Writing with Weasels

Feel free to ask any writing questions you have!

[relatedworlds-deactivated201402]

If you are a writer, and you have a novel idea that you are excited about writing, write it. Don’t go on message boards and ask random Internet denizens whether or not something is allowed. … Who is the writer here? YOU ARE. Whose book is it? YOUR BOOK. There are no writing police. No one is going to arrest you if you write a teen vampire novel post Twilight. No one is going to send you off to a desert island to live a wretched life of worm eating and regret because your book includes things that could be seen as cliché. If you have a book that you want to write, just write the damn thing. Don’t worry about selling it; that comes later. Instead, worry about making your book good. Worry about the best way to order your scenes to create maximum tension, worry about if your character’s actions are actually in character; worry about your grammar. DON’T worry about which of your stylistic choices some potential future editor will use to reject you, and for the love of My Little Ponies don’t worry about trends. Trying to catching a trend is like trying to catch a falling knife—dangerous, foolhardy, and often ending in tears, usually yours. I’m not saying you shouldn’t pay attention to what’s getting published; keeping an eye on what’s going on in your market is part of being a smart and savvy writer. But remember that every book you see hitting the shelves today was sold over a year ago, maybe two. Even if you do hit a trend, there’s no guarantee the world won’t be totally different by the time that book comes out. The only certainty you have is your own enthusiasm and love for your work. … If your YA urban fantasy features fairies, vampires, and selkies and you decide halfway through that the vampires are over-complicating the plot, that is an appropriate time to ax the bloodsuckers. If you decide to cut them because you’re worried there are too many vampire books out right now, then you are betraying yourself, your dreams, and your art. If you’re like pretty much every other author in the world, you became a writer because you had stories you wanted to tell. Those are your stories, and no one can tell them better than you can. So write your stories, and then edit your stories until you have something you can be proud of. Write the stories that excite you, stories you can’t wait to share with the world because they’re just so amazing. If you want to write Murder She Wrote in space with anime-style mecha driven by cats, go for it. Nothing is off limits unless you do it badly. And if you must obsess over something, obsess over stuff like tension and pacing and creating believable characters. You know, the shit that matters. There are no writing police. This is your story, no one else’s. Tell it like you want to.

Rachel Aaron (via relatedworlds)

Yeah, so, this answers a lot of asks I get. It’s also why YW focuses on technique and style, and less on content and research.

(via clevergirlhelps)

[hello095]

Save Your Computer

I have the worst luck. I’ve broken five computers and four laptops but I’ve finally learnt my lesson. After losing my work so many times, I have been great at rewriting because I’d never backed anything up. Take it from me:

Even if you backup your work in one external source from your computer, back it up online or in as many places as you can

Back up according to how much valuable work you have so if you save work/programs frequently, back up once every week

If you have a Windows computer, go onto Control Panel and search “back up”. Click on the first link and follow through from there

Do not wait until it’s too late

I may add more information on if I can think of any, but here are some useful links on some other ways to back up your computer: Windows help to backing up files How to Back Up a Computer (among other devices) How to Back up Data The absurdly simple guide to backing up your PC Three Best Ways to Back Up Your Files 6 cheap ways to back up your files 8 Ways to Back up Your Computer Files How to back up your data Done a Computer Backup Lately?

[rphelper]

Google Drive is a great resource to use for backing things up.

[quirkliterary]

Five Most Common Female Character Stereotypes

 When someone says that your character is “common”, it is not a good thing. It means that your character is a copy that’s been copied over much too many times. That you’ve probably seen it in books yourself— you may have even based it off a book character. Or you may have ripped it directly from a stereotype without even thinking about it.

 It happens to the best of us when we’re absent about development. However, that does not make it okay. Common characters must be eradicated as soon as they start sounding bland.

 The post on male characters will serve as follow-up tomorrow. If you think this one’s a tad brash, just wait for that one. Juuust wait.

5- Brave chick who has utterly no personality besides oh, look she can shoot stuff pretty good can I leave her there.

 Somehow, the trend seems to be going that in order to have a female protagonist, we must rid ourselves of every trace of interesting traits and make her the equivalent of a mindless arrow-shooting vixen who’s cold on the outside… and on the inside… and is generally cold… and bland…

 Bland is not good.

 A female protagonist can and should be utterly hardcore with the weaponry and all that— I am completely down with that and in fact encourage it— but don’t sacrifice her depth for it. She can be both gun-savy and a memorable character.

 If you’re questioning that your character might be a part of this group, check to see what her main traits are. “Good with ammo” is not a trait. “Trained in judo” is not a trait. “Can do sarcastic comebacks but otherwise is still as a sock” is also not a trait.

Dig deeper into her personality, bring her out, let her delve deeper, gosh darn it.

4- Overly supportive mother/grandmother/aunt.

 Kudos to your character if she has a mother who cares. Overly supportive mother, however, cares a bit too much. She seems to live in constant peril that any sign of discipline she enforces over her daughter will make her unlikeable, and that making herself a limp noodle— albeit a sweet limp noodle— will earn her daughter’s respect.

 Common phrases from her mouth are: “Whatever you want, honey”; “Hello! I made dinner! Do you want a smartphone with that?.”; “But officer, I don’t care about the evidence— my child is golden!”

 This is one of the more distressing common tropes. Think of your own mother— you respect her, don’t you? It probably wasn’t because she let you do whatever you want. Mothers aren’t passive, and the fictional ones shouldn’t be. And if she is passive, she better not be portrayed as the perfect role model for every teenage girl. You’re just a-shoeing for both a terrible character and a warped perspective for the next generation.

3- The weird girl who all the guys love even though she sniffs her feet in public.

 You can see them through indie fiction in droves, this wave of “different” girls whose only case in point seem to be acting uncommonly weird. The sort who shy guys hook up with presumably so he can poetically narrate her wandering off bridges because she was staring at the clouds. Creating a girl with quirks is one thing— creating an offbeat girl is also great. Creating a psychopath with “cute” abnormalities like licking walls and taking baths in ketchup every Saturday— exaggerating a bit here— is not cute.

 Frankly, it’s a tad psychotic and uncanny to the extreme.

 The thing with characters is that no matter how weird they are, they still have to be human. You must provide a viable reason for her bathing in ketchup, not just because she has an excusable-because-she”s-eccentric.

 I can’t find any excuse for your character to like bathing in ketchup unless she also likes burning down orphanages and mutters to herself in public while clinging to a shopping cart.

 Again, if your character’s a bit eccentric, that is alright. But keep her reasons for being eccentric within reason— too many novels go overboard with this bit.

2- “I’m going on an unnecessary spiritual adventure and will describe it to you with looooots of adverbs.”

 (sigh)

 See if this sounds familiar: “Here is Sally. She is in her mid-thirties. Sally is bored of the never-ending rut her successful job and well-meaning friends give her, so with soundtrack accompaniment by an inspiring instrumental, she gives up all her possessions and somehow manages to pay on a trek around the globe.

 Here she meets offensively stereotypical side characters, encounters stereotypical events, and manages to meet an addendum on the meaning of life in a stereotypically philosophical way, also accompanied to an imaginary soundtracks.

 And a brick ton of adverbs.”

 Literary escapism is so hot right now. If we were to believe the charts, every middle aged business woman is currently on an adventure in deep deep {foreign country}, where she is building houses and outraging every reasonable person she meets with her ignoramus comments.

 The best way to root her out is to decide if her jaunt or move has purpose besides “discovering what she’s all about.” If no, tweak with caution until everything she says isn’t a one-liner from the great philosophical internet.

  She is also often a victim of trope number three, so beware. And if she’s ditching her job for Bulgaria in no reason besides she’s always wondered if Bulgaria hides the secret to happiness, careful. You might have this trope on your hands.

1- The begrudgingly-blank teenage girl.

 "Hello, honey!" said overbearing relative character, beaming as she gave me a mama bear hug. She always does that because I’m her golden child even though I constantly backsass her. "How was your day at school."

 ”Uhh, fine mom,” I mumbled, shoving her out of the way. She was in front of the refrigerator. This is the life of a teenager. “Do we have any milk?”

 ”Milk,” said my playful-but-clearly-unhip father, creeping out from the pantry. “I am going to make a sarcastic comment about milk and ruffle your hair, kiddo.”

 ”Ummm, okay,” I said, rolling my eyes. What a hopeless goofball. “Very funny, dad.”

And so on.

 You don’t tend to see this in published teen lit fiction; perhaps there’s a reason for that. Not only is it dull to create a character who goes around saying “umm” and mentally abusing people, it’s also inaccurate. Find the rudest teen queen you can think of, with the most perfect live who rejects it all for angst, and I guarantee you she’s nothing like this character.

 Why?

 For starters, she has a viable personality.

 This is the most forgettable stereotype—the top of the overtly-stereotypical family pyramid— and therefore is the most vital to avoid. Your character needs to have a more complex base than this.

 I don’t care what that base is, but find it. Find it before you figure out your character is an insult-spewing adolescent zombie.

[clevergirlhelps]

Re: Point 3

Don’t use psychopathic/psychotic interchangeably. 

People with those kinds of personality disorders are people.

Manic Pixie Dream Girls do not have the flaws the Point 3 rails against. I believe Point 3 is trying to tell people not to write them, but does not get everything quite right. 

[the-right-writing]

So your robot character has no emotions programmed

What does that mean?

Hatred is an emotion. No hatred allowed.

Same with anger. “No emotions” also means “no negative emotions.”

They need a goal programmed in so that they don’t just sit around doing nothing.

It’s possible to have “don’t kill people” programmed and also have no emotions programmed.

Longing is an emotion.

"Emotionally repressed" and "zero emotions" are very different things. The only way they could feel things would be if they got reprogrammed.

[compoundchem]

Some pretty cool news: Compound Interest is now a contributing blog to Business Insider! This won’t affect the posts on the main site in any way, it just means that some posts will also feature on Business Insider’s Science page, spreading chemistry funs far and wide.  The first post is the first of the chemical warfare graphics from a few days ago (on the Compound Interest site here if you missed it).

[disneyconceptsandstuff]

Costume Designs from Sleeping Beauty by Mary Blair

[bookporn]

10 classic Victorian Novels everyone should read by Interesting Literature

Click on the link to read about each one of them!

[writing-questions-answered]

Advice/Resources: Winged Armor and General Armor

17magicwords asked: I’ve come across a bit of a problem in clothing, particularly armor for my characters. Most of them have large wings on their back and use them to fly so it can’t be too heavy and should allow for movement. I also want to avoid the “armor bikini” as many of my characters are women. Do you have any advice?

Typically winged characters in armor do not wear armor on their wings for various reasons. For one thing, armor by nature is very heavy, so covering large wings with armor would double if not triple the weight of the armor making it too heavy to be of any use. Add to that the fact that wings are naturally very lightweight which is why even large ones don’t throw the character off balance, but if you cover that large surface with armor—even the lightest possible material—you create weight that is heavier than their armored body which will throw off their center of balance. It might not be enough to tip them over, but it will be enough to make movement very awkward and dangerous, which is obviously the last thing you want in battle. A third issue is that if the character’s armor is light enough, they might be able to use their wings to their advantage in battle, so the risk of having them damaged might outweigh the benefit of covering them. In your case, it is all going to depend on the size of the wings, I think. When you say “large wings” I’m imagining wings the size of the whole body, and those would be tough to cover in metal armor. I am wondering if chainmail might be an option. If it’s steel chainmail, it might still be really heavy, but I still feel like it would be lighter than regular metal armor. My husband suggests other materials such as leather or perhaps a fictional metal or composite material. Another option he suggests would be not covering them entirely but partially, just enough to deter a glancing blow. Smaller wings, I think, could be covered any way you like as small wings are sometimes an ornament of armor. But, regardless of the wing size, you’ll find that most winged characters do not wear armor on their wings, so you’ll just need to research some different options and see what you think. If you’re good at drawing or have a trusted friend or family member who can draw, you might do some rough concept art to see how different options might look. 

In the meantime, here are some different pictures of winged armor that I found. Some are characters with unarmored wings, others are characters with armored wings or ornamental wings on their armor. This will give you an idea of what the winged characters might look like in armor. Also, I’m including a link about non-bikini armor to give you some ideas for your female characters: Leather Wings (ornamental, but covered wings might look similar) Armored Wings (ornamental) Large Armored Wings (ornamental) Functional Wing Armor (these wings are part of the armor but function) Feathered Wings in Armor (I can’t tell if these are ornamental or not, but this is what large feathered non-armored wings would look like on a character in armor) Here as well, on Robbie Williams. Non-Armored Feathered Wings (from here) (and another one, from here) Proper Female Armor: Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

FOR ANYONE STILL WONDERING, YES, WOMEN CAN WEAR FULL ARMOR, TOO The Problem With Women’s Armor, According to a Man Who Makes Armor It’s Time to Retire “Boob Plate” Armor. Because It Would Kill You.

Tumblrs dedicated to women in proper armor: Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor Fuck Yeah Women in Armor Women’s Armor: Done Right General Armor Information: Armor for Beginners Plate Armor (GIS) Parts of Plate Armor Armor Tutorials and References

[writingwithcolor]

So that PoC Writing Advice Blog you wanted....

She’s here!

Writing with Color is ready for your questions on all things written and diverse!

Have a token Black guy on your hands? Need help describing skin tones tastefully? Ready to write about a culture dissimilar to your own? Let us give you a hand.

What we offer:

Writing advice/guides

Diversity blog series

Book recs and reviews

Writing feedback services

More +++

The ask box is OPEN so come armed with your questions. We’ll be happy to answer them!

[nyctaeus]

When Van Gogh was a young man in his early twenties, he was in London studying to be a clergyman. He had no thought of being an artist at all. he sat in his cheap little room writing a letter to his younger brother in Holland, whom he loved very much. He looked out his window at a watery twilight, a thin lamppost, a star, and he said in his letter something like this: “it is so beautiful I must show you how it looks.” And then on his cheap ruled note paper, he made the most beautiful, tender, little drawing of it. When I read this letter of Van Gogh’s it comforted me very much and seemed to throw a clear light on the whole road of Art. Before, I thought that to produce a work of painting or literature, you scowled and thought long and ponderously and weighed everything solemnly and learned everything that all artists had ever done aforetime, and what their influences and schools were, and you were extremely careful about *design* and *balance* and getting *interesting planes* into your painting, and avoided, with the most astringent severity, showing the faintest *academical* tendency, and were strictly modern. And so on and so on. But the moment I read Van Gogh’s letter I knew what art was, and the creative impulse. It is a feeling of love and enthusiasm for something, and in a direct, simple, passionate and true way, you try to show this beauty in things to others, by drawing it. And Van Gogh’s little drawing on the cheap note paper was a work of art because he loved the sky and the frail lamppost against it so seriously that he made the drawing with the most exquisite conscientiousness and care.

Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit (via raggedybearcat)

[alunit]

She was like the sea on a stormy day. She could only destroy.

(via intractably)

[writing-questions-answered]

Publishing: Children's Book Manuscript

Anonymous asked: I was looking for how to format a manuscript for a Children’s book and cant seem to find how to do it. Since a page could consist of a single sentence, do you separate them onto separate sheets of paper? What if you have/do not have illustrations?

From what I can tell, a children’s picture book manuscript would be formatted similar to any other story. In other words, I think you’ll just write out the story as if it were in a book with no pictures. I’m not 100% on that, but that’s the way it looks to me. Your best bet, in all honesty, is to look on the web sites of the agents and/or publishers you are querying to see what their specific formatting guidelines are. If you don’t have illustrations, don’t worry about it. The publisher will take care of that. If you do have illustrations, the web site should tell you whether or not to include them. Here are some links I found, too: Writing Picture Books for Children: Formatting Your Manuscript Writing for Children and Teens: How to Format Your Manuscript The Basics of Writing for Children: Submitting Your Manuscript

Should You Include Illustration Notes in Your Manuscript?

[supermodelgif-deactivated201409]

The time between midnight and dawn when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are most palatable. It is the hour when the sleepless are pursued by their sharpest anxieties, when ghosts and demons hold sway. The hour of the wolf is also the hour when most children are born.

Ingmar Bergman, explaining “The Hour of the Wolf” (via bonesofawriter)

[fixyourwritinghabits]

Research Tools

Hi. Um, I have a question. Do you have anything ultra-uber-specific on how to search? Like how to use Google? How do I search for information about Google? (Sorry, but after reading some of the asks, I couldn’t resist.) I love your blog. Thank you for everything you’ve put out there.

— cpnfabulous

There’s a lot of good things to tell you how to use Google more effectively. Here’s some links:

How to Use Google More Effectively

Using Google for Research

How to Properly Research Online

Guide to Internet Research

And Google isn’t your only choice! Check out:

Top 10 Resources for Writers

7 Great Online Resources for Writers

Research Resources for Writers

Researching the Little Details

On Doing Research

[thegabecole]

As I’ve been going through the intern slush, I’ve noticed that many times, when I recommend a rejection, it’s largely because of voice. Voice, to me, is one of the most important elements in a novel, because if it’s wrong on the first page, it’s usually wrong throughout the whole manuscript. Being that I read a lot of YA submissions, this post is largely centered on voice-related problems I frequently see with YA submissions. But many of these issues can also apply to NA by looking at the points with a slightly older cast in mind. YA Voice Red Flags:

Lack of contractions. This can actually be a problem in any category, but it’s especially important in YA manuscripts—a voice without any contractions always sounds stiff. This is one of the easiest (and often one of the first) voice-related red flags I pick out. Why? Because we speak and think with contractions, so when they’re absent, the writing becomes stilted and loses a great deal of flow, making it extraordinarily easy to pick it out. “I am not feeling well so I can not go,” for example, doesn’t sound nearly as fluid as, “I’m not feeling well so I can’t go.” Agreed? Good.

Outdated slang. If you’re writing YA, you need to be current with the language—no exceptions. For examples, teenagers today don’t really say “talk to the hand” or “phat” or “what’s the 411” anymore. (Note: those weren’t taken from actual submissions, I’m just giving outdated examples). Outdated slang, to me, is an enormous red flag and tells me the writer isn’t reading enough YA. 

Forced (current) slang. This is an equally problematic, but harder to spot problem. Sometimes I see submissions that use current slang, but the waythey use it feels…off. This is a little harder to describe, but the easiest way to ferret them out of your manuscript is to have critique partners and/or beta readers who are up to date with the current slang read your manuscript. 

Corny curse substitutions. This is a biggie. While not all teenagers curse, many of them do—and when they don’t, they don’t often use corny substitutions. “Frickin’” for example, could work as a substitution for a particular four-letter word, but “french fries” probably won’t.  Note: UNLESS your character makes a point of being corny, or it fits with your voice. I won’t say this never works (because I’m sure there’s a book out there that can make it happen), but to be honest, I’ve yet to see it work successfully with exception to “D’Arvit” in Artemis Fowl, which mostly worked because it wasn’t corny—it was a made up gnomish word. 

Teenager stereotypes. This is huge. When I see teenager stereotypes blended into the voice or the characters, it almost always puts me off. Teenagers are not a sum of their stereotypes, and relying on them in your writing, quite frankly, is lazy. You can do better–and teenagers deserve better. 

Solutions:

Listen to teenagers talk. A lot. Don’t have a teenager in your life? That’s fine—watch YA-centered TV shows and movies. They tend to feature teenagers who are effortlessly up to date with current slang, references, etc. Or go to your local mall and do a little (subtle) eavesdropping. Yes, really. It’s research. 

Read YA. By and large, the YA that’s published today (especially if it’s relatively recent) have great examples of successful YA voices. Read them. Learn from them. Write your own. (This step by the way? Not optional if you’re writing YA). 

Get critique partners. This is so ridiculously important—make sure you have beta readers and critique partners look at your work. I personally recommend having several rounds of betas and CPs, so you can see if the changes you made in the first round, for example, were as effective as you hoped. 

Would you add anything to either list? Unmentioned problems? Solutions?

[bookpatrol]

Minnesota: Land of 10,000 lakes and 1 floating library

There are lakes everywhere in Minnesota and now one of them has a floating library.

Thanks to Sarah Peters the contraption above is open for business on Cedar Lake in Minneapolis. Designed by Molly Reichert the 8 foot structure will hold upwards of 80 books for water travelers to peruse and check out.

Canoes, kayaks, paddle boards, skiffs, rowboats, or even inner tubes are invited to paddle up to the Library and browse the shelves from inside their watercraft. The library has both circulating and reference collections of artists’ books contributed by artists nationwide. A staff of friendly floating librarians facilitate the check out process and make reading suggestions

There are even drop off boxes on the shore to return the books.

About the project, Peters told the Minneapolis Star Tribune “Art books are not a widely known art form..And so there’s an element of delight and surprise. First of all, canoeing along and coming across a library. And then having it stocked with books that are totally unique. It’s like this double whammy of inventiveness. It can expand people’s ideas of what art is.”

True enough but it could also ruin a lot of those unique books. Granted one cannot enter the library but the confluence of books and water rarely ends well.

Perhaps a shore-based library by the landing dock could have achieved the goal of exposing people to the pleasures of book arts and artists books without  the high risk. But then again maybe the reward is in the risk.

Story at the Star Tribune: The land of 10,000 lakes now has a floating library 

Floating Library website

Flickr set of the Floating Library, 2013

h/t Shelf Awareness

[glasstownentertainment]

This is so cool. Would defiantly check out a floating bookshop. Although, it does sound a little dangerous for the books!

~Intern Tori~

[recoveryisbeautiful]

Less Commonly Known Eating Disorders

[writingweasels-blog]

Orthorexia: defined as an obsession with “healthy or righteous eating.”

An individual dealing with Orthorexia fixates on defining the “right” foods, foods that can be safely eaten. 

They will spend just as much time and energy thinking about food as someone with Bulimia or Anorexia. They may not think about calories, but they think about the overall “health benefits” and how the food was processed, prepared, etc.  Individuals with Orthorexia tend not to eat out as much because they do not trust the preparation of foods other than what they have prepared.

The obsession for healthy foods could come from a number of sources such as family habits, society trends, economic problems, recent illness, or even just hearing something negative about a food type or group, which then leads them to ultimately eliminate the food or foods from their diet.

Something to keep in mind: The severe restrictive nature of Orthorexia has the potential to morph into Anorexia. 

Bigorexia: a disorder in which a person constantly obsesses and/or worries about being too small, underdeveloped, and/or underweight.

Typically those that have Bigorexia are not frail or underdeveloped at all.  They actually have large muscle mass and will obsess about having the perfect physique.  They will believe their muscles are inadequate. Bigorexia has also been known as muscle dysmorphia, Reverse Anorexia, or Adonis Complex. 

This disorder is a form of Body Dysmorphic Disorder and is related to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Those with Bigorexia constantly obsess over their imperfections, further distorting their perception of themselves.  This will significantly impair the person’s mood often causing depression or feelings of disgust.

Both men and women can be affected by this disorder, although men are most susceptible.

Night Eating Syndrome: primarily characterizes an ongoing, persistent pattern of late-night binge eating. The individual may not be aware at the time of what they are doing when they are eating. 

Unlike binge eating, which is done in relatively short episodes, NES involves continual eating throughout the evening.  

There are of course more than just these… but they are a few of the less commonly known eating disorders. Anorexia and bulimia are not the only eating disorders out there.

For more information on these and other eating disorders, go to Alliance for Eating Disorders and search the LEFT column for different types.