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elfdragon12 · 3 months

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I hate when people try to write a super smart schemer/chess master in the vein of Gargoyles' Xanatos by having everything go according to plan.

Take Aizen from Bleach for instance. Somehow, this guy planned the exact path for Ichigo to be born. He planned exact that [plot point] would lead to [plot point] would lead to [plot point] which would lead to his dad meeting his mom and that would lead to them having at least one kid who would then become a substitute shinigami after meeting an actual shinigami who would use a fake body that would happen to have this one item embedded in it then she would get arrested and sentenced to death which would be carried out by this specific execution tool that would reveal the item for him to nab while everyone was busy fighting Ichigo and his friends.

After a certain point, it starts sounding ridiculous that everything happened *exactly as planned*, especially when it requires two people falling in love and having at least one kid. (What if either were actually asexual or infertile?) Even more ridiculous because there's *another* schemer working against him!

Remove one piece and it all falls apart. That's bad scheming.

Speaking of One Piece, however, there's Sir Crocodile. The privateer engineered a civil war in order to get to a secret the royal family was hiding. Towards the climax of that arc, he maneuvers both sides to battle and they'll eventually wipe themselves out. If it doesn't go according to plan, he has some minions with a bomb/cannonball ready to lit the wick. However, if something happens to his minions, it's got a timer. And that's only one example from his overarching plan.

It's the same thing with David Xanatos, the very character the "Xanatos Gambit" trope is named after. He has his Plan A and it will happen that it gets foiled. He's still got Plans B, C, and D.

A good Chessmaster doesn't have just one maneuver, they have many because there is no such thing as a foolproof plan.

#writing pet peeves

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citruscarnival · 21 days

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Mini rant abt the misuse of a popular phrase in writing:

One of my pet peeves in writing is when someone uses "all but" wrong

Now I'm not a professional but hear me out

Here's an example of proper use:

"He was so excited he all but screamed at the top of his lungs" or "he all but fucking exploded"

This means he expressed his excitement in such a noticeable way he did so many things to show it, all but the greatest extreme of expressing that excitement: screaming or exploding

Maybe he was shaking from excitement, maybe jumped and clapped his hands, cheered or something but he obviously didn't explode

"All but" means they were very extreme in whatever they did, but in a feasible way. "All but" uses an actual extreme and unlikely action/reaction as a comparison to give the audience an idea of a more predictable yet still heightened reaction.

It's like saying "he might as well have two horns and a tail, he was so evil" "he might as well shit rainbows and flowers, the guy is a saint" "he might as well have exploded from how excited he was."

It's more powerful than saying "he was shaking from excitement" because it lets the audience sense just how excited you'd have to be to contain yourself from screaming or, of course, to nearly fucking explode

But people use it wrong so often!

"He all but gasps"

Am I supposed to believe he held back the gasp? That he just stood there while surprised? Cuz that's fine but it's not the intended use of the phrase

"He might as well have gasped." Okay? Why didn't he?

Gasping in shock is not exactly an INSANE thing to do, it's just a gasp. There's no reason to give the audience a sense that he's holding back. If not gasping what *is* he doing? There's not much to do when you're saying your character did everything but gasp

There is nothing that comes before gasping in intensity other than, like, watching vaguely or going "hm."

It grinds my gears to see it misused because it's such a cool way to get audiences to engage with your writing and imagine for themselves the heightened emotions of your characters or add humor and levity to a subject! Using it wrong can just muddle your writing instead of enhancing it!

Let's stop "He all but chuckled" and other mild reactions that don't add to the use of the phrase and may leave the audience confused as to what your character expressed at all

How about "He all but crawled into a hole and died from the shame" "they all but raised pitchforks and organized a mob" enhance! It's a creative and exaggerative phrase! Enhance!!!

#creative writing #writing #writing tips #writing tag #writing problems #writing prompt #writing pet peeves #pet peeve #writers on tumblr #writeblr #writerscommunity

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lokis-army-77 · 2 months

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Please for the love of god... it's TAUT, not TAUGHT when you are writing about something being "pulled tightly or stretched"

Taught is the past tense of teach, which is hopefully what I'm doing for you atm.

Please, I beg of you 😔 I see it in everyone's writing and I need you all to know that you are spelling the word wrong and it is physically hurting me every single time I see it.

#psa #writing #writing pet peeves #please #youre killing me

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s-n-arly · 10 months

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Writing Peeve - The Taste of Blood

Apparently a large number of writers have no idea what blood tastes like and it shows. There appears to be a mass decision that it’s copper. A character gets punched or bites their lip, then notes that the taste of copper to signal to the reader that they are bleeding.

What blood tastes like (and smells like) is iron, not copper. I grew up in the 70s, when it was apparently a childhood rite to lick railings and flagpoles (especially in the winter). I was a tiny waif, so doctors diagnosed me with failure to thrive and I had to take liquid iron supplements. I assure you, that the metallic taste in blood is iron. You might notice it if you leave something mild flavored (like potatoes) to sit in a cast iron pan long after it’s cooled (the food has the chance to absorb noticeable iron).

My grandma had copper cups and copper plated silverware. These had a particular metallic flavor, less bold and biting than iron.

The iron smell and taste make a lot of sense because one third of each blood cell is hemoglobin, the iron-containing oxygen-transport protein present in red blood cells.

Blood info graphic from: https://www.compoundchem.com/2015/10/29/blood/

#Writers #Research #Blood #Blood tastes like iron #Blood does NOT taste like copper #Pet Peeve #writing pet peeves #resources for writers

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pixiemage · 1 year

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A few writing pet peeves I've collected over years, all things I've found in fanfics or occasionally in written messages between friends. They're all small and simple mistakes, and with how widespread they are across the web, I can totally understand why! But I'd love to spread a little English knowledge to help fellow writers catch themselves and un-learn a bad habit for the future :3

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

To wander is to walk. To wonder is to have thoughts.

If something is definitely broken, there's no doubt about its condition. If something is defiantly broken, the person who broke it did so out of rebellious opposition.

If you could care less, then you probably care a little bit since there is a lower level of caring (or not caring) available to you. If you couldn't care less, you're at the lowest level of caring possible and can't go any lower. You don't care at all.

To nip it in the butt involves biting someone's backside. To nip it in the bud trims the flower before it can bloom, stopping a situation before it can get any further.

Someone who is rabid over something is going a bit feral/insane about it. A rabid animal goes crazy. Rabid as in rabies. Someone who is rapid about something is going very quickly. A rapid animal just has the zoomies.

If you have wrapped attention (not a real thing), I'll only assume you're watching gift-wrapping tutorials on YouTube...or that you are currently in a blanket burrito. If you have rapped attention (also not a real thing), someone drew your focus by knocking on something, or you somehow got in touch with Slim Shady. If you have rapt attention, then you are extremely focused on or interested in whatever has your attention.

Could of isn't a real phrase. If you remove the "could", does it still make sense? "I could of fallen" -> "I of fallen". Wrong. Could have is the proper usage. Try turning that possible situation into a definite one. "I could have fallen" -> "I have fallen". Correct. (This trick only works with "I" or "they" or "we", but it's still a good way to test it out!)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

[Do any other writers out there have certain fic-found pet peeves that you'd like to add? Feel free! I'd love to help bring awareness to small mistakes like this to better help other writers and fic authors in improving their work! <3]

#Writing Pet Peeves #Writing #Fanfiction #Writing Tips #Ao3 #Archive of our Own #I see these so often in fanfics and I just really wanna help folks learn the difference to better their writing <3 #I never judge when I see it because it's usually just a matter of someone never being taught or never being corrected #and sometimes it's dyslexia which is totally fair #BUT for anyone who doesn't know I want to point out the difference

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duckprintspress · 2 months

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Round Table Discussion: Grammar Pet Peeves

Today, March 4th, is National Grammar Day! Last year, we celebrated with six of our favorite grammar quirks. This year, we’re going to the other end of the spectrum: we had a conversation with our editors and blog contributors about grammar things we hate. They may be technically correct, but that doesn’t mean they don’t make us crazy. Eighteen people, many anonymous, contributed to this discussion.

Dangling Modifiers

boneturtle: Dangling modifiers, hands down. Even when I can decipher what the writer meant based on context, it viscerally hurts me every time. When I am editing I have to stand up and take a lap around my apartment when I hit a dangling modifier. Remind myself that I am here to help. Learn more about dangling modifiers.

Commas

anonymous: Commas are not difficult! Commas end phrases. Full stop. That’s all they do. Is a phrase necessary to the grammatical coherence of the sentence? if the answer is yes, no commas because that phrase hasn’t ended. If the answer is no, commas! comma hug that bish if it’s the middle of a sentence. The difference between grammatical and informational is whether or not the sentence makes sense without the phrase.

Examples:

The man who ordered the six double anchovy pizzas claims to have a dolphin in his pool.

You need “who ordered the six double anchovy pizzas” because you need to identify which man you’re talking about. The world is full of many men.

The ancient Buick, which Madeleine purchased via Craigslist, belched black smoke whenever she pressed the accelerator.

We don’t need to know how Madeleine purchased the car for the sentence to make sense. You don’t even meed “Madeleine” for the grammar to make sense. Therefore, hug that phrase!

(a comma on each side of the phrase) or give it a dramatic send off with a comma and an end punctuation. (i could go into conjunctions, too, but those are a little more complex, and if you were taught them properly, i understand not getting the comma use 😂 )

Prepositions at the End of Sentences

Tris Lawrence: There was a dictionary (Merriam-Webster? Oxford? idek) that posted recently on social media about how the rule about not ending a sentence with a preposition came from English scholars trying to make English line up with Latin, and that it’s totally okay to do it… and I’m just wanting to point to it to yell THIS because uhhh trying to rework sentences to not end in a preposition often creates clunky awkward things (my opinion, I recognize this).

D. V. Morse: Ending sentences/clauses with a preposition. Well, not doing that is supposed to be the rule, but depending on the sentence, it can be a convoluted mess to try and avoid it. Winston Churchill famously told someone off after they “caught” him breaking that rule, saying, “This is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.” (Yes, I had to look that up.)

Pronoun Confusion

anonymous: I hate playing the pronoun game when reading. I hate it in life when someone comes up to me and tells me a story involving 2 people of the same pronouns and stops using names halfway through, and I hate it while reading too. Nothing makes me fall out of scene more if I don’t know who just did/said what. Use names. That’s why we have them.

Nina Waters: epithets. If I know the characters name…why? Also, when people use “you” in third person writing. There are times I’ll allow it as an editor/times when I do think it’s at least acceptable but not gonna lie, I absolutely hate it.

anonymous: My pet peeve … I read hundreds of essays in a given month for work, plus a whole lot of fanfic for fun. A rising issue that I have noticed in both places is incomplete sentences (lacking subjects, typically). I think it’s because people rely on Google’s grammar checker to tell them if something is wrong and…Google doesn’t check for that apparently. I’m increasingly convinced that my high schoolers simply weren’t taught sentence structure, because when I ask them to fix it they almost universally say some variant of “I don’t understand what you’re asking me to do.” Therefore, it might be punching down a little to complain about it. I’m not sure. It does drive me nuts though. Lol

“Would Of”

Neo Scarlett: Not quite sure if that falls under grammar, but I hate hate hate when people use “should of” instead of should’ve. Or “would of.” It just makes my toe nails curl up because it may sound right, but it looks wrong and is wrong.

Semi-Colons

Shea Sullivan: I saw a list punctuated by semicolons recently and that made me froth at the mouth a bit.

anonymous: I think any editor who’s worked with me knows that I have a pet peeve about using colons or semi-colons in dialogue. Or really, any punctuation mark that I don’t think people can actually pronounce. Semicolons can live anywhere that I don’t have to imagine a character actually pronouncing them.

English isn’t Dumb!

theirprofoundbond: As a former linguistics student, it bugs me a lot when people say that English is a dumb or stupid language because it has borrowed from so many languages. What people mean when they say this is, “English can be really difficult (even for native speakers).” But I wish people would say that, instead of “it’s dumb/stupid.” Languages are living things. Like other living things, they adapt and evolve. English is basically a beautiful, delightful platypus. Let it be a platypus.

Dei Walker: I remember seeing somewhere that English has four types of rules (I’m trying to find the citation today) and everyone conflates them. And I guess my pet peeve is that everyone treats them equally when they’re NOT. There are rules but not all of them are the same – there’s a difference between “adjectives precede nouns” (big truck, not *truck big) and “don’t split infinitives” (which is arbitrary).

And, because we couldn’t resist, here are some of our favorite things, because when we asked for pet peeves…some people still shared things they loved instead of things they hated.

Oxford Comma

Terra P. Waters: I really really love the Oxford comma.

boneturtle: me: [in kindergarten, using oxford comma]

teacher: no, we don’t add a comma between the last two objects in a list.

me: that’s illogical and incorrect.

anonymous: I will forever appreciate my second grade teacher’s explanation of Oxford comma use: Some sentences are harder to understand if you don’t use it, but no sentence will ever be harder to understand because you do use it. Preach, Mrs. D

anonymous: I am definitely Team Oxford Comma. I even have a bumper sticker which says so

Other Favorites

Shea Sullivan: I adore the emdash, to every editor’s chagrin.

Shadaras: zeugmas! I think they’re super cool!

Shea Sullivan and Hermit: I use sentence fragments a lot. Fragments my beloved.

English Grammar vs. Grammar in Other Languages

anonymous: so in English my favourite thing is the parallel Latin and Saxon registers because of how that affects grammar, but in Japanese my favourite grammatical thing is the use of an actual sound at the end of the sentence to denote a question, as opposed to how in English we use intonation? Also how in Japanese the sentence structure requires reasoning first and action second in terms of clauses. So rather than go “let’s go to the cinema because it’s raining and I’m cold,” you’d go “because it’s raining and I’m cold, let’s go to the cinema.” (My least favourite thing is the lack of spaces between words in the written form but that’s purely because I find that level of continuous letters intimidating to translate.)

I also love how Japanglish in the foreign communities in Japan starts to develop its own grammatical structure as a way of situating yourself in this space between the two languages. It’s used as a call-sign of belonging to that specific community, because in order to make some of the jokes and consciously break the rules of English or Japanese grammar and/or choose to obey one or the other, you’re basically displaying your control over both/knowledge of them. Like, the foreign community in Japan is often a disparate group of people with multiple different native languages who are relying on their knowledge of at least one non-native language but often two to signify their status in the group as Also An Outsider and I think that’s really interesting.

Nina Waters: Chinese and Japanese both drop subjects, and Chinese doesn’t have like… a/the… Japanese doesn’t have a future tense… Chinese kinda sorta doesn’t have tenses at all… (these are not pet peeves, btw, I love how learning a language with such different ways of approaching these things reshapes my brain). Chinese also doesn’t really have yes or no.

There’s a joke somewhere on Tumblr about that, though I actually think it’s about using “a” versus “the,” like, someone was giving a Russian speaker a hard time after they said “get in car” and they were like “only you English speakers are dumb enough to feel this is essential why would I be talking about getting into any random car of course I mean our car wtf.”

anonymous: on the subject of other languages, epithets are also something that happen differently in other languages. In French repeating a word (names included, and sometimes even pronouns) is considered bad writing. As in, way more than in English. Going by how grating the English translation of the Witcher books was to me when the French one was fine, I’d say it’s the same with Polish, at least. It’s also very interesting how brains adapt to writing styles in other languages.

What are some of your favorite and least favorite grammar quirks, in English or in the language of your choice?

#national grammar day #duck prints press #writing advice #grammar #writeblr #writing pet peeves #grammar pet peeves

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spaceaces00 · 19 days

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My Fic Pet Peeves:

1. Just a block of text (pleaseee break up your paragraphs I cannot read a screen of text)

2. No enter after someone talks (every person gets one paragraph then it breaks for the next guy :)

3. Like no tags?? (Gotta hook me in with those tags and summary)

4. AI fics (absolutely not)

5. When it’s incomplete but the chapters are complete (like please just mark it as incomplete so people don’t gotta be devastated😩)

6. 1700 tags for a fic only 1K words

#ao3 #ao3 fanfic #fanfic #writing pet peeves #writing

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cinderella-ish · 28 days

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furuba fanfic pet peeve: cursed animal epithets

i get that fanfic in general uses epithets ("the blonde" "the taller girl" etc...) a lot more than published works, but repeatedly referring to the fruits basket characters as their cursed animal spirits feels antithetical to so much of what the series was trying to say

when people judge you based on their perception of a label you didn't choose, they erase your humanity

kyo was only ever seen as the cursed cat by the sohmas, therefore they thought it was reasonable to blame a fucking child for his mother's suicide and lock him up for life because "tradition" and "that's his role"

yuki was seen as the blessed rat, leading to his own fucking mother selling him to an abusive cult leader and neglecting to intervene when the severity of his situation was made clear

outside of the curse, too, yuki was seen as the perfect prince and not seen as the complex, imperfect human being he actually was

it happens again and again- basically every character's arc is breaking free of the label that someone else put onto them

like... yes, they often have several traits in common with their animal, but never the traits that actually matter. sure, kyo has red hair and eyes with slits for pupils and he likes drinking milk and startles easily and takes a while to warm up to strangers, but he's also deeply kind, good at reading people, adorably awkward, and wears his heart on his sleeve. he's full of self-hatred and survivor's guilt from a lifetime of abuse and trauma to the point where he's basically been suicidal his whole life, yet he's still trying his best to keep living (whether he realizes this or not). tohru falls for him because of who he is, and not because he's the cat and she likes cats. he doesn't pedestalize her (another type of outside expectation that dehumanizes her) and lets her be just a girl who doesn't have to pretend everything is fine all the time. so it irritates me to see otherwise great fics keep reducing him to "the cat" over and over.

if you must use an epithet, at least don't do the same thing to these characters as the people who traumatized them

(obviously this doesn't include those rare instances when using the animal epithet makes sense, like when you're speaking from a specific character's perspective and they absolutely would see the character they're thinking/talking about as just their animal, or when an animal appears and the pov character doesn't realize it's a person, or when you're specifically talking about the spirit that possesses them. there are probably more times when it's fine but you get the point.)

#fruits basket #furuba #fruba #fanfic #writing #writing advice #writing mistakes #writing pet peeves #fanfic readers #fanfic authors #epithets

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and-231-others · 6 months

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one of my biggest fanfiction pet peeves is when writers say "tad" like, "he was a tad annoyed" or "they added a small tad of water to the ink"

like cmon

"tad"??

there are SO MANY synonyms for "tad" that are more descriptive and add substance, but you used the most boring word ever??

and I know that my word choice isn't great, but at least when I say things it's for a reason

so, for whoever reads this and decides to say "tad," please use these words instead:

bit

little

sprinkling

splash

glimmer

hint

shred

touch

yes I got them from Merriam-Webster, but they're better than your word choice

#fanfic #ao3 #ao3 fanfic #archive of our own #this is my call for help #pet peeve #writing #writing community #writing pet peeves

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edeluarts · 1 year

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One of things that annoys me to no end is how in so many pieces of media the authors and, as a result, the characters, completely forget, THAT BI PEOPLE EXIST...

There are so many times, when the plot/subplot begins to focus on "is this character gay or straight?", as if these are the only options...

I want to yell at those characters so bad 😭😭😭

You don't need to act so confused, when a guy character, who only liked women up to this point, starts liking another guy, for example. Seriously. The amount of time everyone in the story turns into that math lady meme thinking "iS tHiS gUy GaY oR sTrAiGhT???" FOR SEVERAL CHAPTERS is so incredibly frustrating...

The "problem" could be solved within a page, if you just remembered, that the character could be bi, who either didn't realise they were bi up until now, or due to internalised homophobia they suppressed that part of themselves.

This could be such an interesting plot to explore, but nooo, instead we're just sitting here with the gay-straight dilemma

#writing #writing pet peeves #bi erasure #bisexuality #bisexual #bi pride #dear authors #could you please stop doing this #bi people exist #wasted potential

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levitheeldritch · 1 month

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Character writing pet peeve of mine:

When someone makes an "emotionless" character, but makes them constantly annoyed of everything, and super cold.

Mf that is not a mysterious emotionless character, that is a dramatic Shakespeare-ized stereotypical teenager.

If they're annoyed, that's anger, which is an emotion.

To me, personally, even if unintentionally, brings across the notion that anger is not an emotion. Which isn't true.

#writing #character writing #writing pet peeves #eldritch thoughts 🩷

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brettdoesdiscourse · 8 months

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Every time people write a villain couple as normal people (in a way that isn't specified that they are NOT villains anymore), a devil loses its horns. I don't WANT the villains to be normal people, I WANT the villains to be EVIL.

#this happens so much in ship fics #like those two are TOXIC #they would NOT be healthy here #villains #villain discourse #shipping discourse #fandom discourse #writing pet peeves #fanfic pet peeves #brett does discourse

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rex-shadao · 1 year

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The unfortunate implication of born evil

There's a reason why I stated that Belos/Philip works best as someone was a lot like Luz in his youth, serving as a dark reflection to what path she could have taken. Because the alternative is to suggest that Philip was born a psychopath and therefore evil from the start. Which is absolutely a horrendous interpretation that goes against the themes of the Owl House.

I came across this discussion thread arguing that Belos never loved Caleb at all, not even when they were children. As someone who has a brother who clings onto family to feel safe, this rubs me the wrong way.

The only time Born Evil works is for horror movies, where the less you know the more you fear works. But in a show that teaches audience that inherent differences are to be embraced and celebrated and that weirdos should not be treated as outcasts because they are "different," the idea of Philip being born a psychopath and thus has no love for Caleb even at the beginning undermines the whole message. It suggest that Philip could not be reformed but instead must be destroyed immediately. And that he is different from other humans, therefore we can separate him as an outcast. Which sounds similar to a certain belief that Philip has about witches.

But we see in the show itself, Philip was an orphan boy when he came to Gravesfield. The same Gravesfield that would later deem Luz to be an outcast for not fitting in with society. Philip and his brother had to become Witch Hunters in order to survive and be accepted by society. If they did not, they'll be left on the streets or worse, be accused of witches themselves.

So it's not surprising that Philip desperately wants to fit in society and why he wants to become a hero and Witch Hunter General. He learned early on that was the only way to never be an outcast again. In fact, his desire to be accepted into society is what drove him to become evil in the first place.

What makes Belos evil isn't his personality; it's rather his deeds, his choices, and his determination to be accepted in a society that changes their standards and probably won't accept him anyways. Him feeling guilt about murdering Caleb actually makes his actions worse because we know he is capable of choosing a better path, but still takes the worst path out of fear of the emotional pain. That's the whole point about Philip. He wasn't born a monster. He became a monster by his poor choices.

And thus, he serves as a reminder to Luz and the audience that anyone could become Belos under the right circumstances and that Belos is the product of Gravesfield's sins, especially regarding the treatment of people outside the norm.

If we were to accept that Belos is born evil, we inadvertently absolve our own flaws and pretend to be superior even as many of us wish for the most painful and primal physical death for Belos.

#emperor belos #toh #toh belos #character analysis #writing pet peeves #tragic characters #tragic villain #villain #I need to get this off my chest because I despise the implications #belos should be evil by choice #not by genetic inheritance #nature vs nurture

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