i know what i'm doing, i have a degree in this

I have a lot of opinions about writing and here is where I dump them. I also do prompts and if you want I will edit your story! Feel free to ask questions or submit writing and I'll publish it for ya! Get that sweet sweet exposure amirite

[gailynovelry]

What they don’t tell you about storytelling is that it becomes an instinct over time. You learn how to kind of … intuitively chain events together over time. That doesn’t mean it’s a cakewalk, or that you never get stuck on plotbeats, but you have a better time walking yourself out of corners that you as a less experienced writer would have been tempted to abandon your story over. Because you’ve been stuck in similar corners before; you know how you get out now.

I know its frustrating to keep hitting dead ends, but you got this. You’ll learn a little from every roadblock you hit.

[gailynovelry]

Hope you don’t mind me reblogging your tags @inkpot-demigod;

#you really do#i realized a year or two back that i’d gotten to the point where i could just sort of trust fall into a story#as long as i don’t stress myself out over it#it will come together over time#but i had to throw myself into a lot of stories to reach that point

Trustfall into a story … oh, that’s a nice feeling.

[sigynpenniman]

I know everyone says it’s best to just stick to “said” as a dialogue tag bc it disappears and that’s true and I mostly do but I want to take a moment for my all-time favorite dialogue tag, “lied.” Absolutely nothing hits like “‘I’m here to help,’ he lied.” NOTHING.

[unamccormack]

ABSOLUTELY one of my favourites.

[doctor-yoshi-soul]

[hallownest-archive-deactivated2]

imo the best way to interpret those “real people don’t do x” writing advice posts is “most people don’t do x, so if a character does x, it should be a distinguishing trait.” human behavior is infinitely varied; for any x, there are real people who do x. we can’t make absolute statements. we can, however, make probabilistic ones.

for example, most people don’t address each other by name in the middle of a casual conversation. if all your characters do that, your dialogue will sound stilted and unnatural. but if just one character does that, then it tells us something about that character.

[jauntylittlefrillyboy]

[jumpingjacktrash]

yeah, go ahead and apply this filter to any writing advice i give forevermore, it’s super correct.

like if i go “kids will NOT let you carry them around like a plush toy all day, have your character put the kid DOWN, their arms are tired, so tired, also the child will now vanish into the distance as if shot from a railgun and by the time the character catches up there will be tears and ceiling food” just take the initiative to recognize that Cuddles Georg, who throws a shitfit when you try to put him down even though he’s three already and weighs the same as a subaru outback, is also valid, but somebody is gonna want to know why tf he is like that

[lasrina]

I work with this one vendor that periodically sends a salesman to the office, and that guy knows how to use your name three to four times in a sentence when he’s making a pitch. I legit think he read a book in the 1980s that said this is a good way to build personal relationships and has been hanging onto it ever since. And this really does inform you a lot about his character.

[writeastorywhere]

god i love long form fiction. i love you extremely long web novels i love you one hundred volumes of one piece i love you stories that don't have to worry about laying themes in because they have time, because they can start small and layer and layer and layer and layer until the sentences that make you cry are completely incomprehensible to anyone else without a thirty minute explanation i love you huge brandon sanderson epics i love you gigantic jrpgs i love you i love you i love you

[writingpun-art]

summoning trans cuthulhu to get top surgery

check out the zine this is in

[writingpun]

wrote a short story based on this idea! but like more Fucked Up read it here

[writingpun]

Read My Fiction Masterpost June 2023

yeehaw everybody here's some links to my published writing! there's some on @writeastorywhere as well but here's the links to the Official Shit

also as a side note I spent a couple years trying to decide what name I was using for my writing, so some of em don't say DS Oswald. Don't worry about that I prommy they're all me. also, this is just the stuff that's available online. Maybe i'll edit this with scans of my contributor copies for stuff that's not online.

SHORT FICTION

I'll Be Seeing You (2020) - mlm/wlw solidarity in the apocalypse.

[Untitled] (2021) - a trans girl has some strange dreams. this character's gonna be appearing in Dreamwalkers, my web comic, and this short story will probably be canon.

Vast and Blue (2021) - madness at sea. this was the first issue of the horror mag i co-edit, so I threw in one of my own stories to fill the thing out.

Shrine Maiden (2022) - fantasy lesbian romance between a wandering swordsman and a high priestess of the moon goddess. A novella! And it's free as an ebook and audio book! AND it just turned one year old! Go and give my girls some love.

Ghost Outside the Truck Stop Off I-95 (2022) - pov a dead armadillo starts talking to you. fun fact i had a fucking blood feud with the editors for this because they wanted to completely change one of the stylistic elements.

Suckers (2022) - a lesbian goes to visit her girlfriend's wacky family--oh, and they're all vampires. Silly goofy

What Should We Do With Your Body? (2022) - part of a collaborative murder mystery put together by @vinegarzines! Very fun. I wrote about a transmasc seeing a dead body while high on opiates.

Warmth (2022) - lesbian romance between a fire elemental and a blacksmith. You have to pay for this one but I honestly consider it one of my better 2022 stories.

ALL THE BEST ART (2023) - the first horror story I ever wrote, now published! And available for only two dollars! It's about a spooky painting. it's also about self harm so tread carefully

In. (2023) - horror flash fiction about grief. free! yeehaw!

POETRY

okay ngl. i don't like talking about my poetry and i kind of don't care if people read it as much. but i'm linking it here for those curious

Pagan steals christian imagery asmr // I watched good omens while I was dating someone and you won’t BELIEVE what the result was **NOT CLICKBAIT**

bodies are made to hold other bodies // I only ate your cat because I was angry it seemed so well-adjusted // Joke about nonbinary naming mechanisms

And a Happy New Year

[nyaacatboy]

i think the problem with most widespread writing advice is that it's meant for writers just starting out and not meant to be applied to All Levels Of Writing.

like "show don't tell" is meant to encourage a new writer to think of different ways to describe something beside The Obvious and push them to observe how different uses of words can affect the reader. it does NOT mean "never outright state what is going on ever."

the common advice to cut out things that aren't essential to the story is to give new writers a better handle on how to PLOT a story-writers generally have to start out telling stories with Very Obvious conflicts and plot beats before they gain enough control of the form to tell more subtle ones. it doesn't mean characters talking to each other casually is evil.

"start in the middle" is a piece of advice meant for beginning writers who often have much bigger story ideas than they can feasibly put to paper. they don't have the writing experience to know which parts of their ideas they can execute well (or at all). starting in the middle then means writing the part with the most conflict and interesting things happening first (which is easier for a beginner) and, most importantly, gets them out of the planning stage and actually writing. it does not mean exposition is evil and your story should always start with something Big and Dramatic.

the thing with writing advice is that it's not one-size-fits-all, and writers should discard any advice that they've outgrown or doesn't serve them any more. the craft of storytelling is about learning how good stories are built and made from the smallest to the largest scale, not following a bunch of arbitrary rules to the letter.

[writingpun]

Four of my short stories gettin published this year!

[jezifster2]

You know. Reading is important. Because I'm like always trying to make every line I write this groundbreaking mindfucking art but like. A book is 90% just saying what happened. "I hugged him around the waist." "The chair was brown and overstuffed." "I woke up alone." Etc etc. Like normal ass lines. I just keep comparing my boring, necessary to set a scene lines, with famous authors' absolute best lines and like.... every line doesn't have to shatter the earth. Sometimes someone just sits in a chair and the lines that wreck you come later, one at a time, here and there. It's alright.

[foxys-fantasy-tales]

This is super common and I wish we were taught when we begin to write that those quoted lines are also in a sea of the same sort of setup we obsess over not being 'good enough'. I saw multiple people drop out of writing courses over this in college. Sure, sometimes you need a better way to describe something prevalent or to pinpoint an emotion, but if EVERYTHING was written in that sort of tone for a whole book it would prove utterly exhausting to read.

[pens-swords-stuff]

Also, if every single line in the book was hard-hitting and mindblowing, then it wouldn't be memorable because it would be drowned out.

The best lines are famous because they stand out.

[writeastorywhere]

Every so often I encounter the idea that artists should not create for an audience, and a lot of the time I agree with parts of it--I agree creative works that exist only as marketing tactics are often hollow and lack the creative verve I want to put in my own art--but sometimes they evolve into this pseudo-mythology around The Art and The Artist that isn't particularly true, at least not for me.

Because... I create for an audience! I always have! My art is there because I want people to look at it and be moved, not because I was Divinely Inspired To Express My Innermost Self. Creating for an audience is my natural starting point! Why should I have to forget that people may one day look at what I make?

[writeastorywhere]

Daughter of the Moon Goddess + Narrative Structure

I recently finished reading Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan, and I wanted to ramble a little bit about something it does very well.

So, I went into the book knowing that it was part one of a duology, epic fantasy type stuff. And I've read a good number of those, so I went in pretty sure of what I would get: cute boy, forbidden love, hidden identity, et cetera. And then I hit... it had to be page 133 or something.

And what I thought would be the "main" plot of this book had completely run its course.

Now, before this, I was mostly taking in the book with a critical eye, basically line editing it in my head and having an okay time but not really getting invested in the story. But when I hit that point in the book, I mentally set aside some of my semi-professional cynicism and started paying attention.

Okay. New love interest, new position in the hierarchy of the Celestial Kingdom, entirely different tone that I thought would be reserved for the second book. I adjusted pretty quickly, and the middle section of the book passed pretty easily. And then the little turns, the moments of "oh i thought this would be covered in the next book" kept happening, and actually sped up. I was so used to a set narrative structure for these kinds of books that these moments completely undermined my ability to predict what was going to happen--which was a nice little treat for me, because I'm a little jaded about this stuff and most of the books I've read this past year have been narratively somewhat predictable. Xingyin, the titular daughter of moon goddess Chang'e, receives the honor she's been searching for in the Celestial Army...only to receive a weighty quest from the Emperor. But that gets resolved in thirty pages and then she's been taken prisoner by the Demon Realm. But that also resolves pretty quickly and she's tasked with finding a way to break an ancient enchantment. But then she does that in like twenty pages and suddenly we've fit what I thought would be an entire series into one book. It made especially the last part of the book really thrilling for me, because while I could sort of tell where things were heading I couldn't tell where the ride stopped. It's compelling me to get the sequel, just to see how much more happens.

Usually, when I feel this way about a book--like a whole series has been squished into one space--I mean it somewhat negatively, because fitting so much information in can result in a weird claustrophobia in the story that reads very clearly. But this felt less like things had been inappropriately condensed and more like a showcase of Sue Lynn Tan's storytelling efficiency. Like she didn't need a whole book for these plot beats separately. It's very refreshing, and it makes me want to fuck around with this type of thing in my own fiction.

[writing-prompt-s]

You and your other co-workers have known for a while that something is impersonating your boss. But no one has bothered to say anything because under its leadership the workplace has become an enjoyable place. Today you’re training a new employee when they see the boss eating a delivery driver.

[belindasays]

I’m nearly through with the spreadsheet demo when Monica screams.

For some reason, my first instinct is to check the screen. I mean, God knows that Excel makes me want to scream sometimes, and I’ve been working with it twice as long as she has. I turn to it, and everything’s fine, like, as fine as it could be, and then my eye catches on something on the other side of our suite’s glass walls.

The office lead, Angela. With a deli platter. Wiping something off of the plastic cover with a napkin.

“Oh goddamnit,” I say under my breath.

Keep reading

[writeastorywhere]

Maybe it's my nonbinary swag (or my general fractured sense of identity even beyond gender), but I will always be a sucker for a character with multiple names. There's already a lot in my fiction. The master thief Seren who will answer to Esther because that's what his mother calls him; the vampire hunter who refuses to give out her name and so just becomes her title, or whatever nickname the others bestow upon her; the adventurer who picks up a title based on a random nearby object whenever they're in the fae realm... there's something so appealing to me about characters' names as reflections of who they are, and thus their nicknames with various people become reflections of how a person can change depending on who they surround themselves with...

[montaguethelorekeeper]

The Museum of Human Artifacts

“And here we see a graphite dowel recovered from beneath a small bridge east of Estranum.” The museum guide prattled on. The tour group formed a semi circle without being told around the pedestal displaying the artifact.

“The Human Studies department have found many of these objects before, and certain commonalities have been found across the sample size available. Note the hexagonal shape of the wooden portion of dowel, incasing a thin rod of graphite. At one end the wood has been sharpened to a point. While the other end features a thin tin band joining a hard pink material to the greater structure. Researchers have done tests with the artifacts and speculate they may be some form of writing utensil. However there is still much debate over why humans would have constructed writing utensils in this fashion, the most vexing mystery of all concerning the nature and usage of the hardened flat end opposite of the marking end.”

Maedum felt Dana lean down behind her to whisper in her and Haedum’s ears.

“He’s got it mostly right actually. Pencils are basically used like pens except they don’t use ink and you can erase what you write with the other end.”

Maedum hoped nobody noticed Dana’s illusory form whispering into her armpit.

Vaeralta did their best to make something that comprised between emulating Dana’s true appearance and making them resemble a nondescript elf. The end result was an elf with strabismus, half a head of extra height and a ludicrously puffy coat. The coat was Maedums idea, there’d been concern over Dana’s natural frame being wider than what’s normal for an elf. They almost went with the Extra Thick Danelf look before Maedum suggested hiding the difference with illusory clothing. Haedum and Dana vetoed but came round on the basis of customizing her outfit. A semi-mythical human disguised as a towering, rail thin, cross eyed, horrendously dressed elf was whispering about the practical usage of pencils into, *Yep. That’s my armpit.*

“Who can tell me what is unique about this particular artifact?” The tour guides question brought Maedum back to focus. He scanned the tour group and called on a few who raised their hands. After a couple of obligatory “Good guess!” And “Not quites” the tour guide was nearly bouncing on his toes to share his secret piece of knowledge. “What makes this piece special are its unique inscriptions.” He said as he turned the case to show black stenciled lettering on one of its six sides. *That’s a bit unfair. Trying to make us guess at something we never could have known of.* She was about to ask Dana for a translation but when Maedum turned back she saw Dana with her knuckles clutched between her teeth. Haedum saw this as well and began grinning like a madman, knowing well enough when Dana was trying to hold in laughter. The twins fixed their attention to the pencil. Whatever it was that caused such a reaction *had* to be good.

The tour guide, so far unaware of the brewing chaos, continued his spiel with zeal. “These markings have fascinated our archeologists. While procuring a literal translation was easily accomplished. Language deciphering spells only translates speech and texts literally, so the true meaning of art becomes simplified and distorted. So I will read to you one such translation and I’d like all of you to think deeply using all the contextual information we’ve learned so far to decide what you think this poem means.”

The tour guide inhaled, Dana exhaled, the twins and the rest held their breath.

“Unduly Crisp, Carries Out Medication.”

Dana wheezed and shook from the lack of air in her lungs. There was an equal wind left in the guides sails as his face soured. “Are you alright sir?” Dana didn’t respond properly, instead opting to cover her mirth with a coughing fit. She managed to wave him on in a convincing enough manner for the guide to continue.

There were some genuinely interesting theories being thrown about. Ranging from the therapeutic properties of writing to a popular theory the utensil had once belonged to a philosopher doctor of sorts. Dana had left temporarily to collect herself in the bathroom, and by the time she was no longer in danger of bursting a blood vessel the guide was ushering everyone on to the next room.

Dana sidled up between the twins. “Did you know the bathrooms here just have a sponge on a stick? Is that common?”

“Well they’re enchanted.” Defended Maedum.

“God I’d hope so.”

Dana stopped cold.

Maedum and Haedum swiveled in unison to follow the laser line of Dana’s gaze.

Beyond the crowd, set upon a pedestal, a human artifact of unrealistic proportions was erected. The shape itself was suspect enough to draw a few scandalized gasps from the crowd. The garish green color of the thing did not so much *draw* the eye, as it violently took ones retinas hostage at fluorescent gun point.

Dana did not move a muscle. If she did, she would be acknowledging the forward progression of time and be forced to process the visual information of exactly what she was seeing in exactly where it was and with what context. The guide, unaware of the precipice on which Dana’s self control balanced crookedly upon her juvenile humor, announced with a stony countenance:

“This artifact was most likely used in fertility rituals.”

[writeastorywhere]

hyper-specific zine: strange format horror based on looking at literary agent profiles. free little short story for anyone interested

[writeastorywhere]

Arion looked into the campfire and then into the shadowed trees beyond the edges of its light and shivered. He was not cut out for this kind of adventure. He could feel the seconds of his life slipping away. He’d just wanted to have a nice sabbatical, finish some poems, but no, he had to go and get himself chosen by some artifact and then there was the angel and the demons… 

Arion glanced over at his traveling companion, the previously mentioned angel— Michael. 

No, fuck. That won’t work. There’s gotta be a different angle. Too much exposition. Too much of Arion filling in backstory for everybody else… 

The adventurers clung huddled close to their fire. In the shadows of the trees beyond it, the demon listened to their quiet conversation: 

“Should we keep this pace,” the angel was saying, “we can reach the whatever I’ll think of a name later in a matter of weeks.” 

The angel was a strange-looking man: statuesque in proportion and unblemished but dressed in rags, with permanently-wide eyes covered in some kind of film that obscured his physical sight. He didn’t seem like much of a threat— but then, angels never did. 

His companion looked like even less of a threat. Some scared-looking human with soft hands unused to manual labor and warm brown eyes

Eh, I dunno. Feels too exterior. Different angle’s good but what’s gonna happen after the demon jumps out and Michael ganks him in one swoop? Transfer of pov might be weird.

Michael tried smiling pleasantly at the little dupe he’d recruited to sacrifice for his god. “If we keep going at this pace,” he said, “We’ll reach the ?? in a matter of weeks.” 

Arion’s voice, when it filtered through the crackling of the fire, sounded reluctant. 

UUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHH FUUUCK 

I can’t believe I have to do thissss like I know it’ll be GOOD but right now I just wanna skip to the part where they’re FIGHTING and BETRAYING EACH OTHER and there’s DRAMAAAA actually wait I can do that there’s not like any. Laws I can write whatever I want forever

“Michael?” Arion turned to face his angel companion, horrified. “What are you saying?” 

“The artifact’s power can’t be unlocked,” Michael repeated, slowly, like he was speaking to a small child. “It’s just here to be sacrificed to the gods,  along with its wielder.” 

The angel advanced on Arion, his face still unfairly beautiful even now, his expression a soft and pleasant smile. Michael reached out one hand, and Arion tried to take a step back and realized he was already at the edge of the Godfalls FUCK yes finally came up with a name. He glanced over the edge, towards the infinite waterfall, then back at the angel, his face filled with fear. 

“You can’t be serious—” Michael closed in on Arion, but instead of allowing himself to go over the falls, Arion reached out and took hold of Michael’s hand, held it close to his chest. “Michael— you’re my friend. Don’t do this to me.” 

It was only at that moment that Michael’s expression cracked a little, then a lot. He looked so lost. “I— Arion. I have to. I cannot disobey my god. I’ll go blind.” 

“I’d rather be blind than murder you,” Arion snapped. Then his voice softened. “Are you really that selfish?” 

Michael hesitated. And then, he said, “Yes,” and shoved Arion. But as Arion fell back, he grabbed onto Michael’s shirt and used his momentum to bring the angel over the edge with him. 

UGH I dunno I feel like it’s missing something. Longer scuffle? Maybe Michael gets the ability to fly or something? Feels just a little too fast? I guess it’ll feel better when the book is finished and there’s all the foreshadowing and tension before this moment. 

You know what that’s good enough for today. I think I’m going to go and get some hot chocolate and tell my agent it’s going good. I can always write the bulk of it a couple months before the draft is due anyways, it’s not like I’m that slow of a typist.

[iwhumpyou]

One of the best tips for writing descriptions of pain is actually a snippet I remember from a story where a character is given a host of colored pencils and asked to draw an egg.

The character says that there’s no white pencil.  But you don’t need a white pencil to draw a white egg.  We already know the egg is white.  What we need to draw is the luminance of the yellow lamp and the reflection of the blue cloth and the shadows and the shading.

We know a broken bone hurts.  We know a knife wound hurts.  We know grief hurts.  Show us what else it does.

You don’t need to describe the character in pain.  You need to describe how the pain affects the character - how they’re unable to move, how they’re sweating, how they’re cold, how their muscles ache and their fingers tremble and their eyes prickle.

Draw around the egg.  Write around the pain.  And we will all be able to see the finished product.