@toribookworm22 / toribookworm22.tumblr.com
Everytime I see posts like this I get filled with such profound sadness
Cause you know who has the same brainrot as you? The same unhinged feelings as you after you've read the fic? The person who always wants to scream about the fic with you?
THE PERSON WHO WROTE IT
I never used to leave comments but since I got into the habit of commenting on everything i enjoy it's been incredible. Especially when the author gets back to me about it and we get to have a discussion of what other ideas they had. One writer replied to my comment with a 5 paragraph essay detailing the Floorplan of the building the characters lived in and it was incredible
Anyways this is all to say that if you find a fic that just makes you want to scream from the rooftops, leave a comment saying that to the author and maybe they will join you and you can scream incoherently together
Please let's scream incoherently together!
God yes, let’s!
The main character knew they were going to die. It took them some time, but they soon learned to accept their fate. They didn't tell anyone, thinking no one knew. But someone did. The main character's worst enemy knew about their dying fate. And their enemy, for some reason, wasn't at all as accepting.
They are human, but not quite. Although these entities are deeply embedded in the human psyche, they have not single definite form.
Here are some notes about these paranormal creatures of 'The Universal Unconscious', and ideas about how to tweak them.
First stories about vampires as we know them appeared in the 18th C and developed in the early 19th C.
In 1819, a young English doctor wrote The Vampyre, featuring the character Lord Ruthven. An aristocratic fiend, immortal, seductive, and dangerous, he soon became popular.
It inspired Bram Stoker's novel Dracula. Count Dracula then became the archetype from whom most literary vampires evolved.
Sparkling vs. Traditional
Broadly, vampire would fall into 2 types:
It doesn't matter which of these you write!
Vampire Tropes
While wolves are the most common were-humans, humans turning into other animals are also popular.
Werewolf Tropes
Through flesh-hungry undead have been a feature of ancient stories like the epic of Gilgamesh, the zombie as we know it today is rather modern, stemming from George A. Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead.
The word "zombie" stems from the Haiti Vodun tradition, but was not applied widely to flesh-eating undead corpses until the second half of the 20th century.
Zombie Tropes
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“What’s the point? You’re just going to leave again.”
“I promised I wouldn’t.”
“I’ve been on the receiving end of your promises before. I’m not holding my breath that this time will be different.”
How important 100% correct grammar is to a writing project? I keep hearing about acclaimed writers that have writing styles that aren't fully in norm with the rules of grammar but I also keep seeing harsh criticism against amateur authors with imperfect grammar. Which people should I listen to? Stephen King said that writing doesn't need to have fully uniform grammar and that coming from one of the most acclaimed horror writers of all time is sure inspiring, but I don't want to get roasted to oblivion for using too much passive voice or clarity errors that may pop up whenever I finish something.
First, I think it's important to understand what grammar actually is, because "passive voice" isn't really a grammar issue. I mean, it is in the sense that passive voice is an aspect of sentence structure, but passive voice isn't automatically good or bad grammar.
When we talk about grammar in fiction, we're really talking about how words are used and how sentences are structured. Included in grammar are things like using words properly/appropriately, putting words in the proper place within a sentence so that it makes sense, and using proper punctuation.
Next, let's talk about Stephen King's stance on grammar, because my understanding is he emphasizes the importance of good grammar, but also feels you shouldn't be so obsessed with achieving perfect grammar that it stops you from writing. So, King's stance on grammar is certainly not permission to use bad grammar.
Let's also consider the difference between "good grammar" and "perfect grammar," because "good grammar" is really about best effort. As long as you strive to use proper grammar, it's okay if mistakes slip through. They happen to the best of us. "Perfect grammar" implies that there's not a single grammatical mistake, and honestly, I feel like this is a pretty impossible standard, because for one thing, language evolves over time, and it can vary from one group to another. For example, there are grammatical differences between British and American English. Also, there are grammatical rules from decades ago that are no longer used. Not to mention the fact that sometimes, you may break grammatical rules intentionally, because it actually lends to clarity, fits the character/situation, or is otherwise necessary.
So, the bottom line is this: your grammar doesn't have to be perfect, but that's not an excuse to be lazy. If you're worried about your grammar, you can use any number of apps and programs to spot errors, work with an eagle-eyed critique partner, hire an editor, or look up things you're not sure about and make the best choice possible.
Happy writing!
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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!
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(I am not an expert in case you couldn’t tell)
1️⃣ Baton:
These work for pretty much any genre. For realistic fiction they’re just normal bats, but it’ll still hurt a LOT. In fantasy, you can give them some kind of magical property (ex: whatever it hits turns to ice). If you can’t think of anything, just put something sharp on it like nails. Nobody’s walking that off.
2️⃣ lasso:
This might be more of a fantasy thing, but if you can make it work in realistic fiction, great job! If you make one that grows and retracts, its use would be immeasurable for your characters. Think of how easy it would be to just throw the lasso up to the top of a building and boom!💥They get away.
3️⃣ Halberd
Some might say that it’s just a cooler looking spear. They’d be pretty right. BUT if you want a character to get into an argument with someone over the differences between a Halberd and a spear, you get a free scene!
some of the best writing advice I’ve ever received: always put the punch line at the end of the sentence.
it doesn’t have to be a “punch line” as in the end of a joke. It could be the part that punches you in the gut. The most exciting, juicy, shocking info goes at the end of the sentence. Two different examples that show the difference it makes:
doing it wrong:
She saw her brother’s dead body when she caught the smell of something rotting, thought it was coming from the fridge, and followed it into the kitchen.
doing it right:
Catching the smell of something rotten wafting from the kitchen—probably from the fridge, she thought—she followed the smell into the kitchen, and saw her brother’s dead body.
Periods are where you stop to process the sentence. Put the dead body at the start of the sentence and by the time you reach the end of the sentence, you’ve piled a whole kitchen and a weird fridge smell on top of it, and THEN you have to process the body, and it’s buried so much it barely has an impact. Put the dead body at the end, and it’s like an emotional exclamation point. Everything’s normal and then BAM, her brother’s dead.
This rule doesn’t just apply to sentences: structuring lists or paragraphs like this, by putting the important info at the end, increases their punch too. It’s why in tropes like Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking or Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick, the odd item out comes at the end of the list.
Subverting this rule can also be used to manipulate reader’s emotional reactions or tell them how shocking they SHOULD find a piece of information in the context of a story. For example, a more conventional sentence that follows this rule:
She opened the pantry door, looking for a jar of grape jelly, but the view of the shelves was blocked by a ghost.
Oh! There’s a ghost! That’s shocking! Probably the character in our sentence doesn’t even care about the jelly anymore because the spirit of a dead person has suddenly appeared inside her pantry, and that’s obviously a much higher priority. But, subvert the rule:
She opened the pantry door, found a ghost blocking her view of the shelves, and couldn’t see past it to where the grape jelly was supposed to be.
Because the ghost is in the middle of the sentence, it’s presented like it’s a mere shelf-blocking pest, and thus less important than the REAL goal of this sentence: the grape jelly. The ghost is diminished, and now you get the impression that the character is probably not too surprised by ghosts in her pantry. Maybe it lives there. Maybe she sees a dozen ghosts a day. In any case, it’s not a big deal. Even though both sentences convey the exact same information, they set up the reader to regard the presence of ghosts very differently in this story.
Thank you thank you @revenantlore @willtheweaver and @indecentpause! I always have the best lines to fill these out when I write Bent Nails...
“I think a silver one would be nice,” Sutton steamrollered on, and when Michael looked despite himself, she was squinting at the totally empty wall on the side of the house as though she was mining for precious metals, if her eyeballs were little pickaxes, and there were any precious metals to be found.
Gentle tags for anyone who sees this, and also @author-a-holmes @toribookworm22 @writeouswriter @ahordeofwasps @magic-is-something-we-create and anyone else who wants to share a line with no context! 🎲
“why do you ship them? I thought the ship wasn’t canon?” bro we’re talking about fictional characters, who don’t actually exist in real life, from a media that focuses solely on fictional events that are not real either. so what if these two made-up characters didn’t kiss in their source material? they have lots of nasty gay sex on archive of our own and thousands of novel length slow burn enemies to lovers fics written about them. the fanon content at this point far exceeds the whole canonical franchise. the problem isn’t “it’s not canon” the problem is that you don’t allow yourself to let go of canon and enjoy the wonder of fan contents that are just as good / valid
okay but if you ever see a male creative who had a string of great work and then everything else he did was dogshit, go to the "personal life" part of his wikipedia and look at his relationships. you'll either find a major tragedy he didn't recover from (completely understandable) or, more likely, there was a woman in his life doing uncredited shit editing his stuff or contributing generally and she's not there anymore.
I told a friend about this phenomenon in literature and he called me weeks later like, I remembered what you said about women doing uncredited work when tim burton came up. he made a string of bangers then everything else just was nowhere near as good. the timeline matches perfectly to when he was with this german visual artist (lena gieseke). he's done some good work in collaboration, but if things were dug into I suspect we would find she did a lot more than people realise.
so yeah whenever you look around like wow women didn't work in history, or, women aren't auteurs, or, there just aren't as many great female writers - societal reasons for that aside, half the time they absolutely did.
Hell yeah
Be proud of your own art.
Listen to your own songs. Hang up your own drawings and look at them every day. Read over the best passage of your novel 16 times and admire your favourite sentence again and again.
You are your own first fan, you have created something beautiful, so enjoy it
People seriously underestimate the long term effects of constant loneliness
"why are you so weird?" Idk, maybe because being completely isolated while growing up has destroyed my brain and now I'm nothing more than a human-mimicking creature that bases all of my actions on what I think is normal human behavior rather than just doing things naturally
Thanks for hanging out with me! Was I cool? did you like me? What do you think of me in detail? Do you hate me?
