thorne writes things

thorne || they/them || 22 || werewolf conniseur, purveyor of fucked up little guys || creature of questionable origin || pfp: Vase With Honesty (1884-85)

[by-thorne]

Welcome to the brambles

you can call me Thorne. I'm a 20-something creature of uncertain origin from Canada, writing mostly horror-adjacent fiction for and about witches, freaks of nature, and queer people.

WIPs

Through Dead Man's Hall: A brother, a death, and a trip to the Otherworld. Lukkan has lost his only surviving family member, and now, wracked with guilt and grief, ventures into the land of Elleswhider to speak with them one last time and find closure. However, things aren't as they seem, and Lukkan soon learns that there's much more to the realm than old folk-tales had prepared him for. Death, danger, and vengeful families all collide in a story about grief, and who we become when we cease to let ourselves feel anything but.

main tag | intro

[lux-scriptum]

No, you see, I wish to be an author. Not in marketing. Or an influencer. I wish to tell my stories, be told I did a fantastic job, and then go back to my hovel to scribble some more. I am delicate of constitution and awkward in crowds.

[gratefulturbot]

i DON'T need them to kiss i need them to come to the sobering realisation that their souls are merged and no part of them is extricable from the other anymore

[twilightarcade]

looper

[prokopetz]

Not only is having worldbuilding threads that are mentioned once and never picked up again not a flaw in fantasy media, I'd go so far as to say that a lack of such threads is a flaw. If everything ties up in one neat little package, you're missing the point of fantasy worldbuilding. Like, don't do it on every page, or your setting is going to be an overstuffed mess, but every so often you are not only allowed but obligated to casually drop some utterly batshit worldbuilding detail and then just never follow up on it. Maybe some rocks are sentient. You don't owe your reader an explanation. Just fucking go for it.

[prompts-in-a-barrel]

"You don't know me. I'm not the same person anymore."

"That's okay. I'll get to know you again."

[californiannostalgia]

[kurhanchyk]

my preemptive answer is that because people refuse to commit main characters to it but i'm sure there are many reasons

[monstrousgourmandizingcats]

#i think it's also because many people write about them from an atheist's perspective#i.e. they write like they can't believe a character would take a religion and its tenets seriously#without being a caricature of fundamentalism

(from @lilybarthes)

[fivekoboldsinacoat]

It's a good video! I highly recommend it. Watched it a few hours after it dropped and was thinking about it again this morning.

OP isn't wrong, exactly (saying this for everyone else reading, not at you, OP) and the pasted tags are excellent & about a real issue, but actually further from the thesis of the video.

That thesis boils down to fiction that creates religions, like fantasy novels or RPGs, is very prone to only really depicting the religion's myths and sacred texts. The creation stories, the pantheon melodramas, that kind of thing. Adjacent to this is a big focus on belief. Both of these, ReligionForBreakfast (RFB) suggests, are due at least in part to (unexamined or deliberate) Christocentrism.

The thing that's missing, that RFB proposes as what he thinks would make a big difference and be good to see in fictional worlds, is action. ("Ritual", for certain definitions of the word.) What do followers of a religion, or people within that religion's culture, actually do? How does it appear in daily life, in art and architecture, customs and food, etc.? And not just the Official Approved actions or activities, either.

It's a really solid video, just under 20 minutes long, link here for the interested.

[pinterestinfluencer]

not enough scenes in books where characters kill someone and throw up afterwards. like something has to be done

[atomiclace]

these are my mutuals. they know who they are

[missmundanesblog]

I think that my favourite genre is “what the fuck is wrong with the forest”

[ocprompts]

which oc goes only by a nickname?

[quaggly]

every shitty book now is called something like a court of shit and fuck or something equally stupid. books used to be called frindle and we liked it. we liked it

[seolihexagon]

I'VE BEEN SAYING THISS THANK YOU

now there are 2 templates: 1) [noun] of [noun] and [noun]. 2) [adjective] and [adjective] [noun]

examples:

a strange and stubborn endurance

a dark and hollow star

a dark and starless forest

a taste of gold and iron

a court of thorns and roses

queen of air and darkness

daughter of smoke and bone

children of blood and bone

house of salt and sorrows

girls of paper and fire

the ballad of songbirds and snakes

bonus points if it includes a word like dark, bone, smoke, shadow or some equally abstract shit

i'm not saying any of those books are bad. i'm just saying if i see a book with a title like this i immediately skip over it like it's not there. it's the opposite of attention grabbing like they're begging for the book to be as unnoticeable as possible.

maybe in the beginning it was intriguing but now every other book is called some shit like this. they all sound the same and they're forgettable. i really hope authors leave this trend behind.

i actually have a list of book titles that caught my eye and made me want to know more about the book. now these might not be everyone's cup of tea but anyway here are some examples:

paul takes the form of a mortal girl

is it hot in here? or am i just suffering for all eternity for the sins i committed on earth?

everyone in this room will someday be dead

symptoms of being human

the 7½ deaths of evelyn hardcastle

the five stages of andrew brawley

the absolutely true diary of a part-time indian

the restaurant at the end of the universe

the princess and the grilled cheese sandwich

insignificant events in the life of a cactus

words on bathroom walls

girls just wanna have funds

a trans man walks into a gay bar

you have the right to remain fat

i tried to find the common denominator as to why these titles intrigued me and i found several factors:

smushing together completely unrelated concepts that make the reader think of how these concepts could possibly be related in the story. examples: the princess and the grilled cheese sandwich, paul takes the form of a mortal girl, the restaurant at the end of the universe.

having something straight up weird in the title that makes the reader go ??? examples: paul takes the form of a mortal girl (is paul an alien? is paul a man? is paul not mortal? is paul an immortal alien man?), the 7½ deaths of evelyn hardcastle (why is she dying 7 times? AND A HALF? how do you half die?), the absolutely true diary of a part-time indian (how is the character only part-time indian?), insignificant events in the life of a cactus (what events could a cactus possibly have in its life?).

play on familiar expressions. examples: girls just wanna have funds (girls just wanna have fun), a trans man walks into a gay bar (x walks into a bar joke), you have the right to remain fat (you have the right to remain silent).

thank you for coming to my ted talk. can you tell i've thought extensively about this

also if you have titles you like please share them with me i would like to grow my list of good titles

[boothewriter-deactivated2018122]

to my fellow writers:

i hope you find the strength to finish that chapter, to finish your outline, to edit a bit more, to be kind to yourself

[isabellebissonrouthier]

reblog with a spoiler for your wip with zero context. no context allowed.

[natequarter]

unwilling narrator

[natequarter]

the weight of a story is hard to bear but someone's gotta be atlas

[rudamaruda520]

me as a writer

[concerningwolves]

was trying to describe how not writing is making me feel and so far the best I've come up with is "My brain feels jittery" & "The ideas are pecking me to death. with big beaks"