#there are plenty of legitimate complaints both objective and subjective | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

comicaurora · 2 years

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I know your storytelling format isn't prose, but I think some people who parrot often given writing advice can get really pedantic (and frankly annoying) about it. "said is dead" "show don't tell" "no adverbs" etc.

how do you feel about this?

I think the only concrete rule of writing is that there are no concrete rules of writing. The entire process of creation is subjective at every step.

I feel like trying to hone in on an objective Perfect Writing Style is a logical extension of the process of constant critique and improvement that makes up the artist experience, but the problem is that while striving for improvement is a vital component of the creative process, striving for perfection is self-sabotaging because it's an unattainable goal.

The ideal of artistic perfection is, at its most basic level, the hope that the artist can someday reach the point where they can never improve. In this hypothetical scenario, they don't need to worry about criticism because their work is flawless and thus any complaints are just objectively wrong. They don't need to suffer through looking at their older work and seeing everything wrong and nothing right, because having attained perfection means all their post-perfection work is now timeless and glorious. They never need to worry about their art being misinterpreted or having unintended secondary messages because their work is perfect and everyone will just get it.

This is an attractive ideal scenario for artists to dwell on, because there's a lot of pain in the creative process. Telling a story or making a work of art means wrestling with a pile of ideas that seem perfect and clear in your head, and then slowly pushing it OUT of your head and watching it get all tangled and confused and messy, trying to weave it into something comprehensible while it's actively fighting you. Once you get it in a state you're proud of and show it to the world, there's plenty more pain to come - an audience pointing out perceived flaws and errors or reading something unintended and negative into your work stings on its own even if they don't follow it up with disproportionate vitriol and personal attacks on your character (love ya, tumblr) and even someone not engaging with your work or dismissing it with a casual "not really my thing" can hurt when it's innocently stated about something that means so, so much to you. The creation of art is exhilarating and personally fulfilling on a very deep level, but it involves excavating a deep and sensitive part of yourself and sculpting it into a work that the world beyond you can get some joy and value out of. It inherently involves exposing a very raw part of yourself to casual and potentially targeted harm, and thus it is an inherently painful process.

This means artists often seek ways to shield themselves from pain. Both the internal pain of the creative process and the external pain of audience engagement can be dulled significantly, the theory states, by simply attaining 100% perfection. All of this artistic suffering is caused by your art not being utterly flawless - its holes and threads open it to painful criticism, its niche appeal opens the creator to the pain of audience rejection, its flaws torture the artist with the pain of "if only I'd been better." If you are simply perfect, then your art will be immune to legitimate criticism and all remaining criticism can be dismissed - your audience is just dumb or uncultured or brainwashed, because if they were Proper People they'd clearly see the merit in your work. Some of the worst artists in history have clearly held this attitude about themselves - it's easy to spot these guys because their work never, ever got better.

Every concrete writing rule I've ever seen has clearly come from a place of pain-avoidance. There's a comfort in following rules, because it gives you a buffer between you and creative pain. Someone criticizes your work? You don't need to listen to them or look for value in their perspective, because you followed the rules. You show-don't-tell'd, you didn't split your infinitives, you followed the three-act structure to a T. Anyone who thinks your work is wrong, therefore, must be wrong themselves. You did everything right.

It's a comforting fiction. People like thinking that there's a way to do everything right, because it hurts to get something wrong. In a field as subjective as art there is no ironclad definition of anything, especially not concepts as loose as "right" and "wrong," but it's a very difficult paradigm to shake. A criticism hits home, a plothole is exposed, a cultural component ages badly, and suddenly - unexpectedly - the writer has done something wrong. Even worse, an artist's older work might contain problems they've since corrected in recent media, but it can still be used as a sign that the artist is Fundamentally Deficient. In certain circles (love ya, tumblr) this is sometimes treated as a boolean variable that deems the creator objectively "bad" and opens them up to an infinite cavalcade of vitriol and abuse, because Punishing Bad People is Always Good no matter what that punishment entails or how batfuck nuts the process looks with even an ounce of perspective or basic human compassion.

Even in less schoolyard-bullying-heavy environments, a creator getting part of their art "wrong" can be treated as a personal failing or a reason to dismiss them and their entire body of work by certain bad-faith schools of media criticism. So, to protect themselves, artists gravitate towards tried-and-true strategies they believe can protect them. Follow the masters, copy what's worked before, shield yourself with someone else's work. All this does is make what you end up creating less yours.

Learning from history and other artists is always a good idea because there's no point in reinventing the wheel, but you should never limit yourself to any of their Ironclad Rules. As you grow as an artist, which is a naturally flexible and organic process with, as established, no end point, you'll discover what patterns and strategies work for you and for what you're trying to create. Sticking "always do X" and "never, ever do Y" in there disrupts that process of growth, slows you down and often guarantees that your work will feel derivative and unoriginal because you're spending half your energy writing someone else's story.

So feel free to tell those guys they're welcome to follow as many of those shiny writing rules as they want to in their own work. As far as schools of criticism go, "they broke an arbitrary rule I defined so I'll read NO MORE OF THEIR WORK" is a pretty laughable one that I think puts them firmly in the "meaningless white noise" zone.

#asks #writing stuff

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letsperaltiago · 4 years

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then together let us make a world | jake x amy |

Tooth-rotting fluff based on episode 7x01 coming through!

Read on ao3 here!

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It’s only after getting over the disappointment of Scully and Hitchcock's interview-hijack that it really hits Jake what had previously gone down: They’re going to start trying… for a baby. Gushing thoughts have completely corrupted his brain but they contain so much excitement, confidence he’s never quite felt before, and for this reason he doesn’t mind.

They’re going to start trying for a baby, a little tiny human being, that will be his and hers.

That evening Amy had brought up the pregnancy scare very delicately well aware of her husband’s much improved although still tentative feelings concerning the logistics of the baby-matter. Granted they’d crossed paths with the subject, multiple times, before Jake had indeed, and rather firmly, settled on the fact that, yes, he wanted to be a dad: specifically Amy Santiago’s child’s dad. What had up until now held him back was the question of when.

When would he be ready? When would the time be perfectly right? When would he be able to be the exact opposite of his own dad?

Even though Amy by all means knew her husband could never turn out to be a shitty dad, or shitty anything, for that matter, and of this she’d reassure time after time, she also knew there was understandable reasoning behind his apprehension. Or that was until tonight. Tonight he hadn’t needed her delicateness, though he appreciated it, and he hadn’t cared about his former apprehension. Tonight had been and felt different.

It was as if the second the word pregnant had escaped her lips, he’d instantly felt his heart skip a beat which he at first thought was alike previous nervous occasions, right up until giving it another nanosecond to realise that this time it wasn’t the case. Different from previous times this flutter felt good, thrilling, new and akin to what could only be described as his hopes and dreams about of this long awaited epiphany. And now… it was finally here.

Sitting in bed with her, the very equivalent of the most normal end of the day for them, nothing that felt more special and right as he’d said out loud what he so shamelessly had felt as a result of her little update. The words had flown out his mouth but, for once, his spontaneous declaration were at no one’s expense because, yes, he was ready.

And now, after watching the rest of the news and settling down for the night, it really hits Jake, as they’re lying there, how truly right it all feels. He’s currently tucked into bed with his head slightly propped up watch whatever nonsense is now on TV, alongside him Amy has fallen asleep with her head on his chest, left arm and leg wrapped lovingly around him. It does constrain most of his ability to move but at the very least allows him to have his left arm under, around and holding her close in return. Even considering how normal the evening feels, it also feels that more special, truly like the start of something brand new.

Just as yet another mind numbing commercial interrupts whatever he was mindlessly pretending to watch his eyes drop to look down upon Amy’s sleeping figure. There, his eyes are met by shiny black hair standing out against her pink shirt, indeed messy after a long day but not enough to come in-between his angle of view and her beautiful face. And there it is again, he realises: the stupid smile on his face that’ll appear out of nowhere without a warning the second his mind revisits the thought of the woman before him carrying their child. There is no helping it, he thinks, before letting his fingers run through the locks carefully as to not wake her up.

“Careful, Peralta,” she rumbles, startling him even though he won’t admit to it, half of her face currently smushed comfortably into his chest, nevertheless burying it in a lazy attempt at physical affection.

“You’re absolutely in deep now. There’s no going back,” she jokes through shut eyes although he can tell that there’s a smug grin hiding in his chest.

“Oh, honey I’ve been in deep for a long time now.”

He smiles down at her continuously playing with her hair. Her eyes are still closed but her hand, which seconds ago was helping her hold onto his torso, moves to stroke his bicep. However her smile, on the other hand, quickly changes, doesn’t remain smug for long, and quickly transitions from teasing to a softer version that reflects how she’s really feeling.

“I know it’s still really early and we literally just decided to start trying, but…” she trails off after suddenly opening her eyes, as if the moment has suddenly gained a certain tint of sincerity that wasn’t there seconds ago. “… have you thought about any, you know,” she takes the tiniest of breaths, inhaling courage, before twisting her neck as much as physically possible in her given position to lock eyes with him, “baby names?”

“I actually have,” he counters, once again taking her by storm, without a flinch or any kind of sign of insecurity. Amy’s so proud of him.

With a reassuring smile he reaches over to grab his phone from the nightstand, where it’d immediately been put aside when Amy had come to him with what he’d picked up on as important matter. He doesn’t even have to see at the look upon his wife’s face: he can sense that she’s beaming as he settles back against the pillow with his phone in hand.

“You made a list?” She’s truly surprised and impressed by just how much her A-typeness has worn off on him even if it’s just little things like lists.

“Yeah,” he states proudly before briefly clearing his throat thus prompting Amy to flip over, scooting back to lean her upper backside and head against his chest instead. It’s no secret that she’s extremely curious to get a look at a) her husband’s attempt at what she considers a hobby and b) what her husband considers legitimate names for their future child. This new position will allow her to look through the mystery-list with him. With both arms wrapped around her Jake holds and rests the devise on his belly for both of them to see

“…I actually started making it that evening after our talk at the hospital.”

Amy observes a slight reddening of his cheeks, perhaps not out of embarrassment per say but rather out of understanding of how very real the matter at hand has gotten. His list is no longer just a pile of names in his Notes-app where he’d, for fun and hypothetical reasons, add another one whenever he came across one he liked: now it’s a list that could quite possibly contain the name of their future child.

She grins from ear to ear way before he has the chance to start reading out loud. Just how in love with him she is keeps hitting her again and again, a thousand miles per hour, like lighting tearing apart the sky during a thunderstorm.

“The first name on the list you already know about since we’ve talked about it: Atlas.”

“Still kinda really like it,” Amy shrugs light-heartedly from where she’s comfortably leaning into him all while tracing small drawings of nothing in particular but affection his thigh.

“Our child would be the one to be named after a god, huh?” Jake teases earning him a chuckle from Amy.

“So unbiased,” she confirms jokingly.

“Exactly,” he briefly pecks the top of her head in agreement before continuing. “Alexander is up next.”

“Nu-uh!” Her body twists hurriedly in a tiny squirm of objection. “Perp-alert! I can’t have my child have the same name as one of my ex-perps.”

“Ames, combined we’ve probably arrested hundreds if not thousands of perps!”

While he can see her point: after all it is understandable that she doesn’t want their child to be associated with anything negative, this also erases a lot of possibilities on both their ends.

And although he is completely serious upon making his statement, he has to laugh at the thought of having to name their child something completely absurd because of the extremes of their job.

“I’m sure there’s plenty of names that haven’t been ruined by crime yet. There are literally billions of names out there!” On her part it is in fact a statement but ends up coming out as whine instead - a playful complaint of sorts.

“Sure,” he pauses to think for a second before pulling up a browser tab wherein starts typing obviously searching for something.

Amy’s eyes tries to keep up with his typing but Jake’s fingers have obtained their fair share of training from all the time he spends gaming on his phone, and it’s more of a struggle to follow than she likes to admit.

All she happens to catch is that as soon as he types the first few letters of whatever he’s searching to find, the website’s name pops up as a suggestion telling her that he’s visited it before. He swiftly enters it and clicks around a few more times losing her in the process. A long list appears on what appears to be babynames.com. The thought of him visiting it on his own time, by himself as… fun? It makes her heart flutter.

“It won’t be a problem if you want our child to be called… Agamemnon.”

She immediately twists her neck to look up at him where she’s met by a deadpan she knows is trying to hide the fact that he’s cracking up on the inside.

“I mean,” she untwists her neck to grab the phone from his hand in order to have a closer look at the screen and what is written about the name. “We do seem to have something for Greek mythology so I don’t see the problem, Jake.”

Jake knows Amy like the back of his hand and it’s clear as day that she’s messing with him – but of course two can play that game.

“Okay, great,” he states matter-of-factly, “It’s settled then: we’re naming our child Agamemnon Santiago-Peralta - boy or girl.”

He gently takes back his phone to lock it as a visual settlement of the discussion.

“Okay. Cool cool cool…” Amy complies.

Silence dominates the bedroom for a few seconds before Amy twists her neck, both looking at each other trying to figure out when to kill the joke. Their shared look doesn’t last long before they break into laughter.

“I’m sorry, Ames, but you will never hear me call our child Agamemnon out loud.”

“Completely fair.”

Both of their laughs quiet down. Amy settles back down against his chest while Jake reopens his phone and Notes-app.

“What else do you have in there? I’m sure there are some genuinely good contestants.” She almost coos in order to get the conversation back and track, although more importantly to let him know she genuinely wants to hear his propositions.

This time it’s Amy turn to gentle grab the phone from him and scroll. He loves moments like these where they’re just soaking in each other’s presence without much else to do but talk or touch for the sake of it. To occupy himself in the meantime Jake allows his newly freed hands to caress her the area around her waist and stomach now suddenly also better known as where their child will be growing, becoming a tiny little individual, in what he sincerely hopes is a matter of months. A year ago he couldn’t fathom the feeling this feeling of impatience to be dad, yet alone truly, surely wanting a child. In a drastic lift-changing contrast, here they finally were, going through baby names like it was the most common thing in their world.

“Olivia is nice… Felix also good… Noah is adorable…”

Jake can tell, from the tone of her voice, that she genuinely means every single comment she makes, which wholeheartedly provokes a feeling of pride and the feeling of he can do this. The sound of her voice threats to lull him into a trancelike state, and for a moment allows his eyes to shut while he lets his ears do the job of keeping of with Amy discovering his lists. Just like his eyes, his hand’s movement on her are about to falter when suddenly his wife lets out a tiny gasp. It’s safe to say that his eyes are, just as fast as they were closed, back wide open.

“This one is really sweet,” he can tell she’s smiling from the way her voice is laced with softness. “Juliet,” she continues, out loud, to allow it to roll on her tongue and for herself to get a better taste of it.

Jake gives her some time to dwell on it before speaking up.

“Yeah, I added it after that night we watched ‘Letters to Juliet’… I don’t know if it’s too sappy for my own good, but I like the thought of the baby being like…”

Amy can tell he hesitates to finish the sentence.

“What?” she looks up at him with an eager look: only those beautiful brown eyes that at any time can calm him down, can also lure him out of his emotionally wounded shell.

“… This baby is going to be like our little love letter.”

A few beats, a matter of seconds, go by and Amy can tell he’s just about to break into cringing and a string of sarcastic comments to redeem what he’s just said. Only this time he doesn’t make it, because Amy Peralta-Santiago lives for Jake’s occasional super-soft moments and she’s not about to let this one slip away.

It’s, or so it feels, out of the blue, just as the cringe starts to break on his face, that he halts when his wife suddenly does a 180 and relocates to hover above him. He briefly, just barely manages to, catches the glimpse of a smile on her face that tells him that he’s doing just fine. That is before it disappears into a soft, warm kiss pressed to his lips.

As so many times before, an amount that he forever hopes will be infinite, their lips come together in sweet, passionate harmony.

“Don’t say anything,” she pecks the corner of his lip so softly the need for more pressure creates a burning sensation. “I love it,” she whispers into his ear, adding a kiss to the shell before moving her way back to the main target, sparking off goose bumps.

Her hands have already, even before their lips crashed, made their way to cup his face secretly enjoying the light, barely there, scruff beneath her touch.

“I love you,” he exhales, just barely making it out between clashing of their lips.

“I love you too,” is promptly returned as so many times before although it, even after being repeated many times throughout the years, never loses its true value.

He loves her so much, he can’t help but think over and over again as he the billions of baby names quickly disappear from his mind under the new, increasingly passionate circumstances. Nothing else in the world matters anymore because they’re just going to start trying.

Yeah, seriously.

#jake and amy #jake x amy #peraltiago fanfic #peraltiago #s7 #Brooklyn Nine-Nine #b99 #fanfiction #oneshot #baby peraltiago

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sasha-benoit-blog · 7 years

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WORDPLAY: When Listening Goes Left

It is the first anniversary of my WordPlay Blog, and I must admit after one year I have learned that I talk too much. Not like a gossip or a busybody, though I admit that I am guilty of reveling in a juicy tidbit or two that falls in my lap. I mean my jaws just won’t stop, no matter how badly I want to keep them from giving advice. I suppose it doesn’t help that I have been having a scandalous love affair with words since I was a wee babe, but my desire to yap has mostly been cultivated by the throngs of people seeking advice from me on occasions too numerous to count. My metaphorical couch has been littered with bodies, from the going nowhere fast to PhDs, even presidents of countries… so I am kidding about presidents, however if I had the opportunity to use my Jedi mind tricks on a certain elected official of a particular country, I think there would not be this sheer pandemonium… but I digress. I don’t quite know why, but I have had total strangers unload their very personal business on me. I always respond with sage advice and they usually skip off into the sunset floating through the atmosphere as light as a feather. I use to become as heavy as rock from all the crap that people shared with me, until I mastered how to give advice through the art of listening: be attentive and engaged; pay attention to the details; ask questions for understanding; be open-minded and empathetic; remain objective and detached; and don’t interrupt or impose your solutions unless asked.

So I was recently talking one of my friends off the very edge of the cliff, as I have often done with so many others. It had been a minute since she had an impending meltdown, years really, but she called disgruntled, seeking advice on a sensitive situation. As an aside, I very much like that before she unleashes a full blown reign of terror on someone, she seeks advice to let cooler heads prevail. That is generally our modus operandi; she is a raging fire and I douse out her flames with a healthy dose of objective good sense. This time, however, my mastery of listening and giving advice failed miserably. I allowed myself to be sucked into the firestorm. Who am I kidding? I practically became the firestorm. In fact, I became so enflamed that I had to eventually talk both of us off the cliff! My friend didn’t receive a healthy dose of objectiveness, but an aching belly full of subjective complaints to add to her already full stomach of woe from her crusade. Crusade, you say? Oh yes. She may not have known when she called seeking advice that there was a crusade to lead, but she is now the fearless leader, the progenitor. But the bigger slap landed across my face when I somehow became her wingman for a non-existent crusade she didn’t know she was leading and I didn’t want to join… losing. To be clear, the cause is worthy and the movement, noble, nonetheless, I was over here pleased to be minding my own very busy business.

So how did listening to a friend go left? Well, I broke two important rules of masterful listening: 1) I became involved; and 2) I couldn’t shut up. She had very legitimate concerns that I also shared, but I had previously remove myself from the situation because I didn’t want the responsibility of being an agent for change. So the conversation immediately became personal for me, like I was the one calling for advice, and I just couldn’t shut my mouth! The more I talked, the more fired up we became and the closer to the cliff’s edge we pushed each other. There was no wisdom of artful listening employed; no prayer for clarity for God to give us the right words. I had plenty of words, too many as it turns out. Thankfully, there was wisdom and prayer after the crusade began, but I just wished cooler heads prevailed before the crusade was ignited. C’est la vie. So far, setting the crusade in motion has yielded positive results, but just this morning I got an assignment from my fearless leader. Come on! Anyone know a good lawyer to get me out of this wingman contract that I talked myself into by being a terrible listener? I talk too much.

#wordplay #theartoflistening #whenthingsgoleft #when things go wrong #i talk too much

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