When writing a story about a twisted love/romance, from which character's perspective would you write, and why? For example, if you have an obsessive character and a target in their sights, which of the two perspectives would you choose to tell the story through, and how does that affect the story/horror you're writing?
YO Quill wants to reconnect with other writeblrs and ramble about fun stuff tonight! So let’s travel around the world tonight--or rather, through multiple worlds!
Describe a major location in your wip as though it was in a travel brochure: What are the landmarks? What’s the culture like? What activities or festivities are held there? What is this place KNOWN for?
OR: if more fitting, describe a major location in your wip from the point of view of a researcher--with an opinion that can range from positive all the way to “AVOID AT ALL COSTS”.
Feel free to send me an ask or reblog this post with a comment!
@ writeblr this is simply an opinion seeking call because I've seen some quite differing opinions on the subject and I'm interested in people's thoughts.
This is inspired by a video essay by Lindsay Ellis where they tear apart one of JKR's very transphobic books. One of the things they criticised was how one of the characters' accents was spelled out. Think "'ow about tha'?" instead of "how about that?" kind of thing.
Basically - do you, as both a reader and a writer, like to see/utilise phonetic spellings/pronunciations of heavily accented characters, or not?
Now I know this is a situation that needs a lot of nuances because everyone's ideas of "what a heavy accent is" is going to be different, especially if, like a lot of people, they're writing in English as a second language. I also recognise that this can be used in a negative light reinforcing negative stereotypes about certain people or groups.
So I am approaching this in the best faith possible with my opinion.
Personally, I prefer writing that does phonetically spell out accents.
I have a particular flavour of ✨neurodivergence✨ that makes it hard for me to recognise accents, especially English language accents. I don't know my Geordie from my cockney, my southern (American) from my Midwest.
So if I read a line in a book and the tag added 'said, their Geordie accent dripping through' (not exactly but you get the idea) I have no idea what that is supposed to sound like in my head.
However, if they write it phonetically, I have a much better idea on how Geordie is supposed to be read in my head.
I know that this isn't a popular opinion because in the video I mentioned they comment "ok JK we know you hate poor people". And whilst I am NOT going to defend JKR, I simply think that as a stylistic choice, writing out accents phonetically is NOT something I dislike. There's a lot to dislike about that book - the rampant transphobia for sure - but for me the accent thing is not one of them.
So I come to you, fellow writeblrs, for a discussion. Do you like it, or dislike it? Why is that? I am interested in hearing this discussion quite a lot.
And also - since I think this is relevant - is your opinion informed by English being a second/third/more language? By not being British/USAmerican?
And even if you are British or USAmerican, what are your thoughts on this? I am just interested in whether there is a correlation between either choice really.
...where George has become almost invisible while Dream pretends to not tend to orbit his thoughts around him - until one day, George cries
wordcount: 2543
keywords: dnf oneshot, fluff, college au, soft sad thoughts because Dream is a dumbass
read on ao3
continue under cut:
We share just a wall
I feel like he’s become invisible to me. Sure he’s just always kind of there - probably watering the plants in our corridor, because I’m sure I never do, sometimes I hear him playing music quietly, I hear him laughing at tiktoks at 3am when we both can’t sleep. I know about him, but it’s like knowing about a ghost. You might see him closing the door as you’re going out and you might notice the obviously loud silence when he leaves his apartment once a month, but he’s got this untouchable aura around him.
I’m sure he knows about me. He just doesn’t care - and I, for a fact, don’t care that much either. I’ve got life and I’ve got girls and I’ve got my friends and I’ve got stuff to drink when I’m too lonely.
I’m sure we used to be friends.
—
It all started in October, last October. Not that I knew something was starting, it was just a regular fucking October, I was cold as hell and people annoyed me. Seconds from yelling at the first person who’d wanna talk to me. I brought a monster drink and poured it into my steaming hot black coffee. It wasn’t good, but that’s what I did to stay awake and look cool. I was cool. Freshmen feared me and I had the most fun of it.
I sipped on my drink the whole morning and thought about how easy it would be to just leave this all behind. I didn’t have any serious commitment to anything.
My lecture finally ended and without letting anything bother me even for a second more, I rushed to get out of the door as soon as possible. I threw my books and pens all over each other in the bag and figured I could care about that later - or not at all. I finished the rest of my survival elixir in one gulp - and a second before entering the direction of freedom, I ran right into him.
Like the clumsiest idiot he always was, George dropped all his books - why do you even have a backpack when you’re just going around carrying it, to show you’re stupidly clever or what - and his glasses slipped a bit down his nose.
I remember him taking a sharp intake of breath and wanting to apologise, perhaps to scold me (let's be honest, George wasn't much of a scold), but something in me didn't want to hear a word from him. I remember his confused expression as I grabbed his stupid books and shoved them into his arms, my fingers fleetingly touching his chest, and then I just kept walking.
I didn’t seen him for a few days after that, I don’t even know if he attended the lecture. I did my best to not care- but I think that was where it all started again. The image of his stupidly basic grey shirt that he wore that day was carved in my mind, and how his dark hair looked so I-just-woke-up good. Anyways, I really didn’t care.
So that was last October.
November passed by like it never even existed - honestly, fuck Novembers, I was all alone for my birthday - and then we crashed somewhen in December. I was actually happy that day, excited that everyone’s leaving for Christmas and I’ll have the time to do whatever- which usually meant to find a girl and a few shots and get out of this world for some time.
I bought another coffee - it was just after all my lessons, so also probably like a third cup - and went to go drink it to my only favourite place at this shithole that this school was. Well, still is, but November always makes everything worse, doesn’t it?
Fire escape, top floor, where I technically never had a reason to be. On the other hand, who cares. If a building has roof access, you'll find me there most of the time - and if it's your school, which strictly forbids roof access, you'll find me there exclusively.
Look, I'll give you some helpful advice. If you ever go out with someone, don't spill all your favourite places on them, because then they'll make you cry, and then you'll keep meeting said person there until one of you gives up. And honestly? I thought George would be the one.
Luckily I spotted him in time and stopped just around the corner, a list of pros and cons and all the possible consequences running through my head. I didn't even have time to make a decision and I was already walking in his direction, registering his freshly shattered face in pain as I passed him without hesitation and ran up the stairs to the roof. What a perfect asshole I was that day, you don't see that very often, do you? I heard the rustle of his jacket as he turned behind me, and the stupid sound almost made me take those few steps back. Almost. But I didn't.
Something in me refuses to forget the moment we ran out here together. It was the day after I almost thought I was going to die standing here alone, and suddenly George dragged me here, without the slightest clue, made me taste his sickeningly sweet coffee, and told me about how his physics professor's hair had almost started burning just moments before I pressed my lips into his. He offered me sliced apples and a handset and then we sat like that, me with my back against the chimney and George against my chest.
Yeah, I guess we used to be friends.
Christmas was painful in the end, because I knew he stayed just as well as I did, and I heard him singing these overly sweet melodies long into the night, even though he was all alone in there. Even through the wall his aura of peaceful, unbreakable and unattainably easy happiness was undeniable and so real. Not for me. I came home - ugh, home - late and only prayed it was really my door I was trying to open with thoughts clouded by God knows what.
When I looked at my keyes and realised his key was still there, I wondered for a while - but then my senses kicked in and I threw it somewhere into my drawers, for it to never be seen again. Bye bye, memories, now burn in hell.
I haven’t seen his face for a few days now, and I wanted nothing more than to forget it completely. The past months had stirred up too much of what I had tried so hard to bury. I haven't spoken a word to him in weeks, and I wish nothing more than to hear him answer my every thought, to simply forget how painfully close I am to someone who no longer cares for me.
He even celebrated New Year's Eve with someone. I have no idea who with. I don't care. Have you forgotten? Then in January we ran into each other more than once, a couple of times at school, once he knocked on my door to shove some material from a professor I supposedly left in class and once I ended up in the elevator with him. The most painful two minutes of my life.
Back in January, I was going crazy in his presence - again -, back in January, I couldn't even greet him with an easy "Hi," like a small child easily could, because behind every greeting I gave him was the unforgettable memory of his door opening and how I pulled him in for a kiss and how he inhaled sharply when I closed the door and pinned him against it.
Anyways.
We were like two planets, orbiting each other, still millions of miles away, perhaps like a deadly meteorite miraculously passing the planet it threatens. I'm the meteor, if you don't get it. Just so we're clear.
To shut up with these pathetic rants, I still had a crowd of girls and plenty of drinks and probably plenty of work, but I was so good at forgetting them that I eventually got fired and contacted my parents for the first time in months. Life was going well, well, at least my old ways were still here.
And then suddenly it was February and I kept running into him, and one day he bumped into me, perhaps as a belated revenge for October, and my fingers closed around his arm so quickly and instinctively so that he didn't fall completely, that my whole skin sparkled with the desire to be touched for several hours afterwards.
I met him in the library and reached for his book while he was looking around for a chair to climb on - saving me the jokes I would have otherwise thrown at him for another week, come on, I deserve plus points for that.
I silently handed him the missing change as he ordered his disgusting coffee parody and left his forgotten textbook by the door. So yeah, I'm too much of a dick to knock and face the consequences, okay? Either he wouldn't even want to see me, or I wouldn't be able to control myself and he'd probably have to throw the book at me.
It’s the seventh of March and I can’t sleep. Partially because the silence is too loud today. He isn’t watching a movie, he isn’t on a call with anyone, but he barely ever is, he isn’t laughing at cat compilations, or whatever he likes to watch nowadays. I considered listening to something with headphones to block it off, but his silent presence is so real once again. He’s so close and I’m going insane about it, can’t even lie now.
A few moments fly by and I think I’m falling asleep, when I hear some rumbling behind the wall. I yawn and turn to the other side. I am now sleeping and I do not care about anything else, especially not the brown-haired boy who’s technically just inches away from me, if he hasn't moved his bed since I last visited. I wish he hadn't and I’m not sure why. I don’t wanna think about that.
I can see him turning around in his bed, because he always sleeps on his right side. I can imagine him checking some notification from his family, I can imagine the cold breeze slowly flowing in through the window that he always keeps open at night but never during the day, I can- I can hear him crying.
It’s too clear. It’s too clear for it to be one of my George dreams.
I sit up straight and keep listening. For a moment he's quiet and I think Maybe it's really my fantasy going insane, maybe I need to find a new apartment to live in, but then it's there again. Sobbing as one does when everything becomes too much. Not that I ever cry - well, okay, I’ll admit it.
I sit up straight, unsure of what to do. I’d like to ignore it, something in me would really really like to ignore it, but something in me is fighting that with a power I didn’t know my thoughts had.
I sit up straight, wondering who hurt him.
I sit up straight, convincing myself it wasn’t me-
and I get up, because there’s a clear, urgent voice that says it has been me, all this time.
(what an awesome jerk I truly am)
I run my hands through my hair, desperately looking for the pyjama t-shirt I've tossed somewhere in the corner of my overheated apartment, exhaling sharply, yanking out the drawers and rummaging through them desperately, trying to find the one thing I've decided to bury, something inside me is so desperately impatient, in such an awful hurry, so miserably panicking, quick quick quick.
Where. Is. The. Key.
I found it.
I feel like a psycho, rushing out of my door as quietly as possible. The corridor is dark and silent as death.
I stop right in front of his door, suddenly uncertain. It can still be heard if I hold my breath. I raise and lower my hand a few times before I actually knock, but I can't go back to myself and pretend nothing is happening. I feel awful for several - all - reasons, I'm screaming at myself and my fingers are slightly shaking. Just slightly.
I knock and there is a grave silence. Then I hear a rumble, followed by a moment of silence. Another noise. I raise my hand to knock again when the door actually opens and my heart skips a beat. Or two.
He looks- he looks broken. But also damn sexy. Shattered in pieces. Cute too. Damn, my George - well, he's not my George anymore, but they look so much alike. We lock eyes and what I see in his face is what has been growing inside my soul.
“I still have your key,” I say like a total dumbass and we both look down to my hand, holding this small key that once had the power to open gates to heaven. He doesn’t say a word.
“Can I- can I come in?” I ask, not knowing what to expect in answer. Probably a “fuck off” and the door slammed right in front of my face? Yeah, sounds about right.
George inhales and I notice his breath is shaky. He wipes his eye as if there was just an annoying eyelash. “Yeah,” he says quietly and I’m almost not even sure he said it - until he steps back and lets me go through.
A familiar smell I can’t describe hugs me like a blanket - but then it’s suddenly George hugging me, he somehow closes the door and he’s burying his face in my neck, I can feel his hands around my waist now and it takes me a second before I realise George is truly here, hugging me and it almost makes me tear up how fragile he is when I pull him closer and I feel his shaky breath again.
I pick him up without thinking further and take him back to his bed, the bed is all crumpled up and I feel the tension in his body as he’s holding onto me and I’m not thinking other than I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m so fucking sorry George I’m so sorry I’m a dumbass who hurt you-
He curls up and he looks so small, but grabs my hand as I awkwardly sit on the edge of the bed and pulls me closer to him.
He’s whispering through the tears, I can see them reflecting the light of the moon behind the window.
“Can you stay tonight?”
I don't care about anything other than him.
His head is on my chest, sometimes he shakes all over and I hug him as best as I can and it's been a long time since I hugged him with all my soul. His breathing settles and I feel his cold tears fall on my hand and he is my George and he looks so fragile when he leans against me, when he holds me.
“I’m not leaving,” I whisper into his hair. “Not again,” I promise.
as i'm reading people's WIP intros and honestly just more writeblrs in general, i am intrigued with POV and from what POV i want to write.
i'm used to writing in third person (past tense), and i couldn't tell you the last time i wrote (fictionally) in first person. second person, yes - but i wouldn't want to write any full pieces of work in that; first person, though, i couldn't tell you when.
so, what is the preference? i'm just curious what everyone likes or dislikes about each POV and why they do/n't write a certain one.
reblog with your thoughts, post replies, hit up my ask box... i'm curious to know! :)
Yikes, I read some of the nasty replies you got about the first draft stuff, and I really agree with you that first drafts can have really great stuff and be worth reading. It is such a cynical view that they MUST be shit. Really? Obviously editing makes drafts better, but quality does not come from editing alone. That is such a pretentious way of framing art. If there is nothing good there to begin with, all you have is shit... right? lol (-just a friendly anon)
Thank you! That’s so nice to hear after all the drama happening in that post XD. Thank you very much.
I completely agree. When something can be better it doesn’t mean it was bad or shit before. Just that it can be better.
And honeslty writing is such a subjective creative activity, universal rules don’t apply here. What works a miricle with one will stunt another.
I’m honeslty fascianted by various creative processes...but people who can’t live with someone disagreing with them, cause it hurts their feelings or confidence or whatever when there are people who have different opinions than them...is being polite and respectful so much to ask?
Oh well. It’s a hard and unfair world. XD I knew it, but experiencing it personally feels a lot different.
Thanks again for stopping by! This cheered me up a lot :) <3
