authoraemoseley

[authoraemoseley]

"I don't know if I should add this, it probably has too many details already."

ADD IT. PLEASE ADD IT. ADD MORE.

Overwriting is about prose; when you get to into it about the colors of flower petals and the intricacies of Victorian era wallpaper. It is absolutely NOT when you include immersive details.

Like a wanted poster while your character waits at the register, only way later does the man on the poster show up.

Fit little things in anywhere you can. No they aren’t imperative but they are though.

Don't spend ages describing the way light reflects off a glass of water. Focus on it a reasonable amount and then move onto to the messy stack of books beside it. Then the hastily folded and stuffed clothes peeking out of the dresser. Show us the dust collecting on a bell at the hotel check in, everywhere except the tip. Show me the heat of her breath hitting to cool air and making a brief cloud of fog. Then move onto the frost eroding tree bark. Half empty salt and pepper shakers in a diner. Wet paw prints on the floor after a rainstorm. Muddy tire tracks leading off road. Anything that doesn't take us completely off quest. Immerse me with the narrative. Drown me in the details. But don’t go all bible-prose on my ass.

It doesn't have to be 'important' to the plot to be important to the experience.

[authoraemoseley]

I wish people would understand that annoyance is a natural response to seeing something you don’t care for very frequently. That thing didn’t personally attack you, it’s done nothing but exist and plays no part in you having to see it. You not liking it is also perfectly acceptable but keeping to yourself is a virtue. Like me, I don’t love the spiderverse movies, nothing against them it’s just not for me. But when the second one came out, and it was my whole feed, I too was almost brought to the point of hating. I was actively looking for reasons to have a problem with it so I could take out my frustrations. You know what I did instead?? I analyzed that feeling and came to peace with it, and you can too. Once you understand why you’re feeling this way you can NOT react with senseless violence towards artists and fans who are just existing. Thank you for coming to my ted talk and please just learn how to scroll.

[authoraemoseley]

A sudden, terrifying thought

When you see an animal with its eyes set to the front, like wolves, or humans, that’s usually a predator animal.

If you see an animal with its eyes set farther back, though—to the side—that animal is prey.

Now look at this dragon.

See those eyes?

They’re to the SIDE.

This raises an interesting—and terrifying—question.

What in the name of Lovecraft led evolution to consider DRAGONS…

As PREY?

[authoraemoseley]

[authoraemoseley]

I’ve reprinted this Smaug risograph a few times now and I’m really digging the HOT fluorescent orange on brown paper in this batch 🤌 These have been restocked and are up in my shop!

[authoraemoseley]

Twinblades

A client piece of a pair of warriors :)

[authoraemoseley]

The Need to Stay

(Thought I’d upload my recent comics to Tumblr! I totally forgot it only lets you upload 10 pics at a time, and this is 11, but fingers crossed it works!)

[authoraemoseley]

Very Normal Houses in science fiction and fantasy.

Artists are credited in the captions, but check out the latest issue of my free sci-fi art newsletter if you want the full context. Also sign up for it! I'm going to try doing more roundups like this over there

[authoraemoseley]

Forgetting your character is disabled isn't a "good representation" flex: Writing Disability Quick Tips

[ID: An image with “Writing Disability quick tips: Forgetting your character is disabled isn't a good representation flex” written in chalk the colour of the disability pride flag, from left to right, red, yellow, white, blue and green. Beside the text is a poorly drawn man in red chalk looking down confused at his leg, one is drawn normally, the other is drawn to resemble a basic prosthetic. He has question marks above his head. /End ID]

For a while, I was involved in the booktok and Tik Tok writing communities, specifically parts of the community focused on more diverse books and authors. During this time, I noticed a reoccurring pattern when people were highlighting stories featuring disabled characters, or even promoting their own books, and that was how often people would say "I kind of forget they have [insert disability here] because they're such a badass."

The intention behind this statement is (usually) good, with people trying to show that their disabled characters are self-sufficient and don't fall into the tired old sad/helpless disabled person trope, however, you can - and very much should - do that without erasing your character's disability. If you find yourself forgetting your character is disabled, or your beta and pre-release readers are commenting about forgetting it, then there's a good chance that's exactly what you've done - and as a disabled person myself, if I see that statement being used in your marketing in particular, it's a giant red flag and a sure fire way to make sure I give the book in question a skip.

Remember, disabilities (especially major ones) are a part of your character's identity, and they're important regardless of the character's personal relationship with it. Even if your character doesn't specifically identify with the label of disabled or doesn't really care that much, it's should still be impacting their daily life, even in small ways. If you're finding yourself forgetting about a major part of your character's identity, it might be a good idea to check and make sure their disability is having an impact on the character.

I see this comment most often with amputee characters, and to me, it's a pretty consistently good indication that the author has treated their character's prosthetic as a cure rather than the mobility aid it is. It's far from unique to amputees, mind you (I talked about this a lot when I was discussing the character of Toph from Avatar), but it's when I tend to see it the most. Remember that mobility aids and other forms of assistive technology and assistive magic (if it's a fantasy story) are just that: they're aids, they assist, they shouldn't be cures.

Of course, this wasn't unique to Booktok, I've seen it on nearly every other social media site with a writing and book-focused community at some point, but Tik Tok was just where I spent the most time and it seems to be where I see the most people specifically gloating about it.

[authoraemoseley]

invented a game called “I throw dice at the cat”

[authoraemoseley]

the way fandoms are desperate to make all aroace characters romance and sex favorable but then dont do anything remotely similar to any other identity is astounding. hmm i wonder why

PLEASE dont derail this about shipping characters of other identities please let this one post be about an aroace struggle

[authoraemoseley]

[authoraemoseley]

Doggust! Rhodesian Ridgeback

[authoraemoseley]

Genuine question:

Why do literary agents say that they want something that's "high concept", or "explores things in a new way", or "big character voices". These things are all so vague. Not only that, but pretty much every writer I know thinks they've hit the mark in at least one of those areas.

I know that most agents list comp titles so that authors can narrow it down, and that helps tremendously!

Do agents keep it vague because they know reading is so subjective? They'd rather cast a wide net than to limit themselves and miss out on a book they'd love? Or is there a different reason I'm overlooking here?

I've been compiling an agent list for when I'm ready to query (not there yet!), and it's a trend I've noticed and it got me wondering...

[authoraemoseley]