shark vs the universe
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
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The Stonewall Inn
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almost home
EXPECTATIONS
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$LAYYYTER
bliss lane
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@princesspixelle
Here is your reminder that you do not have to be perfect in the new year.
You are human and you are allowed to struggle and make mistakes just as much as every other time.
Make goals if you would like!!
But also remember that there is no pressure to.
You cannot become a new person overnight and it's not fair to expect that of yourself.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 3/3 | Words: ~5800
With midterms coming, Cleo and Callie have formed a private "combat club", where they spar every few nights to hone their skills and ease the tension of their rivalry.
Tonight, however, they may actually have more than fighting on their minds.
---
Getting back to the Cleocallie dynamic, and Callie character deepdiving in general!
And... thatâs it. I have no ulterior motives at all. Nnnnope.Â
Enjoy! â¤
Rewriting the Stars is a narrative reworking (and continuation) of the Cleopatra in Space cartoon series, which updates most Wednesdays (because of course). Follow this account, or the series on AO3, to make sure you never miss a beat! Â Â
Not finishing a WIP does not mean that you've failed or that you're a terrible writer!!
It just means that it wasnât the right time for that particular project, that's all.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapter: 3/7 Cleo learns that running up against Octavian in the flesh can have lingering, painful effects she absolutely wasn't prepared for.
Yosira gets that, pretty hard, which is why she's so determined for galactic unityâand for pharaohs to stick together.
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The chapter that explains why Yosira gets that, pretty hard. (also the chapter where the âmild violenceâ tag comes in, simply to inform.)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 5/TBD
For years, Zahra and Simi were the best of friends... until, one day, Zahra woke up, and boomârivals, on different Tech teams? The Hek?
Zahra has no clue what to make of thingsâthat is, until her and Simi's shared past comes back to visit them both...
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Bringing this one back too! I forgot I still had some completed chapters of this lying around. Enjoy some Zahra/Simi slowish-burn, if thatâs your thing (I know itâs certainly mine :3)
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
MY DASH NEEDS TO HEAR THIS.
@jennhopkinsart
I feel like I might appreciate this in six months when it comes around my queue
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Words (to date): ~8500
Cleo learns that running up against Octavian in the flesh can have lingering, painful effects she absolutely wasn't prepared for.
Yosira gets that, pretty hard, which is why she's so determined for galactic unityâand for pharaohs to stick together.
---
Who told you Wednesdays would be back? Yeah, thatâs right
Getting around to those more in-depth Cleo fics I talked about before! Even if this train has only one passenger and that passengerâs the conductor, this trainâs still riding to infinity! Enjoy! â¤
Rewriting the Stars is a narrative reworking (and continuation) of the Cleopatra in Space cartoon series, which updates most Wednesdays (because of course). Follow this account, or the series on AO3, to make sure you never miss a beat!
Note to self
Stop thinking: âIâm not talented enough to execute this concept.â Start thinking: âIâm going to be a stronger artist when Iâve finished this piece.â
This is a fixed mindset vs. a growth mindset.
Your abilities are not static, and any challenges you have, anything that turns out different from how you imagined, is not evidence of failure, just a struggle towards improvement.
hot take here but the way people talk about âredemption arcsâ and how they require that the sinner repent, debase himself, and then atone for his sins in order to be accepted back into the warmth of readersâ love, but there are some unforgivable sins for which no atonement is enough
is INCREDIBLY culturally christian
Another fascinating thing about responses to this post: whether theyâre agreeing with me or disagreeing, whether they think peopleâs insistence on this arc is good or bad, a huge portion of people use the word âforgivenessâ and center their entire response to this post around it.
Please observe that I never once used the word âforgivenessâ - although I should have, because the idea that forgiveness is a necessity for ceasing-to-be-a-sinner, and indeed that forgiveness is the primary goal, is itself christian.
I have at no point in the original post or in any of my further discussion of it said that the end goal, or even a significant feature of, a villain-to-hero arc was forgiveness.
Yet everyone who thinks this arc is indeed the only valid option phrases their arguments in terms like âWould you forgive someone who didnâtâŚâ
Maybe I would - maybe I wouldnât! But I never said anything about forgiveness being a requirement!
And everyone who wants to tell me that Christians Donât Think Like This, Actually, says it in terms of âBut Jesus forgives everyone, all you have to do is repent and you will be forgiven.â âŚokay great who says the characters need to be forgiven, why is it RELEVANT whether Jesus would forgive them or not - unless youâre operating in a Christian framework where Godâs Forgiveness is a central feature of your belief system.
People who agree that yes, this is a culturally christian thing, and further believe that another form of arc would be superior, are saying âyou should be able to just stop doing bad things and only do good things, and that should be enough for you to be forgivenâ - okay you got the spirit but why do we have to be forgiven.
Forgiveness - as least as it is being used in this context - is someone else granting salvation to you. It is someone else absolving you of your guilt. It is you having shown someone else that you are worthy now, and them casting judgement upon you, and then agreeing that you are enough better than you were before.
Why does someone else get to sit in judgement and decide if youâre a good person now? Who besides a god stands in that position of omniscience and moral superiority and moral infallibility?
What if a character chooses to end his life of villainy, anonymously transfer all his ill-gotten gains to those he harmed, and devote the rest of his life to curing cancer alone in a lab on a deserted island, finally releasing his cure anonymously on his deathbed. No other character even has any idea this has happened; they all figure he just died or went into hiding. No one has forgiven him. Does that mean heâs still a villain?
What if all the other characters have hardened hearts for whatever reason, and no matter how much penance the ex-villain does, even if he only did one tiny bad act and then spent years in pain in punishment and then spent decades saving the world over and over at great personal cost, they will never, ever forgive him? Does that mean heâs still a villain?
What if everyone he personally wronged died in an accident, he was the only survivor, it was that shock that caused his change of heart, so everybody he knows now loves him and knows him only as a hero, but the people he hurt can never forgive him? Is he still a villain?
On the other side, if, say, a child continuously forgives their abusive parent, does that mean the parent isnât a villain?
Forgiveness does not have a one to one correlation with goodness. In either direction.
I am concerned that what people are doing is translating ââŚin order to be accepted back into the warmth of readersâ loveâ as âbe forgiven by the readersâ (which is not inaccurate, in terms of the christian framework) and then all agreeing that yes, that should indeed be the central goal of every villain-to-hero arc. Which opens a WILD can of worms.
Because that means - We, as the readers, are in the position of gods to the characters, casting judgement upon them, looking into their hearts and deciding whether We will grant forgiveness to the characters for the wrongs they have done to others.
Like. Aside from all the other implications. At the point where you are granting someone forgiveness for something they did to someone else, somethingâs gone very wrong. Assuming youâre not, in fact, actually yourself a deity.
But also for people to make translation of ââŚwarmth of readersâ loveâ to âreadersâ forgivenessâ you have to already be assuming that we canât love a character if we havenât forgiven them for every wrong theyâve done. And that wouldnât even be true if they were a real person, and super duper isnât true if theyâre fictional. I love my mother with all my heart. Iâll also never forgive her for what she did to me and my brother. Forgiveness and love are two separate emotional axes and one does not imply anything about the other.
Look. Hereâs some advice for actual real life. You donât need to forgive someone to let them participate in society. You donât need to forgive someone to love them. And you DEFINITELY donât need to forgive them for them to be a good person. Whether theyâre a good person is in their heart - not yours.
I already loved the first post, but this addition lays it all out in such a clear, concise manner, that Iâm actually in awe. 11/10 OP, it is, if youâll forgive the pun, absolute god-tier
I just. Fuck. Yes. I have nothing to add to this apart from aggressively gesticulated agreement and gratitude to OP for taking the time to articulate this whole amazing thing.
âYou donât need to forgive someone to love them.â
This right here hit pretty hard for irl reasons.
âForgiveness and love are two separate emotional axes and one does not imply anything about the other.â
I needed this reminder. Just. THIS.
Tips for Writing a Difficult Scene
Every writer inevitably gets to that scene that just doesn't want to work. It doesn't flow, no matter how hard you try. Well, here are some things to try to get out of that rut:
1. Change the weather
I know this doesn't sound like it'll make much of a difference, but trust me when I say it does.
Every single time I've tried this, it worked and the scene flowed magically.
2. Change the POV
If your book has multiple POV characters, it might be a good idea to switch the scene to another character's perspective.
9/10 times, this will make the scene flow better.
3. Start the scene earlier/later
Oftentimes, a scene just doesn't work because you're not starting in the right place.
Perhaps you're starting too late and giving too little context. Perhaps some description or character introspection is needed before you dive in.
Alternatively, you may be taking too long to get to the actual point of the scene. Would it help to dive straight into the action without much ado?
4. Write only the dialogue
If your scene involves dialogue, it can help immensely to write only the spoken words the first time round.
It's even better if you highlight different characters' speech in different colors.
Then, later on, you can go back and fill in the dialogue tags, description etc.
5. Fuck it and use a placeholder
If nothing works, it's time to move on.
Rather than perpetually getting stuck on that one scene, use a placeholder. Something like: [they escape somehow] or [big emotional talk].
And then continue with the draft.
This'll help you keep momentum and, maybe, make the scene easier to write later on once you have a better grasp on the plot and characters.
Trust me, I do this all the time.
It can take some practice to get past your Type A brain screaming at you, but it's worth it.
So, those are some things to try when a scene is being difficult. I hope that these tips help :)
Reblog if you found this post useful. Comment with your own tips. Follow me for similar content.
This is tremendously useful. I use #2, 3, and 4 often, and I canât wait to try #1.
Iâm a writerâŚtheoretically. But I donât have the spark inside me it seems. Without being egotistical I know on a technical level Iâm a very good writer and I like writing - but it seems like Iâve been stuck in a rut for years (Iâm 23 so âŚitâs been a long time) with no ideas or creative juices. So many authors talk about having a story inside of them that they want to write but I feel like a barren landscape of ideas - thereâs nothing! And when I do sit down and try to flesh things out into actual plot and characters, it seems to suck any of the creativity away and it becomes lacklustre. Did you go through periods of your life where writing was this hard? I want to writeâŚbut I feel like I have nothing to write. It frustrates me to know Iâm wasting my talent
Youâre 23. Right now youâre gathering the material and the life experience that will give you things to write about in the future. Youâre finding out what you have to say in order to say it.
Thereâs a reason why most writers arenât published at 23, and itâs not because their books are rejected. Itâs because they donât have anything important to say, yet. Their lives are composting down and the stories that will grow on those compost heaps are often still only green shoots.
Donât worry. Read a lot. Experience life a lot. Get fired. Work in some weird jobs. Get your heart broken. Discover what you have to say.
One of my favourite youtube channels just posted this, and it seems pertinent too.
Like, kid? Eff your talent. If you worry so much about writing good things, things Worthy Of Your Talent(TM), youâre probably not gonna write anything at all. Youâll end up thirty, confused and annoyed because âI thought I was a writer, but I havenât actually written anything in yearsâ and hating your pen, your keyboard, words themselves, and mostly yourself.
Just write. If itâs good, other people will tell you so. Most of it will not be, and thatâs fine. Look at your favourite visual artists, right? How much time do they spend doing dumb little sketches, most of which are not intended to nor would they ever show to a single soul. Maybe one thing they do out of fifty is something ever intended to actually be published somewhere. Maybe one in ten of *that* is something theyâd actually charge money for.
Musicians spend a lot of time just practicing scales, and sounding *horrible*. Dancers trip and kick their partners, and do stupid meme dances in the bathroom at a bar at 2am. Wood carvers make phalluses while sitting by the Christmas fire, when they think their moms arenât watching.
But writers always seem to want everything they do to be Worthy. Itâs worthy because you wrote it. This ask? It *was* real writing. Youâre a real writer, practically not hypothetically, right now, because you wrote this. Dumb little limericks you scrawl on your best friendâs backpack when they arenât looking *is* real writing. Itâs all real writing. Itâs not all *good* writing, itâs certainly not all writing youâd charge people to consume, but youâre not *supposed* to be good all the time.
Stop making weird distinctions between what counts as ârealâ writing and just do it.
I want a story about a king whose son is prophesied to kill him so the king is like âwhatever what am I supposed to do, kill my own kid wtf is wrong with youâ so he just raises him as normal, doesnât even tell him about the prophecy, and instead of some convoluted twist of events that leads to the kingâs murder the son grows up and when the king is very old and dying and in excruciating pain the kid is just like alright I'mma put him out of his misery.
The kingâs son becomes the new king, and is prophesied to defeat evil and bring an age of prosperity. His generals and knights all crack their knuckles but he pretty much ignores them and focuses on strengthening the infrastructure of his kingdom. Forty years later he is old and sick but still hearing his subjectsâ grievances, and a generalâs like âhow will you defeat the prophesied evil now? Youâre old and weak.â Another visitor, a teenager fresh out of the kingdomâs public education system, looks at the general like he is an ignoramus. The king eradicated poverty, housed the homeless, taught the ignorant, ended class exploitation by abolishing the nobility and imprisoning the corrupt, and established a highly respected guild of doctors that recently figured out how to cure the plague. There are no brigands because there is enough wealth for everyone to live comfortably; hiding in the woods and taking trinkets from people simply doesnât make any sense for anyone but the desperate, and the people are not desperate. Evil is a weed, explains the teenager. It grows in cracked roads and crumbling houses and forgotten corners, rooted in indifference and watered by suffering. But the king demands that broken things be mended and suffering people be made well.
No evil lives in this kingdom, says the teenager. It starved to death before I was born.
Every once in a while, when Iâm feeling down, I go and look at the notes on this post and they make me feel a lot better. This is the energy I want to carry into 2018.
For those who need to carry it into 2019.
And on to 2022
Oh my gosh. I just found this website that walks you though creating a believable society. It breaks each facet down into individual questions and makes it so simple! It seems really helpful for worldbuilding!
Heads up that this is a very extensive questionnaire and might be daunting to a lot of writers (myself included). That being said, it is also an amazing questionnaire and I will definitely be using it (or at the very least, some of it).
I am PANICKING!!! I think Iâve lost interest in my book but I feel obliged to continue it because Iâve already written 6 chapters and worked a year on it... wHAT DO I DO???
Lost Interest in WIP and Panicking
#1 - Don't Panic... I know that's easier said than done, but truly, this is normal. Take a few deep breaths and keep reading.
#2 - Repeat: This is Normal... Part of being a writer is getting used to the ebb and flow of, well, everything. Inspiration, motivation, confidence, interest, how you feel about your WIP, how you feel about your writing--it all fluctuates. One day you may love your WIP, the next day you may hate it. Three days later you may love it again. One week you may have a million ideas buzzing around in your head, the next week you might struggle to come up with a single idea. Just know you'll always hit a better spot again.
#3 - Troubleshooting Helps... Sometimes you just need to wait for the feeling to pass or for your interest/motivation to return. Other times you need to dive in and figure out what the problem is. Are you distracted by other ideas? Did something shake your confidence in this story? Are you stuck because you don't know where the story is going? My posts Have Plot, Canât Write and Feeling Unmotivated with WIP address some of the more common ones.
#4 - Try Re-Kindling Your Motivation... Sometimes you just need to be reminded why you were excited to write this story in the first place. Other times you just need to see your story or character from a new angle to rekindle your interest. Writing exercises are great for this. Have a look at the following posts for help:
Getting Excited About Your Story Again Guide: How to Rekindle Your Motivation to Write Getting Unstuck: Motivation Beyond Mood Boards & Playlists
#5 - Take a Break and Fill Your Creative Well... If all else fails, it could be that you just need to take a break from this story or writing all together. It happens sometimes, especially when you have other things going on in your life that are zapping your energy, mood, or interest. One thing you can do during this time are activities to "fill your creative well." Story ideas come from all around us, so making sure to engage with places that are rich in ideas can sometimes get our interest in writing back on track. Read my post Guide: Filling Your Creative Well for help.
If you try everything here and nothing works, it's okay to set the story aside for a while or permanently and start on something else. What's important is this: there is no such thing as wasted time or effort when it comes to writing. Even if you decide to abandon that story, all of the time and effort you put into it made you a better writer. If the only thing that story did was help sharpen your writing skills, it was worth every second you spent on it. âĽ
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Late night thoughts #kittycatandmanlyman #pascalcampion
How to write a character (especially villain) thatâs like ten times smarter than you? Thanks so much for all your help and resources by the way!!
Writing a Smart Character
The answer to "how to write a character who is ________" is always the same:
This is just as true when writing about a character who knows more about something than you. :)
Having said that, there are some steps you can follow that will make this research easier...
1) Figure Out What They Know
Most smart people aren't smart about everything. They may appear to know "everything," but chances are they just know a lot about particular subjects. They may be street smart or life smart because they've had a lot of unique experiences, they might be "book smart" because they've read a lot of books, they might be really good at math or science, they might know a lot about history or architecture, or they might have an incredible understanding of how machines work. Or, they might just be really witty and know a lot of unusual trivia and big words.
2) Figure Out How Their Knowledge Plays Into the Story
There's no point in having a character who's super smart just for the sheer heck of it. Your character's knowledge will come across in the things they say and do, and will more than likely impact the decisions they make and impact the plot. So, it's important to think about your story and understand when and how this character's smarts will be on display. In what scenes will they have dialogue and what will that dialogue need to be about? In what ways will their knowledge affect their actions/the plot? Once you know, you can look at those specific moments and figure out what you need to research.
3) Research Dialogue/Plot Points
Let's say your character is a brilliant doctor, and you know there's a scene where they need to have an argument with a non-medical expert about a medical subject. Once you know what that medical subject is, you can research it and figure out exactly what the argument is about and what the character needs to say. Or, let's say there's a scene where your character, who is a gifted mechanic, needs to sabotage someone's vehicle in a non-dangerous/non-harmful way. You would need to do some research about the type of vehicle they're working on, research ways to disable a vehicle, and figure out which way would be the least harmful. If your character simply knows a lot of useless trivia and is a witty conversationalist, you'll need to find some interesting trivia for them to know (hint: it'll probably be related to subjects that are already coming up in your story's dialogue) and do some research on witty banter. (For witty banter research, you can't beat watching a TV show or movie with a lot of witty banter.)
4) Look Around You For Help
The world is full of people who know things about stuff. Truly. Once you've done your research, look around you for people who can double-check your work. That might be a sensitivity reader, someone you find online who's knowledgeable about a particular subject, or even someone you actually know.
If you ever read the acknowledgements of a novel, you'll find they're always filled with thanks to various experts who vetted whatever the writer came up with through their research. In the acknowledgments of Six of Crows, Leigh Bardugo thanks a magic expert who helped her understand how beginners learn magic. Another person walked her through some of the medical stuff. N.K. Jemisin thanks the NASA-funded workshop (and people involved) in her acknowledgements for The Fifth Season. In the acknowledgments of These Violent Delights, Chloe Gong thanks her parents for helping her translate historical documents written in Chinese.
You never know what knowledge is lurking in the minds of people you know, so it's always a good idea to check.
Here are a couple posts to help with your research:
WQAâs Guide to Internet Research
Writing About Difficult to Research Topics
Best of luck with your research and story!
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