Squabitt

A wobbly people pole. Story junkie. Word collector. X mountain addict. Q.

[acutelesbian]

A lot of people ask me what my biggest fear is, or what scares me most. And I know they expect an answer like heights, or closed spaces, or people dressed like animals, but how do I tell them that when I was 17 I took a class called Relationships For Life and I learned that most people fall out of love for the same reasons they fell in it. That their lover’s once endearing stubbornness has now become refusal to compromise and their one track mind is now immaturity and their bad habits that you once adored is now money down the drain. Their spontaneity becomes reckless and irresponsible and their feet up on your dash is no longer sexy, just another distraction in your busy life. Nothing saddens and scares me like the thought that I can become ugly to someone who once thought all the stars were in my eyes.

[fat-thin-skinny]

this fucks me up every single time

[acutelesbian]

I never expected this to be my most popular poem out of the hundreds I’ve written. I was extremely bitter and sad when I wrote this and I left out the most beautiful part of that class.

After my teacher introduced us to this theory, she asked us, “is love a feeling? Or is it a choice?” We were all a bunch of teenagers. Naturally we said it was a feeling. She said that if we clung to that belief, we’d never have a lasting relationship of any sort.

She made us interview a dozen adults who were or had been married and we asked them about their marriages and why it lasted or why it failed. At the end, I asked every single person if love was an emotion or a choice.

Everybody said that it was a choice. It was a conscious commitment. It was something you choose to make work every day with a person who has chosen the same thing. They all said that at one point in their marriage, the “feeling of love” had vanished or faded and they weren’t happy. They said feelings are always changing and you cannot build something that will last on such a shaky foundation.

The married ones said that when things were bad, they chose to open the communication, chose to identify what broke and how to fix it, and chose to recreate something worth falling in love with.

The divorced ones said they chose to walk away.

Ever since that class, since that project, I never looked at relationships the same way. I understood why arranged marriages were successful. I discovered the difference in feelings and commitments. I’ve never gone for the person who makes my heart flutter or my head spin. I’ve chosen the people who were committed to choosing me, dedicated to finding something to adore even on the ugliest days.

I no longer fear the day someone who swore I was their universe can no longer see the stars in my eyes as long as they still choose to look until they find them again.

[conceitedtrash]

This is so fucking important and I think it’s something I needed right now

[thegreenpea]

[journeyers-scrapbook]

I have a pair of friends who have been married for 20+ years now. They review their marriage vows on a regular basis and decide if the vows need updating to reflect their growth and changes. I find that extremely inspiring.

[squabitt]

A story is like water that you heat for your bath. It takes messages between the fire and your skin. It lets them meet, and it cleans you!

Jalal al-Din Rumi

[sportsnight-deactivated20201211]

friends to enemies to lovers is actually something that can be so intimate. i know you i know everything about you i have told you all my deepest secrets and you have told me yours and now i am trying to kill you literally or metaphorically because hate and love are separated by a very thin line and i don't know which side i am on

[sportsnight-deactivated20201211]

[weltenwellen]

Anis Mojgani, from “Here I Am”, Songs from Under the River: A Collection of Poetry

[memeuplift]

[everything-withered]

Realizing how someone expresses love and learning to speak their language is really fucking beautiful

[official-lucifers-child]

i need to remember this

[thezeroquotes]

If we could look into each other's hearts and understand the unique challenges each of us faces, I think we would treat each other more gently, with more love, tolerance and care.

— Marvin. J. Ashton

[insomniac-dot-ink]

we survived because we were the “smartest” species you say, we survived because jellyfish don’t know how to construct a Fighter Jet. We survived because our environment is ours to manipulate with walls and floors and lightbulbs to capture the sun and tunnel into night.

we survived by being faster in our cars and stronger with our tools, and better than we were before. We survived with language to build on the past with and weapons to fight the future. We survived because of our hands and our heads and the fact we make the universe itself knowable.

But then again, a mother will gain the strength of ten men to lift a full car off her baby. A man will spend eight hours nursing a puppy back to health and that dog will follow his every step from the doorstop to the grave. A best friend will dropkick an alligator in the water for the sake of him.

And I’ll tell you, maybe it was all of it. And maybe it was because we loved each other better than we hated, we loved each other in the dark before the lightbulb and loved each other more in the wilds before our walls, and we loved each other so thoroughly we made pyramids and libraries and monuments, and wrote not for the sake of money and food and living, but for the sake of wrapping each others hearts in velvet soft to escape the sandpaper winds of this world.

And that too is survival. That too is a reason. Not for our brains or our hands or our grit, but for our willingness to wrap each others wounds in bandages and set the broken bones of grandparents and sit outside windows and sing lullabies and love songs and cry over butterflies and sunsets and care too deeply. Care too strongly. Care too much.

That too is survival.

[mysharona1987]

[lesbianegg]

The stereotype of the nagging woman is so harmful. I remember already being aware of it in elementary school, when boys would role their eyes when we did group work and I tried to actually do the work. I remember that shame, and how it prevented me from speaking up and from being a leader. I still get that response and that shame at my job, where I am literally paid to lead and to remind people to stay on schedule. 

[theclonewriter-blog]

“This is your daily, friendly reminder to use commas instead of periods during the dialogue of your story,” she said with a smile.

[onewordtest]

“Unless you are following the dialogue with an action and not a dialogue tag.” He took a deep breath and sat back down after making the clarifying statement. 

[joehywheelah]

“However,” she added, shifting in her seat, “it’s appropriate to use a comma if there’s action in the middle of a sentence.”

[tenoko1]

“True.” She glanced at the others. “You can also end with a period if you include an action between two separate statements.”

[cj-amused]

Things I didn’t know

[prismatic-bell]

“And–” she waved a pen as though to underline her statement–“if you’re interrupting a sentence with an action, you need to type two hyphens to make an en-dash.”

[jawnwats-deactivated20160713]

You guys have no idea how many students in my advanced fiction workshop didn’t know any of this when writing their stories.

[notesoftruth]

Okay, but someone please explain question marks when followed by a dialogue tag. How do?

[flootzavut]

“The speech tag is still part of the previous sentence,” she explained, ‘so it isn’t capitalised.“

“What do you mean?” he asked. “But there’s a full stop as part of the question mark!”

She nodded gravely. “I know!” she said. “A lot of people find this confusing. But the speech tag belongs to the line of dialogue, it’s still part of the sentence, so it’s wrong to capitalise it.”

She reblogged the post again, because she had recently read far too many potentially enjoyable stories marred by poor dialogue punctuation.

[dechart]

I’ve only seen this post in screenshots till now..

[eddiestarchild]

NOICE. Can’t wait to use this

[magpiefngrl]

“There are two more ways"—she pointed to the blackboard—“to punctuate interruptions. One is with the em dashes outside the quotations marks to indicate continuous speech. The action occurs at the same time as speech. The other—” she sipped from a glass of water “—is em dashes within the quotation marks to indicate interrupted speech.”

[bronzetomatoes]

“Neato,” she said, impressed by the easy-to-follow formatting.

[hrwinter]

hi, I'm trying to get into writing long fics but outlining is hard, pls help how do u outline yours? Thank you!

So, you might develop your own strategy and everyone is different (which is good!), but here’s what I do:

1. First thing I ALWAYS do, regardless of plot, is list the scenes I REALLY want to write. For example, this could be Supercorp road tripping, sharing the same bed, Supercorp drunk, some sort of lie/fight scene. The reason I do this is because it shows me what’s really motivating me to write the story at all. I think a lot of us get stuck/lose motivation when we finish the scene we wanted to write, but the story isn’t over. It’s important to identify what’s driving you.

2. After I do this, I try to define the beginning, middle, and end of the story.

3. Define the primary goals and obstacles for the main characters.

Example for Fidelity. Beginning: Kara’s family is murdered, Cal places the Fidelius Charm on her. She meets Lena. Middle: Her time at Hogwarts. Alex. Chaser team. Developing Relationship with Lena. Lena discovering the lie. Dating. End: Graduating. Older, outside of Hogwarts, Kara finally able to tell Lena the truth. Kara’s primary goal: to remove the Fidelius Charm, to get close to Lena, to find her own strength/place in the world. Primary obstacle: The Fidelius Charm, Cal, her family’s history with Lena’s, Lex, herself.

Ask, how is my character different from the beginning to the end of the story?

4. Create scenes that match the beg/mid/end. I develop scenes from the general idea of what I want to do already (see #1.) This is also a good point to brainstorm and get creative with NEW scenes. For Fidelity, I came up with a LOT of new scenes to satisfy the middle concept of ‘her time at Hogwarts.’

5. Separate scenes and start fleshing them out. For me, this means breaking up scenes with a --- and adding my ‘notes’ which is generally a bunch of REALLY loose dialogue and description. The most basic skeleton of the scene. Some of these may simply read, Lena, Alex, and Kara meet with J’onn at the DEO. That’s it. Then, I break to the next scene.

6. For a long story, look at how many scenes you have and break those out into chapters. I don’t always stick exactly to this. Sometimes I end up adding scenes and chapters (rarely do I end up deleting.) But usually I have about 3-4 scenes to every chapter. My scenes tend to be about 1500-2k words each, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. I HATE having a 9k+ chapter, but it happens. When I’m trying to decide where to end a chapter, I go with a natural ending or I’m a dick and choose a cliffhanger spot.

This should give you a strong outline for a short OR long fic. Also, copying an existing story (like a movie AU) REALLY helps. For Mrs. & Mrs. Danvers and Eternal AU, I watched the movie (LIKE FIVE TIMES) and wrote down the beats/scenes I liked and cut the ones I didn’t. Even for Fidelity, I took themes/moods from the books for certain years at school. It’s great practice to copy what the pros have done already and get creative in your own execution. 

As far as finishing a long fic? Set a daily writing goal. Mine is 500 a day. You’ll finish anything (eventually) writing 500 words a day.

[bettsfic]

I'm never able to finish writing anything...I always lose steam and can't stick the landing, no matter what the length of the story I'm writing is. Not only that, but often when I am writing, I start getting more and more ideas and the story gets more complicated and longer than I had initially anticipated. Do you have any advice on how I can finish anything? I'm so frustrated with myself. Thank you so much for sharing your writing knowledge, you are amazing!

there are two reasons why you might not be able to finish projects:

you’re afraid of writing a bad ending and not honoring the story you set out to tell, or

you’re improving so rapidly you learn what you need to learn from a story before you reach the end, and you’re ready to move on

if you have the first problem, the trick is to isolate the fear and resolve it conceptually. in the paraphrased words of mary ruefle, the answer to fear is procedure. in many cases, writers are afraid to write badly because they do not yet have the skills of revision. i’m comfortable writing flaming garbage first drafts because i know i’ll just be rewriting it. i’m comfortable writing mediocre second drafts because i know i’ll just be revising it. and i’m comfortable writing pretty decent third drafts because by that point, i either know exactly how to fix my problems, or the problems i’m having aren’t worth fixing. 

however, if you have the second problem, the solution is just...not to finish things. it’s okay to quit a story and move onto the next if you’ve gotten everything you can get out of it. it’s okay to abandon wips and follow your creative attention wherever it decides to take you. eventually, without trying, you will finish a story. but sometimes getting to that point means giving up on a lot of other stories, so you know which ones deserve the most of your attention.

as for your other problem, getting ideas and making the story more complicated, i’m going to paraphrase yet another author (i don’t remember her name, it was a Q&A at a workshop), who said that expertise in writing means knowing which ideas to ignore.

the more effort you put into the rising action of a story, the harder it is to conclude. every thread that opens will need to be closed. so, for each new complication or idea you have, ask yourself, “how will i resolve this conflict?” and if the answer is “i don’t know” stick it in an idea notebook and revisit it for a future story. the rejected fruits of one project end up becoming seeds for another.

on a more practical note, here are some quick tips to experiment with:

start planning a story at the climax or resolution and work backwards

practice writing one scene at a time very intentionally badly, and practice rewriting that scene better; this is how you improve your revision skills

find existing story structures and use them as gauges to measure your own pacing. i like 3 act plays, 6 stages, and/or 8 sequences. all of them have different uses and all of them are a good way to figure out if you’re overreaching in your plots (but do not adhere hard and fast to them, or consider stories that comply with them to be inherently better than those that don’t)

read very short fiction and pay close attention to how the narratives stay contained

participate in a fandom event that’s about quantity and speed over quality. kinkmemes, prompt fests, bingo cards, etc. 

hope this helps!

[tsthrace]

Reblogging for myself. But maybe you’ll find it helpful, too.

[headspace-hotel]

I’m really obsessed with the idea of worldbuilding that refuses to clarify its relationship to reality

When we read books we instinctively try to categorize books based on the kind of book they are, oh this is fantasy, post-apocalyptic, etc. and we try to find out things and clarify what kind of world it is and whether or not the things in it are make believe and how make believe they are.

So what if I...Messed with that process?

For instance. A book is set in Ohio. We mention the names of cities in Ohio and pieces of Ohio’s history and famous landmarks in Ohio and it’s incredibly well researched, even down to the names of museums in Cincinnati or something. We’re talking very firmly established in the facts of a place. It’s kind of an eerie book and in some ways the setting seems weird or cloudy or dreamy but it seems grounded in just the amount of facts that are in it about the setting.

There are little factoids dropped here and there. At first very boring ones. Something that happened at an Ohio water treatment plant in 1995. What it takes to serve on a jury in Ohio. Ohio laws about spraying pesticides on corn. Facts about corn itself. Probably one of those cutesy little facts about weird local laws.

They start to get...stranger. The little bits of worldbuilding. Did you know that Ohio has had more nuclear power plant accidents than any other state? In this small town in Ohio, you used to need a license to perform an exorcism! This charming small town’s mayor is a ghost. In Ohio, it is legal for doctors to draw more of your blood than they need to sell to third parties. There are no Dollar Tree’s in Ohio. (Have you ever seen a Dollar Tree in Ohio? Are you sure?)

At some point the reader catches onto something that is clearly not right. Maybe the book states at some point that Indiana is to the east of Ohio instead of the west. This is clearly a mistake, and they move on.

Some things about the everyday realities of the setting seem peculiar. There seem to be quite a bit of packs of wild dogs about, and mold seems to grow a lot quicker. Grass is described very strangely—a shade of green that isn’t very characteristic of grass. There seem to be a lot of cults, and there are a lot of empty lots in town enclosed with razor wire for no apparent reason. Sometimes a character’s hands grow suddenly cold, and they panic and hasten inside. Frostbite? Is it the climate? Why does the author write that way?

At some point, though, it becomes clear that the author is fictionalizing a bit. It may certainly be the case that nuclear accidents have occurred in Ohio more than any other state, but the tale of how deer from that area glow in low light is probably made up. And though that famous televangelist existed and it seems plausible enough that he owned tigers, like some kind of janky drug dealer would purchase, it seems implausible that he regularly fed people to them.

As the story continues, more and more facts seem a little off, though. The spatial relationship of Ohio to its surrounding states, and the shape that Ohio is (it’s described at one point as having a panhandle, and as bordering East Tennessee) seems to make less and less sense. The wild dogs are massive, and have smoldering eyes like hellhounds. One nuclear disaster apparently wiped out a full sixth of Ohio’s population. The deer, plagued with cancer from the radiation, have turned carnivores. The wild horses run under a red sky—the sky is always described as red. The original capital of Ohio is lost, its stones dashed down in the war that made its citizens turn to cannibalism. The invasive plants of Ohio can pry open windows, and once choked a woman in her sleep. The people of Ohio dream more frequently of birds of prey gouging out their eyes than people in any other state. There are plagues of rats in Ohio that sometimes devastate towns. In Ohio, unexplained disappearances are rarely investigated. There are eagles in Ohio—their wings blot out the sun. Ohio briefly seceded from the Union in 1922, and there are those that still believe in the Free People’s Empire of Ohio. Ohio shares a border with Arizona. Ohio has a coastline on the edge of a dark and perpetually cold sea.

It becomes abundantly clear that this is not Ohio. It is something else, named Ohio and superficially wearing Ohio as a skin, but it is not Ohio. And looking back, it is hard to tell when it stopped being Ohio. When it stopped being just quirky Americana and an eerie mood and started being...this. Small details were off early on, but these were not noticed, because they seemed so normal. The sky was always described as red, but that was because it was supposed to be sunset...right?

The governor of Ohio has been struck down. All bow before the God-Emperor of Ohio. The black wolves of Hell await those who will not bow with their teeth.

[stars-on-a-cloudy-night]

[ silent confessions ]

oh to be silent with someone ;

that feeling, when you look into their eyes and feel invasive, as though their deepest emotions spring out and dance just at a glimpse; 

like looking behind a crumbling building ; 

behind the bricks lie the uncut hair of the willows ;

something so secret, yet so marvelous and dangerous is going on ; 

behind the shrubs of pansies and wildflowers ;

it takes just a glance, and you see the gardens of daisies and sunflowers and the stars that hang above them ;

without any words, just silence ;

and silence only ;

                                                                                           -s.a.

[thecollectibles]

Art by Paul Rabaud

[cy-lindric]

Small worlds.

[taptrial2]

writing an autistic character when you are not autistic - a masterpost

completely double spaced version on google docs here – this post is more blocky for the sake of people’s dashboards, but still long so people will be less likely to glaze over it. my apologies if that makes it hard to read

things to look for and avoid in an autistic character

• symptoms only manifesting as “nonverbal and rocking” • super smart / living calculator • super dumb / doesn’t understand anything • all the symptoms you can come up with for them are “awkward” and “has special interest(s)” (please do more research) • trains, technology, and/or math as special interests • acting like a child • getting treated like a baby • unreasonably cruel and uncaring about others’ reactions to them being cruel • if they’re comparable to sheldon from the big bang theory, start over • animal comparisons • a lack of feelings • please no stories about what it’s like to be autistic told by allistics

the right way to write an autistic person

• lots of symptoms, including secondary ones not included on a general diagnosis requirement list (here’s a list i rather like that was made by an autistic person – their blog is also a good resource) • having a good amount of general knowledge and actually talking about it (i cannot believe that i have to say this) • talking about things outside of special interests (again…. come on……….) (special interests are usually the default things our brains go to when theres no stimulation or we want to entertain ourselves – it isn’t literally all we think or talk about ever. if a conversation has no connections to a special interest, reconsider having your autistic character bring it up in a context that is not an introduction.) • explicitly expressed to be capable of attraction and romantic feelings – if your character is an adult, add sexual feelings to this point • capable of general functioning, just with a disability that makes it more difficult – not a walking disability (….sigh) • a wide amount of feelings and emotional turmoil (but perhaps only being able to express it in limited ways) • we’re people • just people whose brains are wired differently

things to avoid in research for an autistic character

• autism moms / autism blogs and websites not run by autistic people • any affiliation with autism $peaks means you should walk away and never look back • a scientist trying to create explanations for what autistic people do without actually asking / not mentioning asking autistic people • anything about a cure for autism • a person that “worked with autistic kids” phrased in the same way as “worked with animals” • talking about autistic people as if they are mysteries, are like animals, or are otherwise othered weirdos instead of people

things to look for in research for an autistic character

• actual autistic people talking about their experiences and symptoms • just stick to that and you’re good but it’s hard to find sometimes ngl. just look for the above red flags

things i would personally like to see in an autistic character

• less easy to swallow sadness and more destructive anger. i would love to see a canonically autistic character who was frustrated easily by small things and had trouble communicating why • not a story about being autistic, a story that happens to have a character or characters who are autistic – it isn’t pointed out or questioned, they’re right at home with the rest of the cast and not othered (a la symmetra from overwatch) • intensive sensory issues / small sounds making large reactions • clear communications about not liking x sensory thing (for example being touched) • poor motor skills / clumsiness and not being laughed at for it • walking funny (body bent downwards, walking very fast, walking slowly, big strides, shuffling, stiffness, etc)  – no one treats it as if it’s funny or something totally strange • a big personality that has a presence so they can’t be cast aside (but feel free to have quiet characters too) – if this was along with being nonverbal they would probably leap to being one of my favorite characters ever • a fear of asking for clarification on sarcasm or jokes because of past experiences and an arc about the character becoming more comfortable asking questions

>> if any fellow autistic people want to add something, feel free <<

allistics are encouraged to rb this

[inuzukahana-deactivated20210106]

Hold on I’m having a coherent thought

[inuzukahana-deactivated20210106]

If you hear a piece of media or its creator is bigoted your first thought should not be “can I still enjoy this,” but instead “did I register said bigotry” and “how has enjoying this impacted my own thought process and internal biases.” Your first action should always be to maintain solidarity with the group being discriminated against and working to better yourself and not to look out for your own self interests.