#the sentence structure and word choice in this Sucks im sorry

[petruchio]

ugh so disappointing that the cruel prince Isn't good

i genuinely wanted it to be good because like i wanted a fun cool ya fantasy story and i was literally sitting there reading it like… what is this.

first off — what was that prose? the fact that i was literally sitting there going “huh. that’s a sentence fragment. weird” or “i think that comma should be a semicolon” LIKE WHO EDITED THIS. seriously how did this get to publication?! and it’s not like you can’t use sentence fragments in fiction — but they’re powerful stylistic choices? they shouldn’t be done so poorly that your reader is taken OUT OF THE STORY by how awkwardly deployed your sentence fragment is? WHAT?!?!?! that’s not style! that’s just bad writing and bad grammar!!!

second of all — just structurally the book was badly done basically all around. the pacing? horrendous. the beginning was so insanely slow and the ending so insanely rushed. the characters? not a single one was compelling or developed. what were their motivations? why did jude want to stay in the faerie world when all they did was bully and torture her? oh and also murder her parents? “it’s all i’ve ever known” YEAH GIRL AND IT SUCKS!! the plot? nonsensical, and half the stuff that happened didn’t even matter. all that stuff with her twin sister and the locke dude? literally WHAT was the point of that. it added *nothing* to the story or the themes. the random human girl who just like casually jumped into a lake and was then never mentioned again? WHY. and then the main character jude had essentially no discernible narrative voice, which is INSANE for a book written in first person. how do you take first person narration and STILL be such a blank character? i hated her the entire time i was reading. and then the language was all over the place?? contractions and no contractions in the SAME SENTENCE? insanely formal archaic language alongside words like “crappy” and “pissed off”?? is this a magical fantasy faerie realm or NOT? the language drove me INSANE. i was constantly being taken out of the world by the inconsistency of the language — a really BAD thing for a (fantasy!!!!) book to do!! and the descriptions of everything were so vague that i could barely form a picture of anything that was going on? which is wild because like it’s a lush fantasy faerie world? (now im realizing the spiderwick world was only as lush and beautiful as it was because of the magic of the illustrations because the descriptions here just kind of skipped around and never settled into the world they were supposed to be describing. tragic) and the love interest? or should i say the LITERAL BULLY WHO DRUGS AND HUMILIATES THE PROTAGONIST? how could we root for that?? he was awful?!! i don’t care if he has a “tortured past” he’s a horrible person! im sorry but HOW are we still doing this in ya lit and calling it “enemies to lovers” THATS JUST BULLYING! and did he develop? did their relationship develop? did they actually get to know each other? nope. he just randomly shows up on like page 300 after literally drugging her and publicly humiliating her for the first 2/3 of the book and suddenly he’s in love with her. WOW. what a ~compelling~ love story. thanks i hate it.

UGH. im SO disappointed and i can’t believe i wasted my time on that crap. time to read another classic or just read the hunger games again or whatEVER to purge that from my memory

#answered #anonymous #PHEW sorry i am ranting but i had to get that out there #im DONE. im fucking DONE!!!!!!!!

[limjaeseven]

4, 20, 6, 9 🥖 (im sure you know exactly who this is)

of course you asked me 420 69 but lets do this anyways

4. What’s a word that makes you go absolutely feral?

I can't tell if this is meant to be in a good way or bad? Bad for sure is Daddy in most sexual contexts, use of tildes (~), certain euphemisms for body parts, so on and so forth. I'm a bit pedantic about language and word choice.

20. If a witch offered you the choice between eternal happiness with your one true love and the ability to finally finish, perfect, and publish your dearest, darlingest, most precious WIP in exactly the way you’ve always imagined it — which would you choose? You can’t have both sorry, life’s a bitch

This might not be the answer you're expecting but the former. As much as it sucks that I will never be able to express what I want exactly the way I want to, I think that's part of what keeps me going. It keeps me wanting to try get closer to that goal, where what's in my head is what's on the paper.

6. What is your darkest fear about writing?

I know this is very cliche but that I'm no good at it, and that I will never be any good at it. I love writing, and I know I have a skill for it, but creative writing is a field that honestly scares me. I'm not really good at art but I have a love for it and an urge to create it. Beautiful words and sentence structures are of no use if the message isn't good or delivered properly. I just want to be able to tell good stories, stories that are meaningful, that move someone, make them feel something, make them stop for just a moment and appreciate the act of reading my work. I fear that day will never come.

9. Do you believe in ghosts? This isn’t about writing I just wanna know

Already answered this but just to reiterate: no, not at all.

<33

#ask game #mutuals

[labelleofbelfastcity]

“...Both of these types of stories are reactions to the Industrial Revolution, and specifically the worsening of quality of life associated with that for many people. The quaint English countryside is being choked by mills and smog, and there’s public fascination with figures like Jack the Ripper, all of which come about from the increased alienation of industrial population booms. So you have on the one hand strangers and murder mystery and gaslighting. And then a reaction to that which tells stories like ‘what if a little rat and a little mole had a nice picnic in the field.’ Combining those two things is interesting, because these genres actually did grow out of the same soil. But there’s also something so interesting and dissonant about them, because of what their reactions to the culture of their origin were.” —Brennan Lee Mulligan, Dimension 20: Brennan Lee Mulligan Unravels the Mystery of Mice & Murder by Alexander Sowa

Dnd shows like Dimension 20 and role-playing games in general have become increasingly popular as the pandemic continues to disrupt people’s lives. With factors like “increased alienation” and general instability parallel to that of the Industrial Revolution, crafting a story with both the cultural reactions of an applicable time period and the format of a cultural reaction from ours is such an interesting way to explore how history and culture and storytelling all intersect with one another.

In Mice & Murder’s source material, the base reaction was a fatalistic, doomsday outlook of violence and grief and suffering, which then spawned hopeful, simple children’s stories. The cultural implications of both are still felt today (For example, spring has brought out the Peter Rabbit picture books in our house; meanwhile I am watching an adaption of The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie), but are usually kept separate in modern interpretations.

Dnd, already, is an amalgamation of these two genres’ base purposes. On one hand, dnd adventures tend to involve fighting a powerful evil—a societal injustice or a government or, most of the time, just a monster—and characters get hurt, compromise on their beliefs, and die. But dnd also has those fun, goofy, sweet moments of friendship and family that characterize the mass appeal of the game. Through improv, groups decide the balance they want of each, but it’s nearly impossible to make it through a whole campaign without one hilarious or heartwarming moment.

By purposefully calling back to opposing Industrial Revolution genres, and incorporating details of them in a format that’s having its own cultural renaissance—which already has elements of these two opposed types of fiction—the backdrop of Mice & Murder creates both a rich, comedic world, but also an important historical parallel. A parallel which is,, just,, so incredibly cool.

#ive cracked the code as to why just one episode hit as hard as it did for me #its cause this is my Exact shit #anyway sorry this is So long and So wordy and i just aaaaa #the sentence structure and word choice in this Sucks im sorry #belletalks #dimension 20 #mice and murder #brennan lee mulligan #i could also write one of these for. just a lot of different things. the intersection between history and storytelling is The Best

[livlepretre]

for the writing ask! 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 30, 31, 32, 44, 48, 51, 53, 54 (any other advice?) - sorry for all the questions. im just really curious, lol

oh geez haha I will endeavor to answer!

8. Favorite trope to write.

obviously enemies to lovers 😈

9. Least favorite trope to write. can I list fluff as a trope 

12. How do you deal with self-doubts?

I hit publish the same way other people do impulsive things like jump off a bridge (I did that too once. woke up with nightmares about it for weeks). When you’re doubting yourself-- and I doubt myself all! the! time!-- the best thing to do is to steel yourself for like 5 seconds, take the leap, and then wait. Most of the time people are incredibly kind and receptive, and whatever plot point was causing the anxiety will either go unnoticed or will be appreciated by someone out there. I feel like so long as the writing comes from a place of honesty and isn’t about sensationalizing or taking advantage of anyone, then it will work out.

13. How do you deal with writers block? I let myself put the work down and don’t stress about it. I have a rule where I only write if I feel like writing. It’s a hobby for me, so if I decide I would rather watch The Office or go for a walk with my husband, I just do what I want instead. A lot of times that’s because I have writer’s block, but writer’s block can’t be pushed. 

If I am determined to write here are some strategies I employ: 

Chances are I’m stuck because I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, or I’m not certain of what a character would do. So I reread the story up until that point, make notes on anything I laid down earlier that is relevant to the part I’m on, and map out character motivations. Hopefully this helps me create a working outline that will push me forward. 

If I’m stuck because of trouble writing the story in a more profound sense, I put the story down and start something new and low stress. In other words, I intentionally start a project where the bar for publication is super low.  For example, both Love Bites and (The Stars Were Brightly Shining) are pretty much first draft stories. I would write the chapter and hit publish same day (most of the time). This gave me something fun to do that was still exercising the writing muscle but also gave me the opportunity for positive feedback and made writing fun again. 

If I can’t write at all, then I turn to reading. I read things that I really like, and I take notes on what I like about the story both from a narrative structure/plot perspective and in terms of the writer’s style and word choice. In theory we’re supposed to read a lot as writers, and writer’s block is a great chance to do so. 

And, eventually, I’ll be cooking or typing up something for work or in the shower and the missing puzzle piece will fall into place. It’s okay if that takes months. I’ve had 4 hiatuses on FE that have lasted 4-6 months each. So long as you want to finish the story, you will. 

14. What’s the most research you ever put into a book? ehhh probably watching seasons 1-2 of The Originals so I could figure out certain plot elements for FE. I do get sucked into research holes every now and then, but as they’re largely useless I try to scramble out of them as quickly as possible. (I say this with fear in my heart for the research I would have to do to write the 1492 time travel story I have in mind) 

15. Where does your inspiration come from?

Poetry, books I read and love, folklore, songs, my unhappy adolescence 

16. Where do you take your motivation from?

Honestly I get A LOT of motivation from everyone who reads and sends me a message. FE is a much bigger and much more arduous project than I anticipated, and the support has been a HUGE help. Also, for my other projects like SWBS, it’s such an inspiration to keep thinking about it and to get back to it whenever someone mentions it to me. I really do thrive on the community aspect of writing. 

Also, it’s turned out that the older I’ve gotten the more disciplined I’ve grown as a writer. I’m 30 now, and there’s a huge difference between my writing habits the last few years and what passed for them when I was 21 and writing After the Fire, But Before the Flood. 

19. First line of a WIP you’re working on.

Three broken ribs, a punctured lung, a broken collarbone, and a concussion, with bruising along her face, from where it connected with the side pillar, and along her throat and chest from the seatbelt. Two dead parents. A low buzz throughout the town: her name on everyone’s lips. - Nights at the Museum

20. Post a snippet of a WIP you’re working on.

Damon looks at her and cants his head to the side and he tells her, voice flip and unreachable as only his can be, “I see you’ve cheated death again.” He makes it sound like it’s him she’s cheated by not finishing the turn. 

She opens her mouth to respond, but what can she say? Death still sits heavy in her lungs. Smoke burns her eyes and blood clogs her nose. She could choke on the smothering weight of it all. On the weight of his expectation in her. His disappointment. 

“I never wanted to be a vampire,” she tells him, finally.

The look Damon gives her strips her bare. Somehow over the past six months she has let him in, and now that he is here, she cannot hide from him. “You never wanted to make a choice with your eyes open.” 

-Innocence 

21. Post the last sentence you wrote in one of your WIP’s.

well this is pretty spoilery for FE, so, reader beware: 

Rebekah has her pinned by an arm around her waist, her back flush to Rebekah’s front, both of them kneeling on the bed, while Rebekah reaches around and slowly fucks her with her hand. - Fairytale Ending

30. Favorite line you’ve ever written.

Right now I am very fond of this: 

Looking up into his face, into his eyes, gone dark and blue as the river back home when the moon was low in the sky, she finally admits the truth she's been hiding from herself for months. The thing she has been most afraid to ever, ever say, even to herself. Her gravest sin, which in this moment, feels like her redemption. "I love you." Saying it out loud is like the moment she drove the knife into her own side. - Fairytale Ending 

31. Hardest character to write.

Damon -- he has a very particular kind of humor and cynicism which I find really difficult to replicate (although I think I’m getting more confident) 

32. Easiest character to write.

Klaus-- literally there is nothing too extreme, it’s so much fun 

44. Best piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten. This will make like no sense but it’s from a creative writing class I took in high school, and the feedback was actually given to one of my friend, and I’ve remembered it ever since: “You have to use your avocado knives.” The context was basically he mentioned a pair of avocado knives sitting on a table and they never come up again. It’s the chekhov’s gun idea: when you put something down in the story, you have to actually use it. Everything in the narrative should have meaning if it’s mentioned, and work either functionally, metaphorically, or emotionally. 

48. Favorite genre to write in. Horror. 

51. Describe the aesthetic of your story _______ in 5 sentences or words. I’ll assume this is for FE: 

Gothic horror, where the blood is both in the grass and on the heroine’s hands. 

53. What does writing mean to you? It’s just something that I really, really like. 

54. Any writing advice you want to share?

I shared the bulk of it yesterday so here’s the rest: do what you want and have fun. 

#evanescentrainbow #asks #ask game #on writing #fairytale ending #innocence #nights at the museum