Disaster with a Pen

Caitlin. Writer. Trying to make the world a happier place, one story at a time.

[caitlin-elias]

You mentioned your DND friends in the post about your western wip, so I assume you play. I'd love to hear more about your current (or all-time fave) characters if you're willing to share.

All of my current writing projects are just various vignettes and short fictions about my many, MANY dnd OCs, and most of my current friends I made via dnd/ttrgs. So I very much understand the "my dnd friends are the ones who Get Me" feeling.

~ @memento-morri-writes

Hey @memento-morri-writes thank you for the ask! For some reason I don't get notifications for my tumblr inbox so I have nooo idea how long this has been sitting there (I'm very sorry.)

My current character is definitely the one I'm the most attached to! Private investigator Sloan Harding, a changeling warlock with a great old one pact to the Raven Queen, is tasked by their patron to investigate a string of murders happening Khorvaire. Sloan often puts themselves in harm's way in the middle of the battle, because (thanks to the durable feat) they receive visions from their patron when near death. Not to mention they're in love with the Raven Queen's human avatar, a Victorian gothic mortician named Cassandra. So it's kinda like a near-death meet-cute.

*lowkey they are the inspo for the next standalone after my weird western, a gothic alternative fantasy set in magical industrial revolution London, where a changeling shapeshifts themself to cover shifts for workers that are sick or injured on the job, and uncovers a vampiric conspiracy in the process*

Please please tell me about your favorite DND oc's!! I NEED TO KNOW (and that goes for all y'all reading this okay? xoxo)

[memento-morri-writes]

Okay, hello! I am free from work and have eaten and can finally respond to this for real!

As for how long this has been in your inbox, probably a few months? Since whenever you posted or reblogged the project intro.

As for your character, I absolutely love Sloan so much. Changelings are great, warlocks are amazing, and GOO warlocks are FANTASTIC. Also the idea of being a GOO whose patron is the Raven Queen is very fun. The fact that they INTENTIONALLY put themself near death in order to get visions is so fun and so fucked up. And TRQ having a human avatar who's a mortician is SO cute.

And that upcoming WIP sounds awesome!!!

As for MY D&D OCs, I have a lot. Too many, tbh. Here's a link to an intro of the characters/campaigns who are most relevant / have been around the longest / have had the honor of getting prose written about them. And HERE'S a link to my D&D writing masterpost! Here's a link to an intro post on my personal blog (where I post most of my D&D stuff) that talks about some more of my characters/campaigns that I haven't written about yet / haven't made it onto the post on this blog. (And there's still some characters that haven't even made it on there yet. Specifically my own Great Old One warlock.)

If there's any that you're particularly curious about, please let me know! There's almost nothing I love more than talking about my babies (especially Rook and Carrion, but Avra and Morana are up there too).

[caitlin-elias]

If anyone sees me on here before the end of the month, unless its to message my beta readers, feel free to smack me. I need to shut up and write.

[caitlin-elias]

Someone tell me to stop research agents before the book is even done because I was going to pay an agent for development edits only to find out she's incredibly unprofessional and has dropped a bunch of clients. I was about to push myself 10x harder to get the draft done before August to submit to her before querying in Sept, and now I feel completely deflated.

[trench-knife]

one of my worst writing sins is abusing my power to create compound words. i cannot write the sentence "The sun shone as bright as honey that afternoon." no. that's boring. "The sun was honey-bright that afternoon" however? yes. that sentence is dope as fuck. i do not care if "honey-bright" is a word in the english dictionary. i do not care if the sentence is grammatically correct. i will not change. i will not correct my erred ways. the laws of the english language are mine.

[portland-sunshine]

Not a sin at all!

This is what's called a poetic epithet, and it happens all the time in writing. Consider, for example, Homer and his wine-dark sea, or Shakespeare and his death-mark'd love.

If you were then to start using them instead of the word they're describing, you'd be making a kenning. For example, if instead of describing the sun as honey-bright, you said "the honey-drop in the sky". Kennings are best known from Norse writings, like "the path of serpents" for gold, or "Grímnir's lip-streams" for poetry itself.

So you're not sinning, you're participating in an ancient literary tradition!

[unheardoracle]

Your dialogue is stiff because everyone is being too honest

Great dialogue can come from radical emotional honesty. But in most real conversations, people

dodge questions

answer indirectly

lie (badly)

change the subject

crack jokes to avoid serious answers

lie (convincingly)

say half of what they mean

tell the truth but get so anxious/angry/defensive others now think they're lying

If your dialogue feels unnatural, it might be because everyone is saying exactly what they think, or articulating their thoughts too well. Try letting characters hide things instead.

Subtext is where tension lives.

[caitlin-elias]

Hi, thanks for mentioning me on the roll call thingie! I‘m open to beta read for you. Info in terms of what you‘re looking for from me and general time frames would be apprechiated before I commit to anything solid though.

Heyyyy I'm an absolute dork and never check my inbox...this may be wayyy too late to answer, but if the offer is still on the table I would absolutely love your help! I'm willing to read anything you'd like in return!

To be completely transparent, this is an in-progress work, just hit 30k words on it. I will have the final draft completed August 15th, and would love for betas to be finished reading with feedback by end of August, as I will be researching agents and querying in all of September. Sound crazy? It is-I am due with my first baby in October and I'll be damned if this book isn't completely ready by then.

What I'm looking for is story-oriented feedback, pacing, character growth, worldbuilding issues or things you want to see more of. If you're more of a grammar oriented person that's great too, I already have on beta who has really honed in on that and sharpened my draft immensely, so no worries if you miss something.

For any other prospective beta readers, here is my one-sentence pitch: After a paranormal attack leaves Adelaide slowly dying, she suddenly finds herself traveling west, seeking a cure and answers to the source of the hordes of ghosts traveling the desert.

[caitlin-elias]

You mentioned your DND friends in the post about your western wip, so I assume you play. I'd love to hear more about your current (or all-time fave) characters if you're willing to share.

All of my current writing projects are just various vignettes and short fictions about my many, MANY dnd OCs, and most of my current friends I made via dnd/ttrgs. So I very much understand the "my dnd friends are the ones who Get Me" feeling.

~ @memento-morri-writes

Hey @memento-morri-writes thank you for the ask! For some reason I don't get notifications for my tumblr inbox so I have nooo idea how long this has been sitting there (I'm very sorry.)

My current character is definitely the one I'm the most attached to! Private investigator Sloan Harding, a changeling warlock with a great old one pact to the Raven Queen, is tasked by their patron to investigate a string of murders happening Khorvaire. Sloan often puts themselves in harm's way in the middle of the battle, because (thanks to the durable feat) they receive visions from their patron when near death. Not to mention they're in love with the Raven Queen's human avatar, a Victorian gothic mortician named Cassandra. So it's kinda like a near-death meet-cute.

Please please tell me about your favorite DND oc's!! I NEED TO KNOW (and that goes for all y'all reading this okay? xoxo)

[389]

Musings from Anna Fusco

[eraserheadadult]

as a lover of Women Fighting & Killing media it's so important to me when they actually let the women look like shit. you know what i mean. like im so bored when a woman is in what's supposed to be a brutal fight and her hair is just aesthetically tousled or something and her makeup is still pristine. fuck offfff. if she's beating the shit out of someone and fighting for her life she should be covered in blood n bile she should look like she got hit by a truck and the truck exploded

[valtsv]

it's always "you gnawed off your own leg to escape like an animal caught in a trap" and never "why didn't anyone try to help you out of the trap" or "why weren't you provided with any other resources to escape the trap with except for your own teeth"

[trufflesmushroom]

[corrya]

I think about this like once a day

[softest-punk]

I would like to say as an editor that when I edit someone's work I am not thinking, "WOW what an idiot this person is, can't construct a sentence to save their life!!"

What I am thinking is, "does this mean what the author intends it to mean, and if not, how can we adjust it so it does?" and also usually, "wow I'm so glad I get to read this, what a privilege it is to help people say exactly what they mean to say."

I think a lot of people get frightened by the prospect of editing and I won't pretend there aren't some editors who come at the task with a suboptimal attitude but a good editor just wants to help. They want the piece to mean exactly what you intended it to mean when they're done. They do not, if they are worth their asking rate, want to scold you for being a bad writer. They do want to make you a better one. It is a helping profession.

[crimeronan]

i think if you're worldbuilding psychiatry and mental health into your sci-fi/fantasy world then your first consideration should NOT be "what words would they use to describe our world's mental disorders??" even though that Can sometimes be useful.

granted, i DO prefer a world that slaps "melancholic" on in place of "depression" or "post-birth hyper-grief parental syndrome" onto postpartum depression or whatever, as opposed to just calling everything depression and schizophrenia and ASPD, as if our own western psychiatric words are the """correct""" ones and would logically be emulated by the whole of any other universe.

However.

i think it is MORE useful to think FIRST about your fictional society's values. and the power structures in play, or lack thereof. and how elements like religion and spirituality and magic and sci-fi tech shape and influence everyday life.

mental disorders and neurodivergences are things that mark a person "other" from someone who is the """expected""" product of their environment. crucially, in our own western conceptions of mental health, there is a STORIED history of people being labeled Other because they did not cooperate with the oppressive social norms of the time. see: insane asylums, lobotomies, drapetomania. etc.

how does your fictional society treat people who are Other? is mental health treatment more focused on compliance and the erasure of symptoms, or on self-acceptance and accommodation? is there a taboo against being labeled Other? what is the history of self-advocacy and human rights for people in these groups?

you don't Have to go the pessimist route and write in, like, horrific atrocities as a backdrop for your story. especially if you are not a horror writer like me. LOL.

but i do think it's disingenuous not to think about these things on a structural level.

what would these people consider a mental health disorder / neurodivergence, and why? what thoughts or behaviors cause that to be labeled a mental health disorder?

how are neurodivergent people in this world supported or unsupported?

what are the consequences for having an untreated mental health issue in this world? are there reasons someone might hide their mental health issue, or is there a baseline of trust socially?

if there IS an automatic baseline of trust, what social norms enforce that trust? what are the expectations of conduct for both the mentally ill and those helping them? what happens if that trust is broken by a mental health professional or carer -- what recourse does the mentally ill person have?

are there any Pretty Shitty social norms that would be reflected or encouraged in the mental health system?

these basic questions are Much more interesting than just going on thesaurus.com for the DSM-5. and the answers will make your world feel significantly more grounded.

[caitlin-elias]

Title Poll

Y'all I need you to help me decide on a title for my wild west fantasy. She's had the working title The Hummingbird Witch, because that's what I've always called it, but now that I move further into the draft, idk if it captures the grit and darkness (and occasional gore) that the story lends itself to. I'm toying with calling it Six Feet Above Snakes, instead, but I want to hear your input. I'll keep the poll up for a week, feel free to reblog and share to other places if you want.

Which Title Do You Like Better?

The Hummingbird Witch

Six Feet Above Snakes

No Preference

Voting ended onJul 15

[darkcomedies]

evoking bertholt brecht’s “the way people cast a play!” quote as a spell against prescriptive, stereotypical, fatalistic typecasting

[darkcomedies]

idk what to tell you except go look at the fishwives

[caitlin-elias]

Title Poll

Y'all I need you to help me decide on a title for my wild west fantasy. She's had the working title The Hummingbird Witch, because that's what I've always called it, but now that I move further into the draft, idk if it captures the grit and darkness (and occasional gore) that the story lends itself to. I'm toying with calling it Six Feet Above Snakes, instead, but I want to hear your input. I'll keep the poll up for a week, feel free to reblog and share to other places if you want.

Which Title Do You Like Better?

The Hummingbird Witch

Six Feet Above Snakes

No Preference

Voting ended onJul 15

[caitlin-elias]

WIP Acrostic Tag

Thank you very much to the lovely @sm-writes-chaos for the tag, it's been absolutely ages since I did a tag game and I miss them! (Tag me in all the things it forces me to write lol)

My word is: DANCE

D-Doing her best to keep the weight off her injured leg, she limped toward the front of the wagon, undoing the shutters.

A-Adelaide had found herself outside that very schoolhouse decades ago, barefoot and wide-eyed, peering into the open window.

N-“No, no. You already ate, this is not for you.”

C-Crawling closer to the dying fire, she read the letter once more before placing it back in the envelope.

E-Even if there was nothing to be done, she hoped that a friendly face would offer Nora some comfort and wanted to offer her condolences herself.

This was so fun! Everything was taken from the first chapter of my final draft of The Hummingbird Witch, my wild west fantasy w/ vampires, undead, and a slow burn romance <3

Lovingly tagging @writingisartdarling @hidden671254839 @vacantgodling to share theirs, as well as anyone else who wants to join in.

Your word is FIRST. have fun!