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beeblackburn · 3 years

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The Anti-TBR Tag

I was tagged by @books-and-doodles! Thank you! And poor you, for I am a long-winded bastard.

1. A popular book EVERYONE loves that you have no interest in reading?

On general principle, I feel like the really popular stuff (Twilight, Throne of Glass, Divergent, The Mortal Instruments) ends up being stuff I’m inherently not going to be attracted to and some of them have their own hatedoms going on, so going after them in detail would be punching down (though I don’t particular like any of the above). So I’m going to try to go off the beaten path with these seven:

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab = nothing against her personally, though I heard her The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue was baaaaad, but apparently, she’s similar to Sanderson in the magic system being better than the characterization and I heard her writing’s got a white faux-female empowerment sort of thing going that I’m growing increasingly... discontent of by itself. I might try it out later, but I also got hundreds of books to drill through first and I’m in no rush.

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo = I’ve been increasingly getting the sense that Six of Crows was a flash in the pan, Bardugo’s style more defined by fun than genuine substance. And given a rather scathing review that points out unearned shifts in characterization, lackluster supporting cast, and two really uncomfortable exploitative sexual assault fantasy scenes (one of which was underaged!), I’m gonna say no.

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik = I generally like Novik! She’s a very solid writer to me and I’ve bought most of her books, so this is purely me not taking to the Wizarding School genre. Sorry, Novik, "a twisted, super dark, super modern, female-led Harry Potter" isn’t the selling point it once was, and even then, I probably wouldn’t have taken to it. Especially when I’ve already got The Gray House by Mariam Petrosyan to read.

The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson = I’ve got mixed feelings on Mistborn looking back: it’s hardly the worst of his oeuvre (Elantris is that and was admittedly his first book) and The Final Empire took a few narrative risks that I admire, I also found the resulting books a tad juvenile and I don’t take to steampunk, genre-wise. I’m not even that much of a Sanderson fan, so I’d rather just read the summary for all I care.

Storm Front by Jim Butcher = given what I’ve been told about The Dresden Files’ lessening of noir roots past the first few books, how it later became more flashy-and-bang magical, and how it’s pretty sexist early on (and from what I’ve been told, doubled down on it later on and having worse treatments of its female characters), I’m in no particular rush to read them. The urban fantasy genre on them only turns me off more.

The Doors of Stone by Patrick Rothfuss = hahaha, I’m sorry, I did read The Name of the Wind, and read select parts of The Wise Man’s Fear, but everyone, instead of waiting and devoting your time for this book to come, I would suggest reading Fitz, Who Is Actually Good and Can Wring More than Disgust and an Eye-Roll out of You in Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings, given she is far better at characterization than Rothfuss.

Anything by Paul Krueger, Sam Sykes, and Myke Cole = fuck all three of these men and the idea that I’ll pay for their stuff. While I can’t demand any of you not buy from them and I’ll hardly claim to be a saint in terms of ethics, purchase-wise, I would beseech you all please don’t buy from these three authors who have a history of inappropriateness.

2. A classic book (or author) you don’t have an interest in reading?

Charles Dickens = look, I know his word count is padded because of serial installments back then, but I’m sorry, I wasn’t that impressed by the child-sanitized versions of Great Expectations and Oliver Twist. They were easily some of the most boring of out of the child-sanitized classics I read. It was the pictures that kept me going and barely at that. No thanks.

Emily Brontë = look, if I wanted shitty people being shitty to each other, I’d much rather read Joe Abercrombie because at least I’ll get some intentional dark comedy out of dumb shitheads being terrible to each other (Best Served Cold comes to mind). And I know we’re not meant to like these self-destructive people, but I’d rather not hate everyone that much.

Alexander Dumas = Three Musketeers really didn’t age well, just from the TV Tropes page and I’m not really looking forward to an adventure that goes out of its way to valorize its protagonists being adventurous assholes who dueled, drank, and womanized harder than anyone else and we should commend that because they were men. Ugh.

3. An author you have read a couple of books from & have decided their books are not for you?

Leigh Bardugo = like I said, I feel like Six of Crows (and Crooked Kingdom, to a lesser extent) was a flash in the pan and she’s been increasingly running on fumes ever since then. Good and fun with a decent eye for characterization, but hardly revolutionary, considering how I think Crooked Kingdom isn’t quite as good as Six of Crows, and the less said about Shadow and Bone, the better.

Neil Gaiman = I’ve read some of his stuff (and I didn’t quite see the hype over his writing, but liked it decently enough) but having heard that, in his Sandman run, he wrote in a transwoman solely to get killed for an emotional ending and how he defended that choice for awhile left a battery acid taste for me to read more. He’s a formative part of people’s childhoods, so I don’t blame anyone for being fans, he’s just not for me.

Steven Erikson = really nothing against the dude, I’m sure he's probably a decent guy, but I didn’t take to Gardens of the Moon at all and skimming Deadhouse Gates and Memories of Ice (which were admittedly better) made me realize its prose was something I would need a hard and sharp shovel to crack through, and the darting around of many, many POVs made me feel not invested in anyone.

4. A genre you have no interest in OR a genre you tried to get into & couldn’t?

I’ll answer both because I have the time:

I’m not interested in romance, mostly because it’s an entire genre built around the build-up. It’s usually the story about the beginning of a relationship, not the relationship itself. I’d genuinely like to read about the story of a romance that doesn’t stop shortly after the hook-up or before the honeymoon period ends. The City Watch parts of Discworld by Terry Pratchett, The Memoirs of Lady Trent by Marie Brennan and The Sharing Knife by Lois McMaster Bujold all have romantic elements that are relatively undrenched in melodrama or frills, but none of them are pure romances, which is a huge problem. I can take romantic subplots in fantasy, but I can’t take the genre as-is.

Urban fantasy is a genre I’m not against having my mind changed on liking, but right now, I generally find it insipid, a shortcut to good world-building, short on great characterization, and an excuse to lampshade and pretense to being above fantastical clichés in a tongue-in-cheek attitude while still committing to them. I do genuinely like Rivers of London by Ben Aaronvitch, but that’s really the concession I can give the entirety of the genre. I took a crack at Rick Riordan and Cassandra Clare’s stuff, but it didn’t feel like my sort of thing. Again, would like to be convinced, but I’d much rather read a domestic or slice-of-life fantasy set in a more overtly fantasy world than the urban one.

Also, sci-fi, but I’m trying again with the Wormwood trilogy by Tade Thompson, An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon, and either the Imperial Radch trilogy by Ann Leckie, or the Teixcalaan trilogy by Arkady Martine. I snoozed through Azimov’s Foundation and generally bored myself of hard sci-fi books, so I’m hoping contemporary sci-fi changes my mind on the entire genre.

5. A book you have bought but will never read?

A book I personally bought? Honestly, Traitor’s Blade by Sebastien de Castell. No particular reason, I just bought it at a closing-down sale at a branch of my bookstore on the cheap because the cover looked nice and didn’t really take to its blurb. I heard good things though, so if anyone else wants to read it...

I tag @vera-dauriac, @xserpx, @autoapocrypha, @kateofthecanals, @turtle-paced, @insecticidalfeminism, @secretlyatargaryen, @helix-eagle-hourglass-nebula, @xillionart, @jovolovo and whoever else that is following me and wishes to do this tag (I’d like to read your posts, so please tag me! :D)

#tags #book tag #anti tbr tag

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writing-prompts-for-friends · 4 years

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Notes from Robert McKee’s “Story” 13: Premise, Theme, and How to Discover Both

Heads up: we’re in for a long but absolutely essential post for any writer or creator anywhere. This post summarizes a section of Robert McKee’s book Story, specifically the section that tells you how to determine the core message of your story. Not the plot, but what you want the plot to mean to your audience.

All stories need a premise and a controlling idea to guide them. Without one or the other, you will have a meandering mess that will leave readers asking themselves afterwards, “What did I just read and why did I bother to read it?”

Premise

Simply put, “premise” is whatever inspired you to create your story.

Quite often we start writing a story based on a “what if...?” premise. When I was in junior high, my parents went to a Marilyn Manson concert (Why are they cooler than me?) and I thought to myself, “What if they never came back? How would my life change?” Not that I wanted them not to come back lol. But that was the impetus for the first novel I ever wrote and finished.

Premise doesn’t only have to come from “What if” questions. It can come from anything. An intriguing commercial, a daydream, a nightmare, something that happened to you or a friend, a line in a poem. Doesn’t matter. Whatever creates that initial spark--that’s your Premise.

Once you have your Premise, you can begin writing. But realize that whatever inspired you to write in the first place does not have to be kept in the final product. A Premise is not precious. It is the kindling that starts the fire, and if the path of the story veers away from the Premise, then so be it.

“The problem is not to start writing, but to keep writing and renewing inspiration. We rarely know where were going; writing is discovery.”

☝ Probably one of my favorite quotes from this book so far.

In the example of that horrid novel I wrote in junior high, the story started out with the protagonist’s parents going out for dinner and passing away in an accident on the way home. But upon their death she learned that she was actually a government experiment and there’s a big magical phenomenon her secret government agent parents were trying to solve and now the task has fallen to her.... Ugh I was 13 and at the height of my 3edgy5me phase so please don’t judge me lol. What I’m trying to say is that the premise of “What would happen if my parents never came home?” quickly evolved into something else, and that was okay.

Structure as Rhetoric

“Make no mistake: While a story’s inspiration may be a dream and its final effect aesthetic emotion, a work moves from an open premise to a fulfilling climax only when the writer is possessed by serious thought. For an artist must have not only ideas to express, but ideas to prove. Expressing an idea, in the sense of exposing it, is never enough. The audience must not just understand; it must believe.

Storytelling is the creative demonstration of truth. A story is the living proof of an idea, the conversion of idea to action. A story’s event structure is the means by which you first express, then prove your idea...without explanation.”

Honestly, McKee says things so well sometimes I feel that i have no choice but to simply quote him. My apologies.

McKee believes that master storytellers never rely on cheap exposition or dialogue that explicitly explains their idea. If you need to have a paragraph of prose explaining how good always triumphs over evil, or if you need to bad guy to say, “And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you nosy kids!” then you need to refine your storytelling.

The reader should be able to feel your idea being built brick by brick, act by act, until it all becomes crystallized in the emotional climax.

Controlling Idea (a.k.a. “Theme”)

McKee dislikes the word “theme,” as the so-called themes of “war,” “love,” “poverty,” etc. are too vague. Instead he likes to use the term “controlling idea,” and defines it thus:

“ A Controlling Idea may be expressed in a single sentence describing how and why life undergoes change from one condition of existence at the beginning to another at the end.

A true theme is not a word but a sentence--one clear, coherent sentence that expresses a story’s irreducible meaning. The Controlling Idea shapes the writer’s strategic choices. It will serve as a tool to guide your aesthetic choices toward what is appropriate or inappropriate in your story, toward what is expressive of your Controlling Idea and may be kept versus what is irrelevant to it and must be cut.

The more beautifully you shape your work around one clear idea, the more meanings audiences will discover in your film as they take your idea and follow its implications into every aspect of their lives. Conversely, the more ideas you try to pack into a story, the more they implode upon themselves, until the work collapses into a rubble of tangential notions, saying nothing.”

So what is the “equation” of the Controlling Idea?

Value + Cause

To recap, values are the universal qualities of human experience that may shift from positive to negative, or negative to positive, from one moment to the next. Some examples of values are justice/injustice, alive/dead, happy/sad, courage/cowardice, etc.

Cause is what makes that value shift from one pole to the other. It is the primary reason that the life or world of the protagonist has changed to its positive or negative value.

McKee shows the Controlling Idea for various famous films and I will write them out here.

IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (an up-ending Crime Story) Value: Justice is restored... Cause: ...because a perceptive black outsider sees the truth of white perversion.

MISSING (a down-ending Political Thriller) Value: Tyranny prevails... Cause: ...because it’s supported by a corrupt CIA.

GROUNDHOG DAY (a positive-ending Education Plot) Value: Happiness fills our lives... Cause: ...when we learn to love unconditionally.

DANGEROUS LIAISONS (a negative-ending Love Story) Value: Hatred destroys... Cause: ...us when we fear the opposite sex.

How to Find Your Work’s Controlling Idea

I’m going to preface this by saying that i have some personal misgivings on McKee’s statements, but I’ll voice my opinion after I’ve summarized his.

McKee tells us that we find the controlling idea by doing the following:

“Looking at your ending, ask: As a result of this climatic action, what value, positively or negatively charged, is brought into the world of my protagonist?

Next, tracing backward from this climax, digging to the bedrock, ask: What is the chief cause, force, or means by which this value is brought into his world?

The sentence you compose from the answers to those two questions becomes your Controlling Idea.

In other words, the story tells you its meaning; you do not dictate meaning to the story. You do not draw action from idea, rather idea from action. For no matter your inspiration, ultimately the story embeds its Controlling Idea within the final climax, and when this event speaks its meaning, you will experience one of the most powerful moments in the writing life--Self-Recognition: The Story Climax mirrors your inner self, and if your story is from the very best sources within you, more often than not you’ll be shocked by what you see reflected in it.”

I have mixed feelings about McKee’s opinion here. It feels like he’s telling us to leave the Controlling Idea up to our subconscious, that it is wrong to start out knowing the Controlling Idea and plotting out a story that aligns with it. But is it bad to do so?

For example, Neil Gaiman has stated that when he set out to write Coraline, he did so with the specific intention to tell children that “When you’re scared but you still do it anyways, that’s brave.” In other words, he had the Controlling Idea in place from the start. And it’s a great work.

On the other hand, a couple years ago I wrote a fanfiction on a whim. It was something that came into my head and I churned out all 200,000 words in about two months with no particular Controlling Idea. But later on, when I re-read it, I realized that the whole thing had been me working through the duality I feel as a white foreigner living in Japan who is fluent in Japanese and has adopted Japanese culture, as well as the frustration and isolation at the xenophobia/othering I encounter on a daily basis. Judging by the climax of the story, the Controlling Idea was, “You will be accepted...when you learn to show each persona (Japanese and American) at the right time every time.”

This Controlling Idea does match my true feelings on the matter. However, I really wrote this story with absolutely zero direction, and i feel that perhaps I could have turned this story into something better if I had had an awareness of the Controlling Idea as I wrote it.

McKee adds one more important note to discovering the Controlling Idea:

“If a plot works out exactly as you first planned, you’re not working loosely enough to give room to your imagination and instincts. Your story should surprise you again and again. Beautiful story design is a combination of the subject found, the imagination at work, and the mind loosely but wisely executing the craft.”

So, in other words...

Your Controlling Idea is like the Pirate Code. It exists and it is honored, but not always in the ways that you expect/intend.

Source: McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. York: Methuen, 1998. Print

#creative writing #writeblr #writing #write #writing inspriation #writing inspo #creative writing methodology #creative writing theory #writing resources #writing reference #robert mckee #writing novels #writing fiction #writing fantasy #writing theme #determining theme #writing prompts for friends notes on story #long post

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azfellandco · 5 years

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This is not for you.

First off, do not reblog this. There are only a handful of people whose opinions on this topic I care about, and they are perfectly capable of reaching me through discord should they want to discuss this post. I know saying this is not going to deter anybody who is really determined, but I just want to make very clear what this post is for: this is for me and my friends. This is not me “weighing in on the discourse”, this is not meant to be taken as a point for or against any argument. This is me, talking about how I feel.

I think I’m done writing for Good Omens. Maybe not forever but certainly for a good long while, at the very least until tumblr’s newest obsession shifts again, preferably until this fandom shrinks back down to something more closely resembling the five people in a dinghy it felt like when I first started writing here a year ago(ish).

There’s a number of reasons for this but the primary one is: I feel too watched here. I don’t like the number of followers I have, I don’t like the number of strangers I get coming into my inbox or commenting on my posts, and I certainly do not like the atmosphere surrounding Neil Gaiman and Michael Sheen’s involvement and/or observation of this fandom.

It seems to me that many things Neil Gaiman has been saying, many things people are applauding as evidence of good representation and engagement with his fans, aren’t really his ideas and his work to take credit for. To name just one example, the conversation going on lately about Crowley dressing in women’s clothes during the Mesopotamia scene. A friend of mine made a post about this in April and it just seems to me to be too much coincidence that Neil Gaiman, active tumblr user and frequent trawler of the Good Omens tag himself, didn’t see fit to talk about this himself until people’s discussions of gender and representation started gaining traction. It seems to me that if Neil Gaiman had really intended Crowley to have been dressed in women’s clothes and read as female presenting, he might have said something about that before it became popular. Retroactively deciding something is a way because people like that idea is not the same thing as intentional representation.

And it’s the same for the pair of them being asexual and nonbinary, and the same with him endorsing queer readings just in general. It’s only been after the fandom started saying these things that he’s started saying them, too, after insisting, historically, for thirty years, that Aziraphale and Crowley are not a couple. And please don’t misunderstand me, I don’t want him to say “they’re explicitly gay” or whatever else, I want him to get out. I want Neil Gaiman to subscribe to what he has claimed to support in killing the author, and stop commenting. Stop lurking, stop answering people’s questions, stop treating the community that has sprung up around this book as his. It isn’t. Fandom spaces belong to the fans, not the creators, and headcanons and fanwork belong to the people who make them, the predominantly queer and female people who make them.

I am done writing for this fandom because I am tired of seeing concepts that originated with me and my friends, for fun, for free, come out of the mouth of a middle-aged cishet white man who is making money off his writing. Do you know when I write? I write in bits and spurts walking home from work, while I’m waiting for the water to boil for pasta, in the half hour break I get at my night job. Do you know what I’m doing when I’m not writing? Desperately and scramblingly trying to take care of myself, to cook and clean and do grocery shopping and laundry and all the while worrying that maybe today is the day I drop something, maybe today is the day I miss a ball in the juggling act of supporting myself and my frankly ridiculous cocktail of mental illnesses and hurt myself or lose my job. Do you know why I write, why I do fandom? So that I have somewhere to let off steam, something safe to think about besides how totally screaming scared I am, all the time. I am 24 years old and I make just enough to survive and not much extra, and I am constantly aware that I need help and can’t afford it, and that I’m just biding my time at my job, trying desperately to hang on long enough that I’ll be eligible for benefits and thus can begin looking for mental and physical health advice.

And it is just exhausting to me that I can write, pour my heart into something I love and care about and post it online for the benefit of other people who love and care about the same thing, and then have to contemplate the idea that Neil Gaiman or Michael Sheen are seeing my work. That these well-off people, happily settled into life and kids and a career that puts food on their tables and allows them to live without worrying about whether the next time they have a really bad day they’re going to lose everything, can see the things I write, can see the things we all write, fic and meta and headcanons and queer readings going back thirty years, in some cases, and say it was inspirational to the way Aziraphale was portrayed in the show or, even worse, just completely fail to acknowledge that the fandom influenced a changing perception of the material at all. Because Neil Gaiman’s tune about this all has definitely been changing since the show came out.

I don’t know, I know this isn’t fully rational but Neil Gaiman and Michael Sheen lurking here has made me feel like I’ve put together a portfolio of work, somehow, without intending to or thinking about it, because I don’t think of the writing I do for fandom as serious work. I don’t consider my fandom presence to be a professional pursuit, but just by existing in this space as a professional writer himself, Neil Gaiman makes me feel like I ought to. Like if I say something insightful enough somewhere, sometime, someone will swoop down and tell me they’d like to give me money for it, because I desperately, desperately need money or at least the kind of emotional security having a great deal of money or a steady supply of work I can do without physically and emotionally exhausting myself can bring. I don’t have to have a good customer service presence on here, I don’t have to be friendly and marketable and neurotypical and stable, because this is a hobby and my livelihood doesn’t depend on it, but the vague shadow of the idea that Neil Gaiman or Michael Sheen could see my work and be impressed by it throws that out the window.

This blog isn’t going anywhere but I am done writing for this fandom, fanfiction and meta and headcanons and all of it, because every time I do some tiny part of me is hopeful that it will lead to financial stability, somehow, and it isn’t going to, and it isn’t healthy. I am going to write some fic for some smaller fandoms for a while, smaller fandoms that my handful of friends are interested in, and I might try to work on some original writing. If part of my angst about this whole mess comes from wanting to get paid for my writing, that would seem a sensible course of action.

#begone thought

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synoir · 7 years

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They tagged me! I tag you!

I was tagged by @thebookimaginarium (sorry I know this is late, but I had a rollercoaster of a week and didn’t have the time!)

What would you name your future kids? Ugh this is so hard. I always low-key hated Turkish names. The meanings are often beautiful but the sound? Not so much. I always loved the name Alex though, or Aleks in Turkish. I may name my child that. Recently I’ve started to think Kuzey (Coo-zey) which means ‘north’ is a nice male name. A, Z, X, K are my favourite letters in names so probably something with those.

Do you miss anyone? It has been a year since I cut ties with so many toxic people in my life, and I was afraid that I would miss them. But no, turns out I don’t.

What are you looking forward to? Buying that camera I want. Seven months to go!

Is it hard of you to get over someone? Not really. If I decide to move on without them, it’s pretty easy to let go. Mind over matter.

What was your life like last year? On a hold... It was a dreaded in-between. Nothing was certain, and nothing was mine. I literally turned my life upside down and shook so many things from my mind’s pockets for a while I thought I had nothing left. Then slowly I started to climb back up. It’s getting better than ever. Slowly, but surely.

What is your life like this year? It’s a battle. But it’s going good. I have definite goals, and I believe that I will achieve them. It was something I thought I’d lost. I am writing more. Much more. I am creating projects and save for big (for me) investments to better myself. I’m opening the cafè I wanted, so I’m bit scared because I’m not really sure if I want to tie myself to this place so permanently. I am thinking about returning to academia as well, I want to have a graduate degree. I’ve been researching that and I’m not sure if I’ll have time for it. But we’ll see... This year’s main goal is to create more art. Last year had been a dry period artistically and now I’m devoted to discovering more techniques for photography, to better myself in visual arts (photography and video art mainly), and to write.

Have you ever cried because you were so annoyed? So annoyed... Hmmm. So is an important word there. I have cried when I was so annoyed it became anger, frustration –when it became a box that imprisoned me. Otherwise, if I’m annoyed I walk the other way, silently, and move on.

Who did you last see in person? My aunt and uncle.

Are you listening to music right now? Guilt by Marianne Faithful. I usually listen to music. Except when I’m writing. I need silence when I’m writing.

Does it have anything to do with what you’re doing right now? Nope. I just put on Broken English album by Marianne Faithful, because I haven’t listened to her for a while, and I missed it.

Personality description. Let’s get dirty. Smart and stupid. Unintentionally rude. If I don’t like someone, intentionally rude. Very rude. A dash of cruel and vindictive. But also supportive. Ask my help and it’s yours. Walls. Big walls. Protective. Very protective. Reader. Stubborn. Dreamer. Oh boy, am I a dreamer... Learner. KNOWING THINGS IS AWESOME. Also honest. I will answer everything honestly. If I choose to hide something I will tell you that I’m not telling you everything. Emotional. Very emotional but also logical. Balancing two is what I do. VISUAL. Homebound traveller. I can travel for months and months, and I will always miss home. And home is where I’ve put my bed. I don’t care about the country, city or whatever.

Have you ever been to New York City? Nope. Never been to USA. Or any part of the Americas for that matter.

Birthday and age? 17th of July. 26 until then.

Are your crushes mainly girls or guys? Guys. I’m into guys. They are gorgeous. But honestly, I can crush on a girl’s mind. Or I can crush on any human if I want to photograph them. I can look at someone’s face and just dream. I objectify people as an occupation.

Favorite quote? From The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin: “You cannot take what you have not given, and you must give yourself. You cannot buy the Revolution. You cannot make the Revolution. You can only be the Revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”

Something you want to learn? Applying gold and silver leaf to my photographs is something I want to experiment with. Also hand painting (tinting) photo prints as well... I’m interested in mixing my methods a little bit. Get the creative juices flowing. Learning is a big part of that so I’m sure I won’t stop anytime soon. I also want to learn French (I’m working on it!). There are lots of other things, but relatively more conceptual... so... silently drifts off...

Favorite subject in school? In high school Literature, History and Geography. In university Film Theory and Semiology. Oh and when I went to Baltic Film and Media School in Estonia via Erasmus we had this elective called the Journey of Sound and Colour which was simply a course that forced me to break my mind and tap into that creative space in it. It was one of the best experiences of my life.

Relationship status? Single.

Favorite book(s)? The Dispossessed, Left Hand of Darkness and The Earthsea Series by Ursula LeGuin. American Gods, Sandman and Smoke and Mirrors (a short story collection) by Neil Gaiman. Philosophy in the Bedroom by Marquise de Sade (I swear it’s not the sex giggle giggle). The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan and then also Brandon Sanderson (epic fantasy galore). Of course, Harry Potter series as well; but to be quite honest I enjoy the fanfiction more that the canon so... There are many more, naturally. But I will stop here.

Favorite fictional character? Honestly, I relate to Sirius Black so much, it’s weird. I mean on the surface I got nothing in common with him. But when he is happy, he is happy and when he is angry he is so angry. And so am I. But also because the character is layered and complex and imperfect. I truly love writing him as my own too. Loaded backstory that allows my mind to fill in the holes. Beyond that I love Dream in Sandman but also Desire. Shevek from the Dispossessed. Rand Al’Thor from Wheel of Time is probably my favourite protagonist.

Favorite fictional couple? I’m going to answer this as canon couples. Coz if we go into the armada there is no return. (Do you have any idea how hard it is to favourite canon couples?)

Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy. The perfect definition of in good times and in bad. Rhuarc with Amys and Lian from Wheel of Time (yeah I know technically they are not a couple, what with being married to two women. Triads are valid kthnxbye). Fleur and Bill Weasley. Seriously, there is some real hidden gem of a love story there. Beyond that I don’t know. I love couples within the story itself. It’s the story I truly love usually.

Something I’m talented at. Only thing I’m truly talented at is imagining, dreaming. The rest comes from determination and focus. It comes from hard work, care, motivation and drive. I think I see talent as a state of mind, instead of a thing of its own. It’s the lump of iron before it becomes a steel knife.

Please ignore if not interested. LOVE Y’ALL.

@kreeblimsabs @mechengmama @bellahexlestrange

IF YOU WANT TO DO IT PLEASE DO BECAUSE I WOULD LOVE TO GET TO KNOW YOU AND SAY THAT YOU’VE BEEN TAGGED BY ME! PLEASE. Love you all.

#know your synoir #tagged #I probably need to re-read the Dispossessed since it has been ages and apparently I missed it #long post #sorry

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