haunt me, then

aurora. twenties. she/her

[scullys]

PRACTICAL MAGIC | 1998 Dir. Griffin Dunne

[secret-smut-sideblog]

love when fictional men are so devoted to their partner it makes them dangerous and insane. very slutty behavior keep it up king

[reginasphalanges]

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT 1.01 Pilot

[es0teric0]

a knife? are you flirting with me

[kosmogrl]

[forgotaboutnoodle]

RIP gideon nav you would have loved clicking tongs while you barbecued

[camilicy]

Full page ✨

[anistarrose]

hyperfixating on a fictional woman who went underdeveloped in canon is literally FUN and the 80-90% of fandom people who only do the same for background character men have no idea of the degree to which they are fucking missing out

[anistarrose]

no tumblr i have faith that this post will be found by the enlightened 10-20 percent

[ID from alt: the "post without tags" pop up. End ID.]

[anistarrose]

hour 1 of thinking about an underdeveloped woman: idk it would've been nice if she had more screentime

hour 100 of thinking about an underdeveloped woman: ok but despite having only eight lines of dialogue she is literally THE most interesting nuanced and tragic character in the entire series and these writers had no idea what they even had. how is no one else seeing this it's literally so objectively obvious

[aonkeeper4]

me whenm i am. Prougraming on my Computer

[heyitsmelinguini]

that’s mozilla herself

[foxpost-generator]

it fucken wimdows

[wafflewarrior111]

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.

[missroserose]

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.

[heck-in-a-handbasket]

All of this, but also feels/felt. My editor has forbidden me from using those and it’s forced me to stretch my skills.

[ineedthesons]

This is your "show not tell" advice explained!

[tarysande]

Editor here.

First, let me preface this with something very important: you can treat all of this advice as SECOND-DRAFT ADVICE. It is so much easier to rewrite this kind of stuff once you have words on the page. Telling yourself the first draft is totally appropriate and acceptable.

What we’re talking about here are FILTER WORDS (and to some degree verbs of being). Yes, “thought” words are included. But so are “heard, saw, looked, tasted, smelled” etc.—most words having to do with the senses.

This isn’t black and white advice; sometimes you’ll use these words and that’s okay. They’re not WRONG. They’re just weaker. And they’re weaker because they create distance between the reader and the experience of the character.*

If you want your reader to feel like they’re experiencing the story right alongside the character, you want to cut down on filter words.

*This is particularly important with first person and close third POVs. The reader always knows whose eyes they’re seeing through and thoughts they’re privy to. So you don’t need to tell them “I saw X.” Or “I heard X.” Or “I thought Y.” You can just jump into the action/observation as it’s happening.

This is also where you want to pay attention to verbs of being.

“It was rainy.” Versus: “The rain pounded against the roof.” Or “The rain howled like an injured animal.” Or “The rain tapped against the window like an anxious lover.” All of these are inviting the reader deeper into the experience of the story by using stronger verbs and similes. And, at the same time, they stir feelings (instead of TELLING feelings). And feelings keep your reader engaged. Engaged readers keep turning pages; engaged readers become FANS.

[the-haiku-bot]

This is also where

you want to pay attention

to verbs of being.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

[defilerwyrm]

The most valuable advice that Author Ex gave me through the years that we wrote together was this: the problem with all these filter words is that they create distance in the POV.

That means that when you read a line like

John saw that the curtains were open.

It immediately takes you OUT of the character's perspective and instead tells you what they experience as a secondhand observation.

You don't have to get fancy or purple with how you rephrase things like this. Not everything needs a ton of breathing room.

You wanna know what's perfectly impactful while keeping a tight POV?

The curtains were open.

Simple as that.

[porcupine-girl]

What I always love about this every time it crosses my dash is that while it's good advice, it's not actually framed as advice. It's framed as a time-limited challenge. That's very different!

It's not saying "never use these words again." It's saying "give this a try, a really hardcore try, just for a little while (it says six months but obviously you can adjust that), and see what happens." Which is so much more useful, because it's framing it as a learning experience.

If you do this, for six months or two months or one full story or whatever, at the end of that time you'll have a better understanding of when these words are and aren't necessary and when and how to use them to get the specific effect you want - because like defilerwyrm says, they create distance, and maybe sometimes you want that!

So much writing advice falls flat because you can always think of an exception that allows you to ignore the rule. But a writing challenge gives you a chance to explore new territory and see how it works.

[limerencs]

vivienne westwood spring 2011

[treecitysessions]

I’m deeply nostalgic for the mid 2010s but not in the way many others seem to be… They’ll be on TikTok like remember when we were all listening to The Chainsmokers and watching Jake Paul… actually girl I don’t

[petaltexturedskies]

Virginia Woolf, The Years

[bobdylanyaoi]

all weapons formed against bisexual women shall not prosper

[marinella-ela]

[wholeheartedsuggestions]

happy pride to everyone in the community!! happy pride to those who are out, those who are not, those who aren’t sure of their identity yet, those who don’t use labels, those who don’t feel seen, etc, etc. stay safe and don’t be ashamed to be yourself.

[softdomsworld]

it's so attractive when someone is pathetically obsessed with you and not afraid to show it