Elois ~🦈

Writer by the week; bi-saster by the weekend | Cat-lover | Procrastinator | Just another struggling author | 22NB (he/they)

[kayserin]

Project: Archduke

An Introduction

IMAGE BY PIXABAY

Current Working Title: The Archduke Who Left Earth

Genre: Science Fiction, Romance

Themes: colonization, capitalism in the context of war, adaptation and growth, eugenics and hierarchy, self-improvement, reliance and acceptance of help, loss of home and finding of a new one.

Includes: limited omniscient 3rd person POV, female lead, ace lead, supportive love interest, slow burn, m/f pairing,

Logline: A young doctor is selected as a representant of the intergalactic Empire which just contacted Earth, and helps defeating a rebellion while finding her new place in the universe.

Status: First Draft – 13k words

Prevision: 110-125k novel; no date yet

Summary:

After a massive Calamity genetically modified most of humanity, Kira Simmons never thought her life could grow even weirder. But, when confronted with the possibility of becoming an Archduke – a chosen leader for the multiple systems in the Valeeran Empire –, Kira finds herself taken by her curiosity and traveling all the way to the Myanna System, more than 12,5 light-years away from her home planet.

But not everyone is content with the existence of this Empire, specially with their interest in natural resources in Jupiter and Mars. As a violent rebellion takes place on Earth, Kira realizes not everything is as beautiful as it seems to be, and has to decide between helping her planet and her best friend, who became the Archduke of Earth, or abandoning who she was for her new role.

Main Cast:

Kira Simmons: she/her, main character. A young doctor filled with curiosity who is known for her (lack of) expressions. Impulsive but easily adaptable, she finds herself drawn to the promise of the Empire, but is reluctant about leaving her planet behind. Having to deal with her new role and all the changes in her life, she has to understand she can’t do everything on her own.

Tayro Neerya: he/him, male lead. An Admiral of the Empire and Kira’s first friend in her new system, Tayro is an expert at finding the balance between his role and his easygoing, prankster personality, and always looks for the best for his people in Myanna. Finding himself drawn to the new Archduke, however, he has a time concealing his feelings for her sake, but is still her trusted friend and confident, the voice of reason to remind her that the weight of the world is not on her shoulders.

Ian McLogan: he/him, second male lead. Kira’s best friend and also a doctor, Ian is hot-headed and inventive, and is easily jealous and impulsive when confronted with his unrequited love. Chosen as Earth’s Archduke, he has a hard time coping with the fact his love is growing outside her boundaries, and also has to deal with the dissidence inside his own planet.

Malcolm Daniels: he/him, antagonist. Although a caring and family-centered guy, Sergeant Daniels is easily pushed around and can't find himself breaking through orders, even when they go against his moral code. Thus, when his superior notices his mild dissatisfaction with the Empire, he’s pushed in the middle of the rebellion, and notices too late he can’t back down anymore.

WIP Tags:

General Tag: #project archduke

Writing Tag: #project archduke blurbs

Character Tag: #project archduke characters

Development/Research Tag: #project archduke reference

Author’s Note: interesting enough, this story came to me as an incredibly vivid daydream (as much of my concepts do), based mainly on my love for historical/aristocracy type romances and my love for creature design. So, when the Empire and my favorite support character, General Lyee, were completely rooted in my head, I couldn’t help but decide, “uh, I need to write this”. Now, with the whole plot done, I can also rejoice with writing a character ace like me (hello, Kira!), who can enjoy a loving and understanding romance with Tayro, our supportive and respecting male lead… Who is also a cat guy (literally). I fell in love with this story and this world, and I can’t wait to bring their antics to you guys!

Tag List: @cilly-the-writer

Comment/Message me if you want to be added to tag list, and feel free to drop asks if you want to know more!

[house-ad]

[INSERT BODY COPY HERE]

[coffeebeanwriting]

How To Write Saucy Betrayals

First consider the type of betrayal you want. Will it be minor to the story or absolutely earth shattering? Will you be leaving little breadcrumbs/hints for the reader to piece together, or will it come out of no where and blindside both the reader and characters? Be careful though because the latter can feel unrealistic or make the reader feel cheated.

Here are some tips on how to write betrayals in your story:

1) Set up the betrayal in a way that isn’t obvious. Leave tiny clues, use foreshadowing, drop hints in the background. Body language and dialogue can be great places to add subtle hints. 

2) Make your readers invested in your characters. If the reader doesn’t care about the protagonist or even the betrayer, they won’t feel anything when the big deception happens.

3) The betrayer needs a motivation. Why are they betraying your protagonist?

4) It has to have an effect your protagonist. Usually the betrayer is someone close to the protagonist, so when they are deceived, it hurts like crap.

5) Do some research on the craft of lying. It can be hard for a character to keep up a mask for the entire story. Google some real-life betrayals in history, or in famous literature/movies. Study how the betrayals are hinted at and effectively revealed.

6) Play around with POV. A fun way to build tension is to have certain characters know things that others do not. Or perhaps your readers know about the betrayal-to-be before the characters do. This could put them on the edge of their seats waiting for your characters to figure it out before it’s too late.

7) Betrayal isn’t black and white. I don’t think betrayal is as simple as good and bad… it can get muddy. For example, what if the betrayer is being blackmailed? Mind controlled? Manipulated? Here are a few betrayal pathways to consider:

Evil from the start to the end, was never truly a friend.

Manipulated into betraying their friends

Wants to be on the “winning side”

Is offered gold or safety of their family for the betrayal

Blackmailed or threatened into the betrayal

They’re lesser or a “loser” in the beginning and can obtain power through this betrayal

Conflicted and stuck in between— this betrayer doesn’t know which side to pick and is constantly being tormented between the choice

The betrayer feels cheated/overlooked by the protagonist and choses to switch sides.

They’re betraying the protagonist to secretly protect them

They have no choice— literally. Mind control or magically forced

They think they’re genuinely doing the right thing

A remorseful betrayer who realizes his mistake but it’s too late, he is too far gone or the damage has already been done.

Instagram: coffeebeanwriting

📖 ☕ Official Blog: www.byzoemay.com

[netherworldpost]

(To the tune of YMCA by the Village People)

“Artist, there’s no need to over detail that background

“I said, writer, create work you enjoy

“I said, designer, make a new zine”

[intheseautumnhands]

I was trying to twist the first one into the line space and then ended up singing to myself:

Artist! You can put that pen down! I said, artist! That’s an awesome background! I said, artist! As I’m sure you have found There’s no need! to! over-detail! Writer, create work you enjoy! I said, writer! Promise it’s not a play! I said, writer! Let your words bring you joy! You don’t have! to! force the “right” ones!

Designer! Time to make a new zine! Hey, designer! Get your choice of caffeine! Hey, designer! Cause your work won’t be seen If it just! stays! inside your head!

Just wanna say that your ART! IS! OKAY! Just wanna say that your ART! IS! OKAY!

… yeah, I don’t know either, this is apparently how I wake myself up today.

[wheeloffortune-design]

Just wanna say that your ART! IS! OKAY! Just wanna say that your ART! IS! OKAY!

[kayserdraws]

Once again promoting my commissions cause I need some money!!

I currently have commissions for costume designs, creatures (including creature design) and maps, all for 5 bucks up, and you can even get them licensed for commercial use if you have your own project coming up!

If you have a couple bucks to spare, please make sure to check my store out at Fiverr, where I go by Hellfilg!

A link to my store is available in the reblogs!

[kayserdraws]

Link to my store:

https://www.fiverr.com/hellfilg

hellfilg | Profile | Fiverr

Amateur Illustrator and RPG enthusiast - I love raccoons! My works include character and creature design and custom, original maps, and I wo

[kayserin]

Shamelessly promoting my commissions on main cause I need money - if you’re a writer who needs outfit references for your characters, references for creatures or even some maps, give it a shot!

[bunjywunjy]

hm they really should put warnings on that brazilian cheesy bread stuff because I just accidentally ate an entire bag of it

guess I don't need to worry about dinner?

[kayserin]

Ah the joys of pão de queijo, freshly baked and burning through your mouth ~

[arsanatomica]

Some Orb Children for you to ponder. 

[cowperviolet]

My reverse harem ‘cerebral Late Victorian heroine and her Oxford bfs solve Dan Brown-esque mysteries and vibe across Europe’ idea and my reverse harem ‘mid-Victorian artist heroine joins a totally-not-pre-Raphaelite group, finds success and two boyfriends and a girlfriend there’ idea: fight

[inky-duchess]

SO HELPFUL 💜

Credits to @author_jgharris on Tiktok!

[garcavisconde]

It is no wonder why magical realism is such a “latin america” genre. Just take a look at literally ANY latam news/memes and you will get what I mean.

[kayserin]

I’m sorry did you say dorime???

*br summoned*

[valtsv]

idk if it has a name but the trope where a giant terrifying monster meets a little girl who instead of being scared dresses them up in pink and bows and frills and tries to make them play with her and they end up either too confused to argue or even unironically enjoying it is literally one of my favorite things

[valtsv]

this unironically brings me so much joy

[prosebypamela]

Book cover mistakes to avoid

You cover is the first impression any reader will have of your book, so it’s important you make that impression the best it can be.  These are the most common mistakes that new writers make and it can really affect you sales and put off potential readers.

1. Using too many images

Writers often use too many images to make their book look interesting, when all it does is make the cover look busy. A great, single image provides context and lets your readers know what to expect.  Keep it simple.  Less is usually more.

2. Information overload

You don’t need to tell your whole story on your cover.  Non-fiction writers are especially guilty of this, but fiction writers aren’t exempt. This goes for images and blurb.  Think of your cover like a film trailer.  You want to get readers interested, not give away your plot. 

3. Using your cover to make a point

Everyone’s work is personal, so it can be tempting to use your cover to prove the validity of your work before a reader has even picked it up. For non-fiction this might be your central argument, for fiction, this might be your moral stance. Don’t give away your point too easily - there’s nothing wrong with making a reader work for it.

4. Not designing for your audience

Your book cover isn’t about you.  It’s not about what you like, or what you want.  It’s about what will make people pick up and read your book. Covers include visual cues that let readers know what to expect. If you’ve written a romance novel but don’t like traditional romance covers, let that go. Your audience will expect it. If you create a gothic cover but your novel is a traditional romance, you’ll just end up with disappointed readers.

5. Too many colours or fonts

It’s design principles 101 - don’t mix too many colours or fonts. Typography, colour, layout; all these things will speak to a reader and let them know what they can expect. You want something easy to read that conveys the right mood for what your book is trying to say. 

6. Using copyrighted images

If you don’t get the right licences for the images you use in your covers you can leave yourself open to lawsuits or takedown notices.  Avoid the drama, and just get it right before you go to print.

7. Designing for the wrong genre

Readers have expectations for covers when it comes to choosing a genre.  Don’t make a romance cover if your book is a thriller.  It will leave readers disappointed when they don’t end up reading something in the genre they were expecting, and consequently, you’ll end up with negative reviews.

[emilyoracle]

Your English teachers lied to you.

Thought I'd post my old writing advice guides onto this blog since I deleted my old one. I hope it's helpful!

::

Listen. I respect the hell out of teachers. The vast majority of them work crazy hard and most of the time, including the times they give you well-meaning ‘writing rules,’ only want to instill good and helpful habits into you.

That doesn’t change the fact that many of these rules are stupid.

Here are my top five ‘writing rule’ pet peeves, and five rules that should be followed.

✗ Don’t write ‘said.’

Okay, I know this is common knowledge by now, but it’s so important. The concept that you can never write ‘ so-and-so said’ is hurting novice writers’ narratives. Said is invisible. Said is powerful. Said is transformable. If every quote ends in a strong synonym, it is distracting. Sometimes, in an established repartee, quotes don’t need to be tagged at all. Or an adverb following ‘said’ might be better for the narrative than any single verb.

Eg. // “I hate the rain,” grumbled David.

“I love it,” Claire announced.

“You love everything,” he muttered.

“Including you!” she giggled.

versus.

“I hate the rain,” grumbled David.

“I love it,” said Claire.

“You love everything,” he said impatiently.

“Including you!”

✓ Don’t write ‘something.’

Cold hard truth, baby. ‘Something’ is a draft word. It’s what you write when you want to think of a replacement. I cringe when I see it in a sentence that would have been improved tenfold by a specific noun or descriptive phrase in its place. There are times when ‘something’ works or is the only option, but experiment by replacing that word with more description before deciding it’s necessary to keep.

Eg. // He pulled something shiny from his pocket. She craned her neck to see what it was. A metal flask. versus. A flash of light caught the metal he pulled from his pocket. She craned her neck to see what it was. A drinking flask.

-

✗ Avoid adverbs.

This is true and false, but I’ll address the false part first. The concept that you can’t use adverbs at all is ridiculous. Don’t blindly (!) replace every adverb in your prose with a single verb because someone said you should. You want whatever you are writing to flow well and to deliver the best impact or imagery. Sometimes that means adverbs. Or you might want the verb to be discreet (such as when using ‘said’) but still want to invoke emotion. That also means adverbs.

Eg. // "Don't do that!" she spluttered, panicked by the urgency of the situation. versus. "Don't do that!" she said frantically, panicked by the urgency of the situation.

✓ Use strong verbs. At least consider them.

Verbs make the world go ‘round, people. Most of the time, a strong verb will make your writing flow well and deliver the best impact or imagery. Weigh a strong verb against an adverb + weaker verb and decide the one you want to keep in a scene. Don’t just stick with whichever you wrote first because you grew attached to the sentence.

Eg. // She held up her blood-slicked sword proudly, her other fist raised triumphantly. versus. She thrust her blood-slicked sword into the air, her other fist clenched high in triumph.

-

✗ Don’t use a thesaurus.

I. HATE. This rule. I had an English teacher in middle school who marked any words she thought you had looked up as wrong. As a young reader with a large vocabulary, I was always needing to prove that I hadn’t just picked a random synonym from a thesaurus, that I knew and deliberately chose those words. (That sentence has a great example of a necessary adverb! Get BENT Mrs E. (She also hated adverbs.)) This is the same idiotic concept as telling artists not to use reference images. Use a thesaurus if a certain word is failing you or you hate every word you’ve come up with yourself. There’s nothing bad or shameful about it.

Eg. // There are no examples for this. I’m not sure how I would even do that. Insert stock photo of someone perusing a thesaurus here?

✓ Don’t use words you aren’t comfortable with.

Now, when you search the great wide web for a synonym to a word and then choose whichever one sounds nice because hey, the internet said it was interchangeable, so it must be! … Yeah. Don’t do that.

I use a thesaurus to find words that I can’t think of in the moment but they are always ones I still know. Every word has a subtle (or not so subtle) connotation that you need familiarity with before deciding it is the perfect replacement. Know your words before you start playing Mix n Match.

Eg. // Amusement in the profession puts transcendence in the performance. (Utter nonsense, written by me and thesaurus.com) versus. Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work. (Inspiring quote, written by Aristotle)

-

✗ Don’t end sentences with a preposition.

Whoever made up this rule is an elitist hack. (I just googled it, and supposedly it began with a bunch of 17th century scholars who thought English should have Latin’s grammar, so. Yeah. Elitist hacks.) Ending sentences in prepositions sounds wayyyyy more natural than the alternative. If you don’t want to sound stilted, beat this rule into the dirt.

Eg. // They didn’t know of what she was capable. versus. They didn’t know what she was capable of.

✓ Be conscientious of your sentence construction.

A lot of grammar rules are bogus. Not ending a sentence with a preposition, not starting a sentence with a conjunction, not laying face down on the floor and screeching… Oh, right, that latter one isn’t a rule, it’s just what you want to do when you have to think about grammar.

But, regardless of bogus grammar rules, you need to put thought into your sentence construction. Editing (not writing) is the best time to do this. That’s when you can make sure the words flow together naturally as an individual sentence, as part of a paragraph, and within the chapter as a whole.

Another common construction faux pas that I see is disregarding the sequence of events because you believe it will have greater impact. In reality, if you avoid putting your narration out of order, it usually results in stronger sentences.

Eg. // "Tell me it's not true!" He stood in the doorway after bursting into Kyle's room, panting from his sprint up the stairs. versus. He sprinted up the stairs two at a time and burst into Kyle's room without knocking. "Tell me it's not true!" he demanded breathlessly.

-

✗ If you break writing rules you’re a bad writer.

If anyone tries to convince you of this, kick them in the neck. (You heard it here folks, kick your DANG TEACHERS IN THE NECK.) (Not really, please don’t.) (If you do, though, don’t say that I encouraged it.) (I’m not encouraging it, I just want to make that clear. Please be nice to your teachers, they have hard jobs.)

Rules were made to be broken. You just need to know the rules in the first place in order to decide to break them, so it’s never a bad thing to educate yourself on general writing advice. Still, there is a fine line between creative liberty and bad writing, and sometimes a famous book or author turns the latter into the former. Know your stuff, but don’t be afraid to throw your stuff into the fire and watch it burn. (Figuratively. Don’t literally throw your possessions into fire, that’s irresponsible on so many levels.) (A lot of parentheses in this rule rant.) (Now that’s just bad writing.)

✓ Take writing rules and advice with a grain of salt, but don’t ignore them.

As a novice writer, or even an experienced one, it is hard to differentiate between which rules work best in your own prose. You may only realize it in hindsight. That doesn’t mean you should ignore every piece of writing advice or dismiss criticism of your work. Think critically about your own style, read books you enjoy and think about their styles, and deliberate– don’t dismiss. Maybe your writing style requires no dangling prepositions or never using an adverb. That’s your decision to make. Just… don’t make it because you’re too stubborn to see how you can improve.

-

That’s all I’ve got! Do you have any pet peeves about common writing advice? Feel free to reblog and add your own!

Don’t forget to write a sentence of your story today! Thanks for reading~

[thechekhov]

This is such a specific pet peeve that I know is petty but

As a linguistics major who is also trilingual and has real life experience code-switching (changing from one language to another) mid-sentence on the daily, one of the BIGGEST bothers to me in fanfics is when it happens unnaturally. 

I get that we all think ‘wow, a character suddenly speaking in another language is sexy ;)’ but the truth is, there are natural AND also really awkward and unnatural ways to codeswitch, and unless you have first-hand experience, there is a high risk that your sexy insertion of a foreign word in the middle of a sentence is actually making someone who speaks that language natively cringe just a little bit.

And - I want to make this clear - that’s not your fault! It’s a difficult thing to write well. 

But I beg you, if you are using a REAL language in your fanfics (not a made-up conlang), please find a native speaker to check your work, don’t just pick random words and don’t just insert them into the slot where the English word would go. 

[thechekhov]

Some people are wondering about how to go about doing it ‘the right way’ in the comments, so I will preface it first with:

There is no singular ‘right’ way to do this! Even people who speak the same language will speak differently. Dialects, personal verbal habits, etc, all exist! So naturally this can be stretched. 

However, there are typically more ‘natural’ patterns of when people codeswitch - flip from one language to another. 

✪ Mutual bilingualism ✪

Situation: Two or more people both share a second language, aside from the ‘lingua franca’ 

Most of the time, if you are both speaking, you will pick a language and stick to it. Not because it’s impossible - just because it’s easier. In most cases, it takes more braincells to switch between languages than it does to continue in the same language. (*Remember this later, this is important.)

However, a common thing that happens is that one person will speak one language, and another will use the second one. 

If they both mutually understand one another, this is not an issue, and a comfortable way to converse. This happens often with bilingual kids who talk to their parents. They may speak in English to their parent, who will respond in another language. 

For example, conversations between my mother and I frequently take this format:

Text: A conversation between two people. The one on the left side of the screen is speaking in Russian. The right side is answering in English.

However:

When code-switching does happen, it happens most often:

at a paragraph level (starting a new topic in a different language)

at the sentence level (starting a new sentence in a different language)

at the clause level (switching mid-sentence, but after a comma)

at a word level (BUT only in specific cases! More on this below.)

in that order of frequency. 

For example, THIS type of codeswitching:

Text: (In English:) “There’s no snow, so we’re all good! I’m ready whenever you are” (New line, in Japanese:) “When you’re finished, I’ll be on the left side right outside that same exit.”

is proportionately more common than THIS:

Text: (In Japanese, except the bolded parts) “Does that sort of meme exist?” “Huh? Oh… no, wait. Why ‘Amazing Grace’?”

“But wait! What about words? Don’t people constantly insert words from foreign languages into their speech?”

Sure, they do. This happens all the time. 

Under the right circumstances. 

For example:

When you are trying to name a specific place or location which would not have an immediate translation

When you are a using a cultural word specific to a certain language (such as an artifact that only exists for one culture, or a specific holiday which doesn’t have an immediate translation into Common). 

When you are swearing, and you have a strong preference for a swearword in one language

When you are specifically teaching someone a word, or explaining a word from one language

Example: If I want to tell my mom I’m playing DnD with friends, so I can’t call her right now, I will say ‘DnD’ in English, because there isn’t any other way to say it.

Text: “(In Russian) Can I call in 5 minutes?” “Can we do it tomorrow? I’m playing (in English) DnD (in Russian) right now.” “Gotcha.”

HOWEVER, of course weirder examples exist. 

The prime ones are when you can’t remember a specific word in one language, and HAVE to dip into the reserves of the other. This happens to me constantly. 

Text: In russian, this says “I dunno, it just seemed very….. sudden. lol” - the word ‘sudden’ is not the Russian word for ‘sudden’. It’s just the English word ‘sudden’ transliterated into cyrillic, because I blanked for a moment and forgot how to speak.

OR when a you just pepper in a specific word because the ones in English will not convey the message properly:

Text: “How’s [NAME REDACTED]?” Reply: “(In Japanese) Otsukaresama!” which translates loosely to ‘hey, you worked hard, you deserve a break, etc’ but doesn’t have a direct translation into English. “He’s good. Seems (in Japanese) genki.” Again, the ‘genki’ here is a specific mood that I associate with that word, and felt couldn’t be replaced with the English equivalent.

Of course, this is somewhat terrible in showing you SPEECH patterns, because texting and speech are quite different. 

But the points you need to take away is: 

Very few people will codeswitch in the middle of the sentence without a good reason to do so. If you have a character who is trying to confess their love, unfortunately it IS unrealistic to have them go

“And I…. must confess that… Я люблю тебя.”

It looks cool, but it’s not actually intuitive. Of course, anyone CAN do it. But it has to be a very conscious choice. No one would do that on accident. It’s not actually easier than simply staying in one language and continuing to finish “I love you.” 

Similarly, most people DON’T drop in and out of languages several times in one sentence. 

It’s just not useful, and it actually takes more brainpower to do so. 

(To those of you yelling: But I do that! - I ask - but how OFTEN? Sure, I’ve also weirded up my language. Sometimes, my mom and I make Frankenstein sentences which are REALLY weird. But it’s not a constant thing. It’s usually a one-off.)

Sorry, these are a a real bitch to transcribe, but suffice it to say that this is an English-Russian soup.)

….

These are prime examples. They absolutely DO happen— (

….

wait for it…

…

….

WHEN BOTH SPEAKERS NATIVELY SPEAK THE SAME TWO LANGUAGES.

This brings me to a very important point:

If your character, who is bilingual, is speaking to another character, who would NOT understand them…………….. there’s a good chance they’re being a bit of an asshole.

Look, here’s the thing.

I live with my partner, who speaks Japanese and English fluently. I also speak Japanese at a conversational level, and English fluently. 

I also speak Russian at a native level. He barely knows much of it at all.

The amount of times I insert random Russian phrases into my conversations with my partner?

Once a month. Tops. 

(Once, I tried to teach him how to say ‘I love you’ - [ Я тебя люблю ] in Russian, and he mispronounced it as [ Я тебя убью ] ‘I’ll kill you’ and it has been a meme in our household ever since. Shadowgast fans who write Essek speaking Russian, I give you this anecdote freely. Do with it what you will. It’s yours.)

It’s not actually conducive to conversations, and it’s not as natural as some fanfics might have you believe. And even in the throws of passion, it’s not really that easy. If you and your partner both know a common language, you won’t actually deviate from it unless you have a good reason. Such as, if you want to teach someone to say something in that language! 

…..and their pronunciation will likely be silly! (Nothing wrong with that.)

I have a complicated answer to this:

The truth is, this greatly depends on the person. 

So I know that as soon as I say my own opinion, I will have 50 people descend on me in rage, protesting the opposite. 

BUT - personally, I think petnames in a foreign language have to do the following things:

they have to be short enough to be usable. Long-ass nicknames in a foreign language will be clunky in the middle of the sentence, even more so than native-language nicknames

they have to make sense for the age/relationship/culture of the characters. 

Russian, for example, has thousands of petnames. But there are some that scream ‘I’m your grandmother!’ and some which have very romantic connotations. You have to actually ask native Russians if it works or not. 

Also - keep in mind that OVERUSING a petname is a thing! If you’re constantly using that word, every other sentence, it might become tedious to go back and forth between the pronunciation of one language and then back into another. If I call my Japanese partner a petname which has a specific set of sounds unique to Russian, my brain has to do the legwork of switching gears back into Japanese or English pronunciation. That takes braincells! Which I do not have!

However, that’s a problem that’s more unique to languages which are completely dissimilar in grammar and phonology. I’ve heard that it’s easier between languages which are more closely related, such as German and English, or Spanish and English. 

BUT for that I turn it over to you, fellow bye-linguals and try-linguals. 

What do we think? Petnames in our native languages for our partners - yay or nay?

[meichenxi]

Absolutely excellent post. I hope it’s ok to add a few things!

It was mentioned above that switching at the level of the word or phrase is relatively rare: if you are going to write this at all, please be aware that when code-switching will happen is also fairly clearly linguistically defined. It’s not random.

At a lower than sentence level - so phrase, or word - code-switching happens most often between certain syntactic groups. You can think of these as like…mini parts of the sentence that can’t be separated without making the sentence meaningless. For example the sentence ‘I asked if he had already left’ can be separated broadly into [I asked] and [if he had already left]. Similarly, a sentence like ‘I fed the big white cat’ can be separated into [I fed] and [the big white cat]. ‘The’ is such a close part of the language that no bilingual would ever say ‘the große weiße Katze’ (big white cat). That’s just…no. 

It’s more complex than that, but for our purposes that’s enough.

Codeswitching at such a low level, as OP pointed out, is still fairly rare. BUT if characters do it at all, they will OVERWHELMINGLY choose to keep syntactic groups in one language and switch to the other language for the next. What does this mean? I’ll use English and German to demonstrate because they’re the languages I’m most familiar with (and have lived in multilingual environments with), and because the sentence structures are different enough that it proves my point. 

It still sounds a bit weird (like OP said. this kind of switching isn’t hugely common), but a sentence like

1) ich weiß aber nicht, if he already left (I don’t know if he already left)

would be MUCH more likely than a sentence like

2) ich do know nicht, ob he schon left hat (I don’t know if he already left)

That second sentence is a NIGHTMARE. It’s IMPOSSIBLE. No bilingual person would ever say that. Why? Because they’re breaking up the syntactic groups we talked about. ‘I’ belongs very closely to the verb; the negative belongs to the verb. People might separate them by mistake in what we call ‘online errors’ in the same way that native speakers sometimes make mistakes, but there have been extensive linguistics studies undertaken that all prove that generally speaking, code-switchers have pretty tight control over their languages. Even a sentence like the first one is unlikely. 

This brings me on to my second point. Codeswitching only occurs when it is grammatically permissible to do so. This means that, in practice, some types of code switching are more possible between certain language pairs (Hindi to Marathi would be a language pair; German-English, Russian-Turkish, Mandarin-Cantonese etc - all language pairs) than others, depending on what the grammar of both languages allows. Let’s look at this again with the example of German. 

German’s word order is different from English’s in quite a lot of ways. In main clauses the conjugated verb must be in second position in the sentence, and the non-conjugated verb (so the infinitive or the past participle) must be at the end. Like this:

3a) Gestern bin ich in die Stadt gegangen (yesterday am I in the city gone)

or this:

3b) Heute muss ich meine Hausaufgaben machen (today must I my homework do)

And in subordinate clauses - with words like ‘because’, ‘if’, ‘who’ etc - the word order is different again: the conjugated verb moves from second position to the very end of the sentence. So like this:

4a) …. weil ich gestern in die Stadt gegangen bin (because I yesterday in the city go am)

or this:

4b) ….weil ich heute meine Hausaufgaben machen muss (because I today my homework do must)

So what does this mean for code switching? In practice, it means that if I want to say a sentence like ‘I have to read this book’, the rules for English and German grammar come into conflict. English requires ‘to read’ to come after ‘have’ - but German requires ‘to read’ to go at the end of the sentence. Any attempt to code switch in the middle of that sentence is going to produce something ungrammatical for both languages - and so, generally speaking, German-English bilinguals just won’t do it. If they code-switch at all between clauses in a sentence, it will be in situations like 1) above - here there is a full main clause in German, and then a full subordinate clause in English. Both clauses are separate enough that they can follow their own grammatical rules without infringing upon the other language. 

A language like Spanish, however, is much more similar to English in terms of word order. So - and again, please let me stress that this is still not common - a Spanish-English bilingual could conceivably produce a sentence like:

5) I have to leer el libro (I have to read the book)

It’s still weird. Most people still won’t do it. But it is technically possible in a way the German-English equivalent wouldn’t be. This is worth bearing in mind: the more similar two languages are in terms of word order and grammar, and the less strict their word order is, the more possible code-switching at lower levels may be. 

But to be honest? If you’re going to write code-switching between languages at the level of the phrase rather than the sentence, my advice is: unless you already speak these languages to a decent level, or unless you’re someone with a pretty decent understanding of clause structure and the grammar of various languages….just…don’t. It’s hard. There’s a lot you can fuck up. It will annoy actually bilingual readers of your fic. And like we’ve said multiple times, it’s really not as common as you might think - it takes a lot of brain power. 

Ok. I’ve mentioned before living in an environment where I code-switched frequently, but I’m not a native German speaker. So let’s talk about which kinds of environments facilitate code-switching in non-natives as well!

First, though, I want to stress the following: that it’s remarkably difficult to change the language or languages you interact with people over a long period of time. Most bilinguals will probably agree: if you are used to speaking to someone in language B, even if two people speak the same language A, unless they are discussing specific cultural things or phenomena that don’t translate well into language B, they will pretty much always stick to language B. You end up associating languages with people, and it’s surprisingly hard to change once you’ve started. 

This crucially does not actually depend on your ability in the language. Even if you’re an intermediate speaker, if you have only ever spoken to your friend in their native language, it will feel very, VERY strange to switch to your native language - even if technically it should be easier for you. This is important when writing bilingual families: often parents will speak to their children in one language and the children may respond in another, but sometimes one or both parents may choose the language of the community to speak to their children in. This is particularly common when the heritage language is seen as ‘not valuable’ in some way, or the parents fear that it will slow their children’s development. Which is bollocks, by the way, for anybody curious. 

So let’s say we have Cantonese speaking parents in an English speaking country; they may speak Cantonese between themselves, and choose to speak English to the children even though it’s not their first language. (Equally, they may speak to the children in Cantonese and the children reply in English - it will depend on the family in question.) For the parents, changing to speaking to children in Cantonese, even if it’s their native language, could feel extremely strange. The children might find it likewise odd.

Code-switching happens most frequently when both or all languages are relatively active. This means that you use both languages often in your daily life - and once again, this is not restricted to native speakers. Code-switching would be expected and very common somewhere like the UN, where all workers must be fluent in French and English to business level - no matter whether you are a native speaker of one, or both, or none. If both languages are extremely active, it’s possible that even speakers who are native speakers of the same language will still switch into the other language on occasion, especially if it’s within a certain domain. 

A domain is a certain semantic area of language: so work, or school, or home for example. Domain-based code switching is very common - that means that certain things are spoken about in one language, and other things in the other. For example: a Turkish speaking family living in Germany with bilingual children might speak exclusively Turkish at home, but switch to German to discuss schoolwork or other things that are done exclusively in German. This is part of the reason that assessing fluency in heritage languages is difficult, because - just because somebody can chat casually with their family in Arabic doesn’t mean they can discuss what they’re studying at university, when their university studies are in French.

Let me give a few different situations from my own life where I have experienced code-switching to illustrate some of the points a bit more clearly: 

1) I am friends with a German scientist named Stefan. Me and Stefan met in China, and spoke English even though his English was worse than my German, because there were other people around who didn’t speak German. At first we would speak in German when we were alone. We then ended up going to the same university; as his English got better and everything we discussed (the domain of language) was mostly about university stuff, which is conducted in English, we switched to speaking English essentially 100% of the time. We have since travelled to Germany and Austria together, and still speak English together. The only exception is when we meet his friends and family. It would feel extremely weird to speak German to him now even casually - we never code-switch. 

2) When I worked in Germany, I lived in a flat with two German women and a Kenyan man called Wallis. Wallis spoke English natively and German to an advanced level. Because our work was 100% in German and our flatmates spoke to us in German, we also spoke to each other in German maybe 70% of the time even when we were alone - despite the fact that we were both native English speakers. For us code-switching was extremely common though there was a preference for German, and it felt strange to speak entirely in either language. 

3) My father had a French partner for many years; he speaks French to an advanced level, and at the time his partner spoke English to an intermediate level. All of her family were French speakers and didn’t speak English well; my brother speaks not a single word of French. At the time my French was intermediate. When we were all together, we all spoke French (rip to my brother). When me and my dad’s partner were together, I would speak to her in English (easier for me) and she would speak to me in French (easier for her). When it was me, my dad and his partner we would also all speak French, because when me and my dad spoke English it was too quick for her to understand. We never really code-switched; I would speak entirely in English to her (if we were on our own) or entirely in French (if we were in company). 

4) My partner speaks English natively and has spoken Irish non-natively to a high level all her life; my Irish is extremely limited. We both speak to each other in English, obviously, pretty much 100% of the time. But we often use particular endearments in Irish - I often tell her I love her in Irish, or that she is beautiful, and vice versa. Sometimes when she is particularly overwhelmed she speaks a bit in Irish, even though she knows I don’t understand, before switching to English. I sometimes do the same with German. It helps us collect our thoughts. For some reason this works for us: the endearments for me feel more distant, and is therefore easier to say (I am VERY shy about things like that), and for her it feels even more meaningful. 

You can see that pretty much every social situation is very different. It also depends hugely on the language situation of the country in question, the social status of your characters, the background of what code-switching means; if your characters are middle class from northern India, they will likely mix Hindi and English to an extremely high degree, to a way that characters who are not middle class, even if they speak English to an extent, likely will not. It’s a sign of being in the in-group; it’s a sign of prestige. Not all bilinguals are alike: a character who has Hindi as a heritage language will not mix it with English in exactly the same way as a middle class bilingual speaker in India who uses both languages at work, which will not be the same as two non-Hindi speakers who use Hindi in their workplace, which will not be the same as a non-Hindi speaker who learners Hindi for their partner….and so on. You get the picture. 

Language is an act of identity; code-switching, likewise, is an act of identity. Done poorly, and it risks insulting and alienating the groups of people you are trying to write about potentially as an outsider. Do your research, and use it well - when done properly, code-switching can tell us a lot about two characters and their relationship, and used as an excellent tool for characterisation. 

Let me know if you have any questions or if anything I said isn’t clear!

[kayserin]

Special shout out to these tags cause that’s something that happens a lot for me and my bro (both Portuguese-English bilingual)

[nitewrighter]

“The prince just fell in love with Cinderella because of her looks!”

Wrong. Okay, picture this–

So there’s the prince, okay? He’s like, smack dab in the center of the ballroom, and he is like, horrifically aware that this whole ball thing is a result of his dad falling into a panic about the royal lineage or whatever and he’s stuck listening to highborn girl after highborn girl, all lined up, introducing themselves like, “Oh yeah my family’s been a longtime supporter of the crown, and I think you’re cute, *cough* I’ve been told I have child-bearing hips *cough* Who said that? Anyway–” and Princey boy is just smiling through it, he has been the center of attention for entirely too long, he misses his emotional support horse, and is just internally like “Someone please kill me now.” And then… he sees her–This isn’t a love at first sight thing, this is a ‘what the hell is going on over there’ thing, because this girl has not gotten into the Debutante line for a solid 45 minutes. 

She’s just at the hors d’oeuvres table going HAM on the prosciutto-wrapped asparagus, and like, she’s polite about it, she’s happy to move aside for other people grabbing punch and canapes (and she’s really so sweet with the wait staff, it’s kind of cute because they’re like… definitely not used to being acknowledged) but it’s like, “Damn girl, did you not eat today?” and then the prince is kind of stuck with the uncomfortable thought of ‘how many girls starved themselves to fit into a corset for this.’ And then the Prince realizes he’s missed the past 4 Debutante introductions because he’s watching Mystery girl hork down crab rangoons. So he’s like, “Excuse me” and manages to break free from the never-ending parade of girls who will hop on his dick for status.

 And as he’s approaching Mystery Girl, it’s kind of hitting him that something’s not quite natural about her. Not fake, but not quite real. But at the same time this whole evening’s been just a whole circus of people acting fake as hell, so like, someone seeming a little off doesn’t seem bad, necessarily. And he sidles up to her like, “Hi,” and she’s like, “Oh–hey, have you tried the tapenade?” and she points to one of the plates, and at this point, he could hit her with the “You don’t know who I am, do you?” deal or the “Very funny, I see your play” deal, but at this point it occurs to him that, no, he hasn’t had anything to eat throughout this whole damn ball, partially because of being stuck in the debutante parade, partially because of nerves, and there’s something so disarming about the question that he grabs a crostini and she still seems so food-focused that it doesn’t seem possible that this is a play. So they both grab little plates and ditch the party.

She pretty much clears her plate in under two minutes and then has half of his plate, he’s cool with it, mostly he’s just absolutely fascinated listening to her.

See here’s the thing about Cinderella:

1. She doesn’t know he’s the prince. Like yeah, he’s been at the center of the room, but she’s kind of spent half the party eagerly looking around everywhere she’s allowed to go (”Have you seen rose garden? Have you seen the solarium??” further confirmation that she doesn’t know who she’s talking to) and the other half stuffing her face with food. 

2. She assumes she’s never going to see anyone here tonight again, and no one recognizes her, so she has no filter.

So she’s just talking about whatever with this guy. He seems cool. She talks about her friends, who are rats. She makes little outfits for them. Sometimes they bring her little gifts. She is already the coolest person the prince has ever met because of this. She pretty much offhandedly talks about whatever is fucked up about the kingdom that would take his advisors two hours of hemming and hawing and watering down to address. She just says it like it’s nothing, just funky little things she’s observed, and again, she’s not aware that he’s the prince, but it’s still pretty damn bold to bring up at a literal royal ball.

She… seems to have the majority of graces that lots of girls from Respectable Families™ have, but there’s something strange about it, something simultaneously broken and hardened, like the way you can see where ice has thawed and re-frozen. Also the way she talks about her family, and the way she avoids talking about her family– is raising several red flags, not in the “Oh this is another person trying to take advantage of me” sense, but in the “Oh fuck, something’s gone really wrong and you need help” sense and also lowkey a ‘damn is she even getting fed?’ sense. But he can’t say, ‘Hey, that’s not fucking normal for people to say that to you or treat you that way. We need to get you out of there,’ without sounding crazy himself, so for now, he’s just going to chill, make sure she’s comfortable, and keep enjoying the evening. She’s somehow befriended like 4 of the waitstaff so they’re willing to cover for them while they disappear for a little bit, and they get plenty of time to talk, but eventually it hits her that she hasn’t danced yet and she’s like “Come on! I bet we can make the prince jealous!” and he just bursts out laughing at that like “hell yeah, let’s make the prince jealous. He’s a real asshole.” Like clearly she’s having a good time, so who is he to make it weird? So they head back to the ballroom and they dance. And our girl, Mystery Girl, Cinderella, while they’re dancing, becomes acutely aware that everyone is staring. That doesn’t seem quite right. Like, yeah she’s hot, she knows she’s hot, but at least a good third of the party should still be focused on the prince, right? Where is that guy, anyway?

Oh.

Oh wait.

Oh shit.

And Princey Boy actually picks up on her realization and they whisper argue for like 3 minutes. “Why didn’t you tell me?! Now I feel like a goddamn idiot!” “I dunno it was nice being treated like a normal person” “Well me treating you like a normal person makes me a goddamn felon or something did you consider that?!” “Hey–Hey–it’s cool–you’re cool–I think you’re amazing, and if anyone says shit about you, I can shut it down.” “Well I don’t like that! That’s fucked up!” “I agree. It is fucked up, but I believe in you, and I think you should have a chance, and I’m here to back you up. I know power is fucked up right now. I know. But are you cool with working with me to change that?” And our girl Cindy pauses on that for a couple seconds, because.. she’s just spent hours with this guy and like.. she knows he’s a good guy, she knows he means well, so she’s like, “I don’t know how long I can actually work with you.” and the prince is like “Look, I know your home situation is complicated right now, but I really think we can–”

And then the bell starts ringing.

It’s midnight.

And then she takes off in a panic, and our prince just met the coolest person ever, and like, he’s pretty sure whatever situation they’re headed back to is fucked up, and all he’s got going to find her is a shoe. A shoe. 

[sleepeys]

man FUCK stories where the protagonist literally spends all of their time climbing and killing their way through what's basically just a tower of goons in episode form to get to Mr. Big but when they get to Mr. Big they don't fuCKING KILL HIM BECAUSE "its not the right thing to do 😔" man FUCK you KICK HIS ASS

[sleepeys]

give me a hero who spares the working class and kills billionaires <3 and like child murderers i guess

[hongjoongpresent]

[ID: A reply from notpukichosadly that reads: "I want to see a hero specifically only deal non-permanent damage to the underlings then rip the spine out the villain". /end ID]

[fieldbears]

More fantasy/sci-fi world that employ the Bumbling Foreigner Exception, please.

We have all seen the plot device: ‘oh you shared a plate of space-figs with her?? That was a proposal, you’re engaged now!’ Or, for conflict, ‘what you have done is a grave insult in these lands, and can only be settled with a duel to the death!’ Please give me savvy villages full of people who understand the protagonist Isn’t From Around Here and doesn’t know the rules.

New guy walked into the temple without cleansing himself? No, of course we don’t imprison him, it’s not an insult if there’s no intention behind it! Just yank him out of there and show him where the bathing pools are. Have him pick some blooms to leave at the altar as apology. Now he knows.

New guy smacked a royal guard’s shoulder after telling a joke? Okay, okay, calm down, explain to him that touching that guard is read as an insult to his ability to protect the king. Did he mean to imply that? No? He apologized and won’t do it again? Perfect, fixed. …he wants to know if his joke was funny, though? Yeah, that tracks.

New guy offered the prince a bite of his otherworldly ‘candied bar’ before solstice dinner had been served? No way the prince is going to take that as a romantic proposition, that would be ridiculous. (He did take some of the ‘Kat Kit’ though, and it was apparently very good.)

[kayserin]

Okay now imagine the Bumbling Foreigner got acquainted in their costumes and still! keeps on doing romantic/courting behaviors towards a prince who’s absolutely as smitten and driven mad by how they seemingly don’t take the hint that prince is losing their damn mind thinking his crush keeps accidentally flirting with him!!!!

Until they see Bumbling Foreigner swiftly reject a similar act from another person and explain they don’t feel the same and realize A, they’re perfectly aware of the connotations of their behavior, B, they’re doing it INTENTIONALLY and C, oh my god he’s such a fucking mess

And then they kiss