menagerie-of-monsters

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Moodboard for Crowned by the Fae King! I'm 70k words into this book and really really enjoying myself writing it.

The thought of him drew my attention to him and away from the pain. For a moment, I lost track of my sorrows in the strength of his body. His steady heart, the warmth of his skin, the balance of his wings… Cass leaned back with a relaxed sigh, his eyes closing. His right fingertip ran against the bare skin of his left forearm, tracing shapes, one after another. I-F-E-E-L-Y-O-U-♡ My blush hit me like a freight train. I went absolutely crimson, my cheeks so hot my skin felt tight. I caught the sensation of his grin before I yanked my consciousness away from my soulmate. He'd signed off with a fucking heart?! Fuck, he was a cheeky bastard.

#snipperdoodle #moodboard #monsters of faery #crowned by the fae king

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Sick of characters who are simply Cool or Badass or Horrifying or Edgy all the time. They need to be pathetic too. It elevates them. It’s like adding a bit of salt to a sweet dish to bring out the flavour. Tbh, I think a character can only be truly horrifying, badass, etc. WITH a lil bit of pathetic in 'em.

#it's true and you should say it #writing Cass right now #and the only way one can make someone who is effectively an immortal god-king interesting #is by also making him a little bit pathetic #and let's be real #all the best male leads are pathetic for their partners

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#writing memes

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being a writer is so embarrassing sometimes like awww no my feelings got hurt guess i'll go make up 90,000 words about it. ugh

#only 90000?

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Honestly? My main piece of advice for writing well-rounded characters is to make them a little bit lame. No real living person is 100% cool and suave 100% of the time. Everyone's a little awkward sometimes, or gets too excited about something goofy, or has a silly fear, or laughs about stupid things. Being a bit of a loser is an incurable part of the human condition. Utilize that in your writing.

#dain: dorky about flowers and cuddling #ayre: will talk about amalgam magic until you physically make him stop #(also fluffs up like a happy bird when he gets to feed lilly) #varis: secretly an accountant. way too into being pompous #vaduin: bug collector. pulpy scifi enthusiast #cass: can't flirt when it matters #pelleas: constantly misjudging his own size

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Anger management therapy

#i don't know who this is #but i'm charmed #i am looking disrespectfully

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I salute you for casting off humanity so well. I’d do the same, if I could. And welcome to our little corner of hell, sir! A word of advice: don’t pay too much attention to the tags people leave on your posts. Or the tags I leave on your posts. Or the contents of my blog. Actually you know what? Just don’t perceive me in general.

"So why don't you come a bit closer little rabbit, my coils will welcome you..."

#i am looking disrespectfully #that is an incredibly slutty naga design #and I am HERE for it

[menagerie-of-monsters]

One thing I love about the Monster x Human dynamic is the possible misunderstandings that come with being separate species.

The possible cultural differences. The awkwardness. Language barriers. Anatomy differences. Maybe they mistake a platonic gesture as romantic or you mistake a romantic gesture from them as platonic.

Maybe you accidentally touch a merperson's gills and they immediately shy away at the unexpected touch. You freak out and apologise because you think you've hurt them while they try and hide their obvious arousal at the intimate touch.

Or an alien whose skin colour changes with their mood. You notice they're always a more reddish colour when near you. When you ask them about it they get even redder and try to make something up while their friends watch and snicker cus they know exactly what that colour means.

You playfully bite your werewolf partner while cuddling and they let out a very erotic groan. Now they have to try and explain to you what marking is to werewolves while also being very horny and embarrassed.

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he doesn't want you to catch a cold :3

#i am looking disrespectfully #size difference #this is 100% going to be Pelleas and Cedar #she sleeps like a mummy and he sleeps like he will die without skin contact

[menagerie-of-monsters]

I never wrote a lot of fanfic but I still did a lot of these things - I think they're common in fanfic because fanfic is typically written by people without a ton of training in writing, who are writing for the emotions and the vibes.

Not to say there's not incredible fanfic. There is. No shade on fanfic or fanfic writers.

But. (See what I'm doing?) Fanfiction is typically written in a much more casual tone than literary fiction, or even works such as romance novels or YA adventure novels. There's a sense of closeness between the reader and the author that's heightened by the ability to easily communicate with the author via author notes and comments. In most published works, the author steps back, and the work is expected to fully stand on its own.

My biggest issues I had to work on were, in no particular order:

Remembering that the reader is not native to the world. I know everything about the world, but if I make an allusion to a piece of deep worldbuilding that's never been raised before, at best it will be overlooked. At worst, it will be confusing and annoying.

Remembering that the characters are native to their world. Fae won't compare things to iron or steel unless they dislike that thing. Metaphors should be in-world. Slang should be period-relevant.

My favorite scenes are always available for the cutting-room floor. "Kill your darlings" doesn't mean "get rid of everything you love", but it DOES mean "be willing to remove anything that doesn't serve the story, no matter how much you love it."

and, most importantly,

EVERYTHING MUST SERVE THE BEAM.*

What is the purpose of the story? The thrust? The drive? Everything, from sex to banter to action, must serve that purpose. If it doesn't, it doesn't belong. This one rule has helped me get rid of saggy middles and strange rabbit holes.

*for those who haven't read Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, the Beam is the metaphysical structure upon which the entire world hangs. To serve the Beam is to keep the world turning. To oppose the Beam is to try to ravage and ruin the world.

fanfic writer habits i've had to unlearn when trying to traditionally publish original work

a list in no particular order in case you're curious

starting sentences with "And"

so. many. one sentence. paragraphs. like, yeah, this is fun for The Drama but also...not how books work

using italics for emphasis--gotta use your WORDS, zippy

head hopping. rereading old fanfics i wrote, i'm like, WHOSE POV IS THIS?? HOW WOULD JANE KNOW MAURA THINKS THIS?? jesus christ keep your pov tight, zipperoni. i had to really learn this when i was revising my first book and my agent pointed it out.

Oh. Oh. some of these are good but too many are oh [failure]

Using scene breaks to skip through transitions instead of actually transitioning. this one i'm working on right now and it's haaaaaaard.

scene choreography. if someone is holding something, do they ever put it down? are they STILL HOLDING IT NOW, FIVE YEARS LATER?

overwriting vs using a lighter touch. "that's normal. that's casual. that's fine." sometimes that's great for emphasis, but if it was always just "that's casual. that's fine." the point comes across the same way, and doesn't hit you over the head with it as much.

introducing new characters and making them memorable, vivid, and not sucking up too much space when the reader doesn't recognize them (it's lena! i love her!)

pacing! things have to happen at specific times, the book needs to end at a specific time, the conflict needs to be sown here and explode there. making that all feel organic and honest for the characters while also conforming to the genre expectations that have very little flexibility (especially for a new author trying to convince publishers I know how to write books)

ending things at the right time. at first i wrote too far beyond the climax (classic fanfic problem) and then now i seem to have swung too far in the other direction and am ending too soon after it. but the good news is that my editor asked for an epilogue. you know what that means?? A WHOLE SHORT CHAPTER OF FLUFF Y'ALL!!!

Does this need to be a curse word or can it be a different word? i mean often it fucking needs to but not always!

Just cut out the word just almost all of the time even if it feels like it's just the right word; it will hurt just a little but you should just do it.

use as much sex as the plot needs. incorporate it into the plot. don't change the tone of the piece. make it stay in character and also be hot and also serve the narrative.

got questions? want examples? have thoughts? what other things have you caught yourself doing, or notice when you read through your old stuff?

#writing advice #i killed so many darlings for Basilisk #and every time I begrudgingly had to be like #“ugh” #“it's better but I hate that”

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Can you guess what's going on in any of these chapters?

#since there was that chapter titles post #might as well share a few of mine #yes arrowed is a teen girl squad meme don't @ me

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This is precisely what I'm doing with Cass, who has a number of healer traits that make him extremely disconcerting to other healers.

It's one thing to revert damage to a prior state via the body's memory of itself. It's entirely another to use fluid pressure and control over bodily processes to physically heal something, what the fuck sort of gross biological stuff are you getting up to my man?

Quyen, in the corner, taking a hit off a blunt: "ask me about arousal responses, I dare you"

media with healing magic really ought to get more in the weeds about it tbh

get kinda Icky and Medical about it, how does the healer stitch flesh and blood vessels and nerve endings back together, does it hurt when those nerves reconnect? is it euphoric? is it a little bit of both?

if the healer can manipulate the living body like that, what stops them doing it in reverse? can a sufficiently skilled healer yank the nerves out through a victim's pores?

if 'necromancy' exists as a concept in the setting: how is that any different? should it be? is schlorping a severed limb back onto its owner's body _really_ meaningfully different from resurrecting the whole body as some kind of undead creature?

can healing magic be used to do ~weird shit~ with the endocrine system of a person? could a healer just juice someone with a shitload of estrogen, for fun or pleasure?

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Things to bring back in books:

Chapter titles

Actually having a synopsis on the back instead of reviews no one will read

#I'm such a stubborn chapter title fan #please enjoy my cheeky commentary on the story #working on maps

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Worship 💙🌊

#i am looking disrespectfully #i love men who simp #get yourself a man who looks good on his knees #you deserve it

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A cherry blossom dragon to celebrate the coming of spring!

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Here's my contribution to the Spread the Love challenge animation collab. Had a lot of fun with this one. I'll be sharing a process video of this soon.

#animation #delightful! #I'm so charmed by this

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Reposting these three together because three is a good number. And i like how they look in a set :)

#clawed hands