do not. address it
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@eleanora-writes
do not. address it
y'okay can we stop pretending yet. like can we all acknowledge that eating disorders are chic again, and it's going to kill someone.
and like. do we have to keep gently phrasing things to protect naturally-thin people's feelings. in my life it has never been fashionable to be fat. "fat" is still a bad word. there has never been institutional power pushing people to gain weight; no trillion-dollar industry to "fix" skinny people. a larger body type has never been over-represented in models, influencers, celebrities. sure, people might say "i'm worried for your health," but they do it with respect and gentleness, like they're talking to a scared deer.
every single fucking time i talk about this, i have to be so careful with what i say, in case i offend even one skinny person. it is just true that skinny people have social capital across many cultures. there is a reason you almost never hear someone say "i wish i was fat," but you will constantly see people say "I wish i was thin." and yet inevitably some skinny person will tell me: i thought you wanted body positivity. it is the same fucking attitude as when a cis man says "when you say men have power, well, i've been bullied for being a man. i thought you believe in mental health awareness. don't you know men have a higher suicide rate?"
two things can be true at once: your experience being bullied for being thin was terrible. and people with larger bodies probably have it worse.
i have been big and small. i know many other people who have been big and small. trust what i'm about to tell you: being small is much easier. the world is kinder to you. people treat you better. honestly, this pattern occurs pretty much regardless of gender - my guy friends have confided that they'd rather be bullied for being thin than be bullied for being fat. if you're skinny, the pressure might be to gain weight, sure, but it's often to do so in a way that keeps you skinny - to gain muscle, specifically.
thinness is seen as innate and natural, genetic. whereas carrying any fat - that is a moral failing. it is assumed to be related to your character, your personality. i have seen people equate it to discipline, to hygiene. that bias is why we need to talk about this.
of course i want nobody to make a comment about anyone's bodies. and i think that hyper-thinness and an obsession with weight loss and a recession and a rise of conservative values... all of this is very fucking concerning. we are watching a return of "pro-ana" content, reframed as choice feminism, "health-conscious" behavior, "looksmaxxing". it's fucking terrifying.
William Ian Miller, The Anatomy of Disgust
art: Mac Baconai
ok enough regular fujoshi media we need to investigate how writing about men fucking is actually proxy sex between women we need a story about two womens increasingly codependent and toxic online friendship built on writing slash fiction together escalating to doing sex roleplay on instant messengers pretending to be their favorite ship to get better at writing so they can really embody the mind of the characters obviously and talking one of the women thru her divorce and their weird emotionally blurred and toxic friendship as the more talented friend keeps leveraging her popularity and control over a major fanfic site in the fandom to keep control over the rapidly deteriorating friendship and they have weird phone sex and one of them realizes they are gay for real and gets a girlfriend whos jealous of how much time shes spending online and the friendship eventually explodes and one of them goes on to get published and the other woman shows up at her book signing and its the first time they have ever seen each other face to face but only one of them knows who the other is
sexually repressed people be like “i have an ancient evil stirring within me. no one can know” and its literally just craving intimacy
When my son was about to turn two, strangers would offer condolences. There’s a collective cultural dread of toddlers, who get described more like animals than people. Kids in their "terrible twos," I was warned, are illogical, unregulated, and feral. "Good luck," people would say. "He'll grow out of it."
I'm lucky: My son is a very easygoing kid. But I remember the first tantrum he threw for me. He was standing by our front door and asked to go outside. So I opened the door and grabbed his shoes. But as soon as he stepped onto the porch, he pointed back into the house.
"Inside," he said.
"Okay," I said. I picked him up and brought him inside.
But as soon as I shut the front door, he pointed outside.
"Outside!" he said.
You know where this is going. We went back and forth, inside and outside, again and again. He got more frustrated. And I got more frustrated. Eventually he wound up straddling the threshold of our house, sobbing. When I tried to comfort him, he screamed at me. "You go wherever you want!" I said. He just got madder. I felt trapped, convinced he’d concocted the whole episode as a pretext to unleash his rage at me. It was ridiculous. I consoled myself with the thought that he was just being a toddler.
But later I kept thinking about him wailing at our front door, one foot inside, one foot outside. His misery wasn't unreasonable, or trivial, or silly. My son was experiencing the agony of wanting two things that were impossible to have at the same time. What a fundamentally human sorrow! My son wasn't being a toddler; he was being a person. Adults may not walk around howling, but that same pain rages within us. In that moment, as a father, I was powerless to solve my son's problem. I told him he could go wherever he wanted, but of course I was wrong. To be where he wanted was impossible.
Make Believe: On Telling Stories to Children by Mac Barnett
mole's thought
A gentle May evening…
So... I found this and now it keeps coming to mind. You hear about "life-changing writing advice" all the time and usually its really not—but honestly this is it man.
I'm going to try it.
I love the lawyer metaphor, because whenever I see “John knew that...” in prose writing I immediately think “how? How does he know it?” Interrogate your witnesses. Cross-examine them. Make them explain their reasoning. It pays dividends.
All of this, but also feels/felt. My editor has forbidden me from using those and it’s forced me to stretch my skills.
ok so it took me a good chunk of an hour, but i transcribed it: Image ID: screenshot of text written by Chuck Palahniuk. Text is as follows:
Writing Advice: By Chuck Palahniuk
In Six seconds, you’ll hate me. But in six months, you’ll be a better writer.
From this point forward – at least for the next half year – you may not use “thought” verbs. These include: Thinks, Knows, Understands, Realizes, Believes, Wants, Remembers, Imagines, Desires, and a hundred others you love to use.
This list should also include: Loves and Hates
And it should include: Is and Has, but we’ll get to those later.
Until some time around Christmas, you can’t write: Kenny wondered if Monica didn’t like him going out at night…”
Instead, you’ll have to Un-pack that to something like: “the mornings after Kenny had stayed out, beyond the last bus, until he’d had to bum a ride or pay for a cab and got home to find Monica faking sleep, faking because she never slept that quite, those mornings, she’d only put her own cup of coffee in the microwave. Never his.”
Instead of characters knowing anything, you must now present that allow the reader to know them. Instead of a character wanting something, you must now describe the thing so that the reader wants it.
Instead of saying: “Adam knew Gwen liked him.” You’ll have to say: “Between classes, Gwen had always leaned on his locker when he’d go to open it. She’d roll her eyes and shove off with one foot, leaving a black heel-mark on the painted metal, but she also left the smell of her perfume. The combination lock would be warm from her butt. And the next break, Gwen would be leaned there, again.”
In short, no more short cuts. Only specific sensory detail: action, smell, taste, sound, and feeling.
Typically, writers use “thought” verbs at the beginning of the paragraph (in this form, you can call them “thesis statements” and I’ll rail against those, later). In a way, they state the intention of the paragraph. And what follows, illustrates them.
For Example: “Brenda knew she’d never make the deadline, was backed up from the bridge, past the first eight or nine exits. Her cell phone battery was dead. At home, the dogs would need to go out, r there would be a mess to clean up. Plus, she’d promised to water the plants for her neighbor…”
Do you see how the opening “thesis statement” steals the thunder of what follows? Don’t do it.
If nothing else, cut the opening sentence and place it after all the others. Better yet, transplant it and change it to: Brenda would never make the deadline.
Thinking is abstract. Knowing and believing are intangible. Your story will always be stronger if you just show the physical actions and details of your characters and allow the reader to do the thinking and knowing. And loving and hating.
Don’t tell your reader: “Lisa hated Tom.”
Instead, make your case like a lawyer in court, detail by detail.
Present each piece of evidence. For example: “During roll call, in the breath after the teacher said Tom’s name, in that moment before he could answer, right then, Lisa would whisper-shout ‘Butt Wipe,’ just as Tom was saying, ‘Here’.”
One of the most common mistakes that beginning writers make is leaving their characters alone. Writing, you may be alone. Reading, your audience may be alone. But your character should spend very, very little time alone. Because a solitary character starts thinking or worrying or wondering.
For example: Waiting for the bus, Mark started to worry about how long the trip would take…”
A better break down might be: “The schedule said the buss would come by at noon, but Mark’s watch said it was already 11:57. You could see all the way down the road, as far as the Mall, and not see a bus. No doubt, the driver was parked at the turn-around, the far end of the line, taking a nap. The driver was kicked back, asleep, and Mark was going to be late. Or worse, the driver was drinking, and he’d pull up drunk and charge Mark seventy-five cents for death in a fiery traffic accident…”
A character alone must lapse into fantasy or memory, but even then you can’t use thought verbs or any of their abstract relatives.
Oh, and you can just forget about using the verbs forget and remember.
No more transitions such as: “Wanda remembered how Nelson used to brush her hair.”
Instead: “Back in their sophomore year, Nelson used to brush her hair with smooth, long strokes of his hand.”
Again, Un-pack. Don’t take short-cuts.
Better yet, get your character with another character, fast.
Get them together and get the action started. Let their actions and words show their thoughts. You – stay out of their heads.
And while you’re avoiding “thought” verbs, be very wary about sing the bland verbs “is” and “have”.
For example:
“Ann’s eyes are blue.”
“Ann has blue eyes.”
Versus:
“Ann coughed and waved one hand past her face, clearing the cigarette smoke from her eyes, blue eyes, before she smiled…”
Instead of the bland “is” and “has” statements, try burying your details of what a character has or is, in actions or gestures. At its most basic, this is showing your story instead of telling it.
And forever after, once you’ve learned to Un-pack your characters, you’ll hate the lazy writer who settles for: “Jim sat beside the telephone, wondering why Amanda didn’t call.”
Please. For now, hate me all you want, but don’t use thought verbs. After Christmas, go crazy, but I’d bet money you won’t.
(…)
For this month’s homework, pick through your writing and circle every “thought” verb. Then, find some way to eliminate it. Kill it by Un-packing it.
Then, pick through some published fiction and do the same thing. Be ruthless.
“Marty imagined fish, jumping in the moonlight…”
“Nancy recalled the way the wine tasted…”
“Larry knew he was a dead man…”
Find them. After that, find a way to re-write them. Make them stronger.
Thank you for your transcription service, @mydetheturk!
Thank you for these additional thoughts, @cerusee !
I like thinking about how the super detailed writing exercise is part of building the experience to know when to drop the extraneous and be brief.
there's a lot to bitch about re: supernatural but at least it was made in 2005 starring teen soap actors on the cw with one million episodes per season. that's real television. if they made that shit now it would be like six episodes on apple tv and glen powell would be in it. so count your fucking blessings.
the annoying thing about weightlifting is that you have to lift weights that are a little too heavy for you if you want to get stronger. and you have to push yourself outside of your comfort zone in order to keep building muscle. fucked up.
thank god this same principle doesnt apply to any other skill you want to improve at! that would really suck.
dean in a workshop plastered with posters of shirtless cowboys, making a coffin to be buried alive in. nobody does repression like him.
Art by あやこ
my guy fumbled so hard
embarrassment has good bones
When everything is embarrassing, that’s a sign that your passion is waking up, and it wants more. Your desire is a tender sprout that wants more water, more sunshine. It wants you to give up on SEEMING happy and in control and to start FEELING joy instead, even when it feels a little too big, even when it makes you cry, even when it forces you to question where you are and why.
Passion and desire and shame and sadness don’t signal that you have to change everything immediately, though. These are sensations that don’t require solutions. Your primary job, in the face of renewed lust for life, is to tolerate the shame of joy.
Because embarrassment is sometimes just a sign that you’ve never lived out in the open before, you’ve never cared more about a feeling than you care about how you’re coming across, you’ve never prioritized happiness over control.
This is why it’s good to take risks that might embarrass you regularly. Because every time you dare to embarrass yourself for the sake of who you are, you’re teaching your body to prioritize joy. You’re teaching yourself to let go of seeming better than the things you love. You’re showing yourself how to feel where you are — to soak in the cool fall air, to breathe in the moon, to love every lopsided moment of your glorious, flawed life.
Shame is a Side Effect of Desire, Heather Havrilesky
I Worried, Mary Oliver