@dante-drafts / dante-drafts.tumblr.com
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Hello! Welcome to my writing blog. My main is @a-passing-storm, and most of my information can be found on my caard (also linked in my blog description).
You may want to check out my tag system/ongoing projects post or my commission info post.
The vinyl pops stickily as you sink into the booth. It’s torn down the middle, maroon off-leather receding from yellow foam. Syrup and coffee sit like dust on the air; dust sits on the table.
Like quarantiners pressing their hands against glass, the imprints of your flattened palms leave streaks in the grey. The forearms of your navy suit are peaked with crowns of lint and dust and… traces.
The vinyl gasps when you stand; the linoleum and bare plaster converse dumbly with your clicking shoes. They repeat the murmur of cold coffee as you pour it into your chipped and off-white mug. You set it down, jostling a tower of washed, stained cups.
The clink calls to mind a hundred sunny mornings, a hundred conversations. The hum as you pull the mug away reminds you of the mornings after, by yourself, by the window.
It’s cloudy outside. You grab the cup.
You sit back down at the booth, and the old foam heaves a sigh. You spill a bit. You study the mug.
There’s a ring around the rim, a stain from everyone who came here before you. With your lips, you touch the rim and taste the coffee. It’s bittersweet.
It’s sunny outside, for a moment.
this is so mean but sometimes i see published writing and suddenly no longer feel insecure about my own writing ability. like well okay that got published so im guessing i dont have much to worry about
I have a friend who is an editor, and gets submissions of mostly poetry and short stories.
I have had a glimpse into her slush pile, and let me tell you, the contents were unbelievable and immediately disabused me of the notion that reading through submissions is in any way glamorous. People have the nerve to submit unhinged paranoid ramblings, fetish porn, and a seemingly endless supply of poems about masturbation.
I no longer feel like my fiction is somehow an imposition on the people who read it. It may be forgettable, but at least it isn't typeset to look like sperm.
Do not be afraid to submit your work. Your competition is not only worse than you think, it's worse than you ever imagined.
Do these three things to get to the top of the slush pile:
That's basically what every single editors' panel at every con I've ever been to has boiled down to. And invariably, someone tries to get up and argue with them, not realizing it's not a discussion.
Bonus tip: Don't be in any way cute in your cover letter. Just the facts/Luke Skywalker's message to Jabba the Hut in ROTJ.
Enclosed/attached is my story <Title> for your publication <Magazine>. It is x (rounded to the nearest 500) words. I can be reached at <email> (that you check regularly and isn't likely to dump things into spam) and <phone>.
(If submitting a hard copy: The manuscript is disposable. A SASE is enclosed for your response./A SASE is included for return of the manuscript and your response.)
Thank you for your consideration.
If submitting a novella length piece or greater, a brief and complete summary is appropriate.
In the midst of an interstellar revolt against an evil galactic Empire, vital weapon plans fall into the hands of a farm boy on the edges of the galaxy. With the help of an aging warrior from the Old Republic, and a smuggler with a dark past and his imposing alien copilot, the four set out to deliver them to the rebel forces but are instead flung into a rescue mission to save the beautiful princess who stole the plans as worlds are destroyed by the might of the Empire's weapon, the Death Star.
Captured by the Death Star on route to deliver the plans, they manage to escape the base with the princess, the old warrior sacrificing himself to make this possible. As the Death Star approaches the rebel base, they use the captured plans to stage a desperate final stand. In a fierce space battle of single-pilot ships over the surface of the moon-sized weapon, the farm boy manages to make the critical shot with an unexpected assist from the smuggler, destroying it.
Never under any circumstance put a cliffhanger into a query letter summary. There is no faster way to get the entire MS binned than doing that.
Happy writing.
PS "Top of the slush pile" means into the top 25% of manuscripts received. Three quarters of the submissions don't take the trouble to do even those three basic steps.
Now, that still means 25/100 submissions or 250/1000 submissions, but it still improves your odds and forms the basis for starting a relationship with the publisher for the next piece you send them.
PPS This is obviously about prose. Poetry certainly has its own submission rules, and I know none of them. If you're writing poetry, find out what they are.
@silverhand's reply is right on.
This process requires lots of re-reading and writing, fixing character holes and rewriting character arcs.
just write a shitty poem, what do you have to lose
Every 21st century piece of writing advice: Make us CARE about the character from page 1! Make us empathize with them! Make them interesting and different but still relatable and likable!
Every piece of classic literature: Hi. It's me. The bland everyman whose only purpose is to tell you this story. I have no actual personality. Here's the story of the time I encountered the worst people I ever met in my life. But first, ten pages of description about the place in which I met them.
Modern writing advice: Yes your protagonist should have flaws but ultimately we should root for them and like them from the beginning :)
Charles Dickens: Here is the worst ugliest rudest meanest nastiest bitch you’ve ever met in your life.
Modern writing advice: Make sure your POV character goes through a significant arc! Make sure they are changed by the narrative! Make sure they learn a lesson!
Narrators of every book of the 19th century: the lesson I learned is these people fucking suck, sayonara you freaks
Modern writing advice: It’s all about the character overcoming obstacles and learning! They learn their lesson so they can fix their mistakes and make good choices in the future! It’s a character arc! It’s called growth! Readers love it!
Everyone from ancient times through the 19th century: would you like to watch a Guy fuck up twenty times in a row
WEIRDLY SPECIFIC BUT HELPFUL CHARACTER BUILDING QUESTIONS
Check out my aromantic Matrix fic starring Agent Brown and Agent Jones, whom I can somehow tell apart from each other (I’ve watched the Matrix too many times).
The water is cold at their back, damp clothing heavy on their skin. It’s like being dead. They can feel the cold; never fully banished from their weeks on the ice, it lingers in their bones like an ache in a storm. Now it creeps over them: the cold, a numbness. The apathy of the dead. Is this what it felt like? Drowning?
They wonder at the heaviness in their chest. How can they still float on the water when their heart is filled with the weight of the bodies, the weight of the ship in all its splinters, the weight of the memories. It is heavy enough to plunge them to the bottom of the deep. Why are they still afloat? Is it the same bad luck that kept them alive while their crew fell around them?
Maybe they should have gone to the tabaxis. Maybe they are as unlucky as the band of shadow-cats. Maybe they have doomed all of Malchar’s followers with the mere fact of their survival. They should have died with their crew. Why didn’t they?
The night is silent.
The water is motionless around them. Even the lapping of the waves seems to have gone still. Perhaps it has frozen around them. They feel cold enough that it might have. And when will it all go away?
They are not the person they once were. Is this the child their mother died for? No, no. She died for the crew. She died for the crew, is what they tell themself. They believe it. She was the best Captain to sail the seas; of course she would die for her crew.
She would die again if she saw them now: the sole survivor, drifting yellow-bellied under a dock. Who are they? They see the stars watching overhead: the faces of their ancestors, their fallen comrades; countless directions and maps… ones they will never follow.
They close their eyes, listen to the silence. How long until they sink? How long until they freeze?
Just this night… they couldn’t steal a coat. They fought with magic, at a distance, too cowardly to use a sword. They let a Yuan-Ti die; they would have saved them before. They couldn’t rally two people to their side.
Who are they? Surely not Intrepid.
Surely not Akmensus--how can they call themselves a tiefling, like this?
And the worst… Morrigan. That is the name they’ve shamed the most.
Something unfreezes in them. Something warm, hot opens on their face. Tears. Their own salt water leak-bleeding into the sea. They open their eyes, ready to stare back at the stars staring at them.
But clouds washed over the sky while they weren’t looking. And there is nothing to see anymore. They are a corpse.
The guards seem to think so, the heavy boots walking over salt-bitten wood. They can hear the two of them, whispering about the dead. Don’t disturb them. They wonder if sometimes the dead want to be disturbed.
Maybe that’s why they look up, hollow-eyed at the guard. They wait, stare. Maybe someone will see. But the guards, looking right at them, don’t notice the damp ember of life in them. Maybe it isn’t there anymore, but they think…
Maybe it is. They think the axe-thrower saw it, Oran. They hope he did. He must have. He must have. For them. They roll out of the water, breath coming to them in sudden gasps. They were drowning. But they cannot be a corpse. Not yet.
Wet, shaking, they stare at the water. It is the home they will come to for the rest of their life. It is an enemy they will never trust. It is a mother they will always love, a father they will always fight. They whisper a promise to it: they will not let it take them before their time.
The water whispers back: serpents. And they scramble away.
I’ve decided to open up writing commissions!
I have particular experience writing character-driven pieces, serious pieces, angst, pirate, fae, fantasy, and D&D related pieces, though I’m willing to write anything that isn’t NSFW, romance, or fanfiction.
If you’d like to commission a piece, please contact me here on Tumblr! I should respond in under 24 hours, at which point we can discuss the specifics of your commission! I’m willing to write in any tense and perspective, and if you’d like me to create a character or backstory for you/your character, I can also do that.
My rate is $5 per 500 words, starting at $10. Once you’ve decided to commission me, payment will be handled through ko-fi.
Payment is expected upfront, and I will not begin writing until after I’ve received payment. As I’m writing, I’ll keep you update on the process, and once I’ve finished a piece, you will get a chance to request any changes to it (within reason—I will not completely rewrite last second). Note that I do not offer refunds once 1,000 words of a piece have been written. The only exception to this is if I cancel a commission or am unable to finish the piece for whatever reason. (In any situation where I cancel the commission, you will be refunded.)
When tagging my writing, first I’ll put “my writing,” then the characters involved, then the project/thing it’s related to, then the genre, and then any vaguely-related tags.
Below the cut are more detailed descriptions of each of these projects along with the characters that might be tagged as a part of them.
The cathedral creaks with the laughs of the Blood Matron as her vassal slips past the rust-hinged doors. As it sinks to its knees on jagged tile. As it waits, tears spilling from its eyes, for her to speak first. It has learned well since the first time they met. It has learned respect. It has learned not to speak unless addressed.
But now is not the time for tests. “Speak, martyred one. What is it that you need?” The rasp of her voice is a gust through the rafters.
“I am here to uphold the terms of our pact,” it says. As it has always said, distant-cold, since the day its civil war started. Is that when it realized its mistake? Or only when it began to regret it? She sighs, and again the rafters tremble. She wishes it were not so. She likes its power. She likes it, the human-faerie doomed to crumble with her temple.
There is not much that she can do. But she is a mother-matron. She sees its tears. “Why do you weep, martyred one?”
It tilts its face up. Silver moonlight flickers in the liquid. Some alien emotion flickers in its eyes. “Why do you call me that, Blood Matron?”
She flips through time like a picture-book, to every future-past in which her vassal dies. Dragon’s blood to wake the gods, a poisoned blade to save them. On the front lines of their civil war. “Why ask me? You are the one that always dies a martyr. Now, little one. Why do you weep?”
It tilts its face down; cups its head in its palms. She hears the shaking gasps it tries to muffle, and the corpse rasp in its voice: “Feed, Matron.”
She does. It does not flinch when she appears behind it, when she runs a nail along its neck in search of a vein. It does not turn to face her. She bites hard, fangs deep into its throat for its disrespect. And it does not stop itself from crying, from whimpering at the pain.
And its blood is bitter-sweet as pomegranate. So she drinks dangerously deeply--that’s what it wants, after all. To suffer. She sees it now, as she draws away. Its stubborn disrespect? Its pliant-meekness as it waited?
It forces itself to stand, swaying, woeful, on its feet. It falls. It turns wide eyes to her, crying again.
She backs away. “You believe that you deserve to suffer, yet you mourn when you do.”
It looks away. “No.” The liquid in its eyes was something she knows well: apathy. To her? To the world? To itself? Whatever it is, it is pathetic. Perhaps she has never truly known it.
But again, it tilts its face to her. It shakes its head, pressing an open palm to the wound at its neck, and she sees the liquid has become determination. “I was mourning for the future, Blood Matron. I was wrong, and you corrected me. Thank you.” It tries to stand and staggers. Again, it falls. “If I may ask of you one more thing, Matron, could you help me to a bench?”
It is charming, when it isn’t wallowing. So she nods, and offers it a hand. “Self-pity is a road to ruin.” And she vanishes, content on her fill.
