#finals are hell

[definitely-a-real-man]

I’ve crawled out of the smoldering depths of hell and clawed my sanity back enough to make art again. Let’s fucking go! 😭

[hb-darling]

I kinda felt off that we never got Leshy as a playing card, so I went ahead and made my own.

I know there’s already a plague rat card but, hush

[hfaithmarr]

Current Update Que

I don’t have a writing schedule, per se, but I do make myself a line up of chapters and works that I update as the mood strikes me. As I’ve been radio silent for a while, I thought you guys would like some insight into what I’m updating next!

And so, in order:

1. A home away from home - chapter seven

2. Empathic Psychometry - chapter fifteen

3. An experimental style fic that will currently remain a surprise

4. The night keeps my secrets, the darkness has no tongue - chapter eight

5. Blue Spirit AU - part six

6. Either whichever of the above I have more written for or another experimental style fic or some random one shot idk I haven’t thought that far ahead

No I do not have set dates for these, but this is the order I will be working on them.

As soon as I finish finals (T▽T) 

[intellectys]

abt to run out of the library dropping pages of revision notes like confetti behind me while i scream wbu

[hylialeia]

An interesting theory there on what went wrong with Game of Thrones the show. But what say you of the fundamental issues in the books — late introduction of characters, repetitive chapters in ADwD, etc — all of which wouldn’t translate on screen. Is there any solution possible?

Definitely: cutting things down.

There are two main types of pacing problems when writing, and they apply to basically every type of media. 

Too Much:

So many different arcs and plots are taking place that the author inserts dozens of scenes to try and balance the events out with imagery or quiet moments, only to lose themselves in the surplus of content that’s been created.

Too Little:

Only specific parts of the narrative truly matter to the author, so to balance it out they put in short, often irrelevant scenes that don’t properly build up to the later climatic events, making the story disjointed and confusing.

GRRM fell into the former, the showrunners into the latter. While the showrunners ignored any form of meaning or substance, moving from point A to point B without really caring how they got there, GRRM puts so much content into his work (both plot and character related) that it becomes cluttered.

And to fix cluttered writing, you cut it. 

To know when and how much you should cut, you have to ask yourself what is and isn’t necessary to the narrative. Sex scenes, dialogue, description, imagery, travel scenes, action scenes, worldbuilding, dream sequences, literally all of it. You can end up writing entire chapters that ultimately have to be cut down to a select few paragraphs.

So, what is and isn’t necessary in writing? Sometimes you don’t know until you’ve written and/or read it. Consider the following:

Does this scene give the reader important information? Does this information play a role later? Does this paragraph, dialogue, scene, or section provide insight or include something vital to the narrative? Is it relevant to the characters/plot? 

And most importantly: is my purpose for having this scene in here a good enough reason to keep it?

If the answer is no, cut it. 

If the answer is somewhat, shorten it. 

If the answer is yes, keep it.

The pacing problem in ASOIAF comes up because not enough is cut. What GRRM writes is usually good quality, but it doesn’t always serve a significant enough purpose to justify staying in the story. Especially when the story is already as long and complex as ASOIAF.

Rather than cut things down, however, GRRM extends them, stretches them out, tries to reorganize and make room for it. Things get moved around, cut into pieces and placed somewhere else. That’s why so many characters show up in the AFFC/ADWD split; they simply didn’t have the room to come in earlier. It’s why a trilogy turned into a seven planned novels, each about a thousand pages long. Moving things can only go so far, and as difficult as cutting parts of your work can be, sometimes it just has to be done.

[makotoru]

i'd really like to write an analysis about the sextuplet's interactions with girls because this new episode really made me think, but i don't have the time sob

[kay-law]

had my crim law final today and it was honestly one of the exams i was most worried about with the element analysis and all but i actually left feeling really confident and like i had it under control so good feelings :-)

[padfootagain]

Finals are closing on me...

My finals are a bit less than two weeks away now, which means that it’s more than time to get into my warrior mode :

-Very little sleep

-Studying non-stop

-Phone constantly off

-Lots lots LOTS of coffee

- And very saddly, no writing (which means not too much writing, I’ll probably get insane if I don’t write at all during such a stressful moment)

So, I’m sorry guys, but until the end of my finals, I won’t write a lot. My blog will still be active, I’ll still drop by now and then and reblog things, but I won’t add new stories (at least not often).

I have almost finished a Caspian request, so this should be posted in the coming days, I may do a headcanon I’ve been thinking about for a while now, perhaps I’ll start the next chapter of ‘Little One’, but that’s pretty much all I will do, I reckon.

Sorry about that, but as I said, I need to get in my warrior mode. But I’ll still reblog things, and my blog will stay active, don’t worry. I’m not going to stop going on Tumblr (even if I wanted to, I reckon that I couldn’t anyway, my will is clearly not strong enough for that...)

Now, just waiting for hell to be over...