization, world building, tenses, description, plot structure, and giving people valid grievances (aka conflict and stakes.) And you’re trying to put these together to make the Eiffel Tower and sometimes you end up with the leaning tower of Jenga and that happens. That’s what editing is for! And if you publish your book too soon, there are people who are going to tell other readers “if you don’t like passive voice, this book isn’t for you.”  Etc. So on. So forth.

As a reader, passive voice and no compelling characters with conflicts within the first chapter are the most common issues I see when reading indie books. (Indie books aren’t fanfic. I’m not invested in these characters. I need to be invested quickly. I give five chapters. Many readers give less.)

If you’re comfy in your writer skin and you keep getting rejections or bad reviews of your books, you’re willing to google or go to youtube and do the research on why you might be getting rejections and bad reviews! It may not actually be your writing or writing style. It might be that your genre is dead on arrival to the publishing world. It might be that your story concept is overdone and the agent is tired of it. It might be that your book is simply not marketable as written. Agents are readers too. And the reasons agents stop reading your books are the same reasons why readers stop reading your books.

(Having written a dead on arrival genre and queried it, this is frustrating beyond all reason because they just won’t tell you that. No. It’s “This isn’t for me.” I’d rather have like 3 form letters. “This genre is dead on arrival.” “This book is too long.” And “this book is not for me.”)

I get ‘bad’ reviews. (I try not to read them really. That’s why I have a best friend writer bestie to read them for me and tell me the highlights.) I get criticism in ‘good’ reviews. (I also try not to read them.) These reviews aren’t for me, the author. They’re for other readers. I can’t/won’t change the book that is published when I can and am writing the next book! (It is very easy to get stuck in a perfectionist writer loop.)

If you’re comfy in your writer skin, you will sit down with traditionally published books and figure out their voice (always active,) and how they write blurbs, look at the composition of book covers, and analyze the plot structure, and why are these characters relatable. (There is a certain alchemy to this that takes practice.) While there’s no shame in asking questions if you can’t find the information on your own, being comfy in your writing skin means you go looking for it on your own first.

Because you want to know, you’re driving yourself to improve and are willing to put in the work without prompting. It is no one else’s job to teach you, unless you’re at Uni and they’re being paid to do so. Don’t expect anyone to teach you for free.

Read the first chapters/openings of your favorite books. Look for what they have in common. Emulate!

There are plenty of kind people out there that are willing to help and have written (often contradictory) guidelines. Find the guidelines that work for you. Those are your readers/agents. If you sit down with books you love and book covers you love and really look at them and analyze why you love them, you’re going to be two steps ahead of everyone else.

The same can be said of books you don’t like or genres you’re tired of. Why are you tired of it? What can be done to make you less tired of it? What do you want to see in that genre? Are you capable of writing it? And so on and so forth. (I wrote my werewolf urban fantasy style books as a response to everything I didn’t like about werewolves and what I was tired of seeing in published urban fantasy books. Petty, maybe. Fun. Yes.)

Things outside your control are going to constantly give you reasons to feel insecure about your writing. And the only way to beat those things out of your control internally is to learn your craft, know your audience, and continue to write. As well as having low expectations, there are thousands of stories I can read for free on AO3, so your book better be the most polished and stellar thing if you want me to read and more importantly to review it.

People simply do not have time/emotional energy to waste.

Being comfy in your writing skin, being secure as a writer takes time and exposure to the writing community at large (fanfiction or original, doesn’t really matter.) While you need to know what other people are doing, you can’t let it affect what you’re doing in the long run. (You read other people‘s fanfics to know the trends. Same in for books. How can you follow/buck/subvert the trends/tropes of your genre if you don’t know it to begin with?) And if you’re thinking, “This sounds a lot like self-awareness and psychoanalysis” then, you’re not entirely wrong.

Outside validation is nice and often very needed. However, it’s never going to be enough to make you feel secure. The only way you’ll feel secure and comfy is if have a solid foundation on the inside of knowing your craft and being willing to listen and learn.

Once you’re comfy in your writing skin, lots of things will become easier and open up for you. You’ll be able to work with editors and other writers. You won’t worry about credit or having control of every detail. You know what you do well and you’ll be able to focus on doing that rather than having to micromanage the entire process. Criticism, or other people with similar ideas won’t call for emotional investment because there’s enough room for everyone!

Okay, this has gotten long. I hope it helps someone. Happy writing!

#writblr #writing tumblr #writeblr #writing advice #writing tips #writers life #sort of personal #general you in effect

[mysterious-prophetess]

Top Five Academic and Publishing Scandals of the last Decade

So, I’ve seen people do stuff like this, a round up of sorts and the 2010′s were an insane decade to be alive.

So, I thought I’d compile my personal favorite publishing and academic scandals

Note: This will concern only things that were actually published or a scandal to do with Academia. The Rose Christo incident with the infamous fanfic didn’t have the biography make it to print so it’s right here as a Dishonorable Mention. No sources, because this was a home-grown tumblr disaster (much like Dashcon). 

So, 

#5 That Book that Used Scammy Tactics to Become a Best Seller Before Anyone Ever Even Read It.

Remember that time when Handbook for Mortals used shady tactics to make it look like it was selling better in pre-sales than it actually was? I barely remembered it, but then as I was adding in our Dishonorable Mention, I suddenly had the thought of “remember that...” so here it is at #5 since this book was actually published, and it was allegedly terrible. It has 3 stars on Amazon, but with its past, I can’t even trust that.

I didn’t read it. I had, and still have, better things to do than to read subpar fantasy that tried to be the next Hunger Games/Harry Potter/Divergent. 

It turns out, if you have wealthy enough collaborators, or people who know how to game the system by which the NYT Bestsellers’ List operates, you too can buy and cheat your way onto that list with a terribly written book like these guys.

What’s even more ridiculous was there were already talks of a movie version and this unknown writer turned out to be, surprise, an actress too! And guess who’d be playing her own main character in the movie? The author! So, once this was unraveled as being a bulk-book-buying-cheat-tactic-to-get-on-the-NY Times-Bestseller-List, they lost their rank and were completely off the list. The movie is also toast, I think, since it would have come out in 2018. We’re now in 2020.

(x) (xx) (xxx) (xxxx)

#4: That time Bethesda Plagiarized Dungeons and Dragons.

That’s right folks. Bethesda, who cannot catch a break after their hilariously disastrous launch of their ongoing garbage fire, Fallout 76, were in trouble whenever they released a TTRPG module for an Elder Scrolls game that was suspiciously like a previously released Dungeons and Dragons adventure...because it was very much ripped off from the D&D book.  

There were articles highlighting just how they did this and how blatant it was. 

Some articles would do a side-by-side of huge chunks of the text and, yikes, that’s some obvious copy-pasting.

Suffice to say, they yanked this e-book down ASAP. (x) (xx) (xxx) (xxxx)

#3 That Time a Youtuber Turned Professional Games Media Editor Plagiarized for Most of His Career and Only Got Caught After He Plagiarized the Wrong Person on a Very Public Platform

So, yeah. There was a review last year for a game called Dead Cells (published by Motion Twin). On July 24, 2018 a smaller Youtube channel called Boomstick gaming would upload their review to the game. Then August 6th, IGN’s Nintendo editor would post “his” review up and Deadite from Boomstick Gaming, who was actually a fan of IGN, noticed a lot of eerie similarities between the reviews. He did a side-by-side video comparison (here) and it looks like a case of barely even changing the words around after copying someone else’s homework. As an English major, this is a clear-cut case of plagiarism. IGN agreed too, as did most of the internet. This reviewer had fans who still believe in him even after he’s been proven a plagiarist but, no accounting for taste am I right? And this would have been the end of it....had he just accepted his fate and just slunk off into the dark recesses of the internet. 

But, then he had to provoke both Jason Schrier of Kotaku AND the Internet in a now deleted non-apology video to “looking as hard as you’re able, you won’t find anything.”

Yeah. That didn’t end well for him. So, people went digging and found a shitton of evidence he was a serial plagiarist. No shock to me, because plagiarism is never something a plagiarist ever does just “once.” He’d ripped off his fellow IGN reviewers as well as forum posts and articles from other publications. He also plagiarized a resume template. Now, when you use one of those, you’re SUPPOSED to mimic the style, put place your own information, right? Well, he didn’t even do that.

Link to YongYea, a youtuber who covered the topic in depth. He has his videos on the topic in a playlist. (x)

#2 The Professor Who P-Hacked His Results to Pieces

Now if you don’t know or remember who Professor Brian Wansink is, he’s a former faculty member at Cornell who rose to fame with his papers on nutrition and people’s eating habits. I’m still not entirely sure how a guy whose degrees were not in nutrition OR psychology ended up being the face of this field that seemed to have a lot more to do with nutrition and psychology, but here we are. His degrees were, in fact, a B.S. in business administration from Wayne State College, an M.A. in  journalism and mass communication from Drake University, and a PhD in Marketing-Consumer behavior- from Stanford. In a move that one might call pure hubris or just complete and total social ignorance, he made a blog post that started to bring eyes on his work. Thanks to the efforts of other scientists (Like the Skeptical Scientist) and Heathers and Brown as well as the computer programs GRIM and GRIMMER, it was found the man who was cited over 200,000 times was a fraud. As of now 17 papers have been retracted and 15 have been corrected. He is no longer employed at all by Cornell, resigning a disgrace to his field and his former place of work.

The only reason he managed to get so big was he was able to make his so-called science digestible for the masses and able to give his works palatable titles. Ok, I’m done with the food puns. He was a superstar (even worked with the previous first lady on her health initiatives), which is why his fall is also meteoric. This is why you don’t torture your data into false positives, folks. Also, he’d target science journals that weren’t as prestigious and therefore wouldn’t have as rigorous a peer-editing process, allegedly. 

His actions have brought thousands of papers into jeopardy and destabilized his whole entire field because nothing he did was reproducible and that’s already a huge problem in science. 

(x) (xx) (xxx) (xxxx) (X) (XX)

And.... now for the worst Academic Scandal of the 2010′s....

#1 The College Admission’s Scandal

Because despite Wasink’s damage to his field (because now there are literally thousands of papers who cited him in jeopardy), and two separate cases of Plagiarists on this list, I really can’t help but feel this has to be one of the biggest College/Academia scandals of ALL TIME. Sure, it’s old news now but I’m recapping it because that’s what this list is for. So, A bunch of wealthy people who wanted their children to go to prestigious universities wanted a guarantee that just buying a new wing for the library/science buildings/etc wouldn’t get them. You know, the normal way the super rich buy their children’s ways into schools. Instead, they went to this guy Singer whose group masqueraded as a charity (and that’s what got their asses nailed) and facilitated bribery, cheating, and deception. They caught one of these parents who’d gotten their children in with Singer’s plans for a different crime, and he offered to squeal on Singer and his plot for leniency with his other charges.

Singer’s plan usually involved bribing coaches to get these undeserving students recruited for sports teams (and therefore displacing an actual athlete who should have gotten their spot) as well as having people alter SAT scores and other deceptive actions. 

It’s unknown if, at this time, any of these children of the 34 charged parents, actually managed to graduate with degrees from any of these institutions. However, those that had any of these students have to now decide what to do with them since these admissions are now verifiably fraudulent. Some are going to whole-sale kick them out or “cancel their admission” and others aren’t speaking up, and one has already decided the student gets to stay. Because they might not have known what their parents did, and its possible for the ones whose parents DIDN’T have them fake athleticism to not know what their mom and dad did. Hell, even most of the fake athletes might not have known thanks to reports of photo shopping their faces onto uniformed bodies. I do not know if any of these children were in on what their parents did, thought I suspect some might have been, but that’s merely speculation on my part. At the end of the day, it’s up to each affected university to carry out what they wish to do next.

The fact they made donations to a fake charity (and therefore skirted the tax man) are the reason they’re REALLY in deep shit. You don’t deny the IRS its money or the IRS will come for your blood. Just ask the ghost of Al Capone. 

(x) (xx) (xxx)

So those are my top 5 Publishing and Academic Scandals of the past Decade. 

#long #top five publishing and academic scandals of the past decade #2010s

[papofglencoe]

5 7 11 54

Thank you for asking me these! You don’t have to, but I’d love to know your answers for these too. If you decide to take the bait, tag me, chica.

5. Books or authors that influenced your style the most.

Probably terrible books I picked up for a dime at a garage sale in Podunk, Michigan when I was ten. lol. Crap that I read once and then horrifically absorbed by osmosis because I didn’t know any better. But in general I grew up reading a LOT of YA horror/fantasy/suspense like Christopher Pike and Richie Tankerlsey Cusick. Diane Hoh and Caroline B Cooney (even as a kid I thought RL Stine was a hack, so at least I had that much taste ;p). I think my love of plot twists and unreliable narrators and angsty, fucked up characters probably comes a lot from those guys. I also loved the Sweet Valley High series, so that explains my love of trashy, tropey romances. In high school I was all about the dark and dystopian stuff- classics like 1984 and Brave New World (because YA dystopia wasn’t a thing yet). And then in college it was all about everything British. Harry Potter for funsies. Ian McEwan. The classic Regency, Romantic, and Victorian authors: Austen, the Brontes, Elizabeth Gaskell, Dickens, Eliot. I’d like to say any of these authors have influenced me. At least when it comes to subject matter, they have, if not style.7. Favorite author.

Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte (who, as a fun fact, loathed Jane Austen’s writing and found it to be facile).11. Describe your writing process from scratch to finish.Do I ever really finish though? lol. Writing for me is a painful process. Some people find it exhilarating (or so they say...). For me it’s a blood-letting. It’s like putting a bunch of leeches on my body to suck out the poison, but all it’s really doing is killing me slowly. Usually a song lyric will inspire me, or some scene will come to mind, and then I’m off from there. And by “off” I mean at a crawl... maybe ten lines at a time, one day at a time? Before I can write anything new for the day, I have to sit down and edit what I wrote from the day before. If I’m starting a new chapter, I will sit down and reread the entire story before moving forward. I edit more than I write. I wouldn’t recommend that to others, but I think grad school inculcated in me this obsessive need to write as airtight of an “argument/thesis” as I can before moving forward; it’s so easy for a paper or article to go horribly off the rails when you write, and a professor will call you out at the very first sign of a bullshit, straw man argument. And I just don’t have it in me to write a shit draft and then go back to fix it. My goal before handing any story to a beta is to have not a single suggested correction. Not one missing comma or misspelled word, not one plot hole or OOC description. Obviously I have never succeeded at this, but writing for me is a competition with myself to be better than I was the last story. I really only have one part of my process that I find to be healthy or helpful, and I’ll include it next... 

54. Any writing advice you want to share?

Chart out your dialogue before you “write the scene” itself. Just sit down and write out the back-and-forth. No dialogue tags. No physical cues or stage descriptions (or keep them minimal if they are essential to the dialogue itself). That way you can create dialogue that sounds natural to the ear. It might be annoying to some readers, but I like to include a dash of “ums,” “ahs,” “likes,” etc to replicate how we actually speak, or to indicate hesitation. In real life we’re always searching for the right words (and regretting the ones we’ve chosen), and I like to try to capture that in dialogue. Having said all this, I consider dialogue to be my weakest point. Some people angst over smut, but for me it’s simple conversation I stress over. This is exactly why I chart that shit out. If you need me to describe a chair, I can effortlessly spew out four paragraphs about it. But dialogue? *Cue the mortal terror.* So I cover my ass and map it all out before I write the scene. 

#personal #get to know a blogger #writer meme #long post #lovely-tothe-bone