heyitsclover

[heyitsclover]

My special talent is that I can draw connections between anything. Which is good for literary analysis but also makes me socially weird

[heyitsclover]

yet another of my girl Ophelia!

[heyitsclover]

its so fun to make a character whose moral compass is not actually based on their own personal ideals but is a poor imitation of a more grounded person they care about. if a beautiful woman disagrees with me i will immediately change my views. idgaf about this problem but my best friend WILL get mad at me if i don't help solve it

[heyitsclover]

Younger writers. Please, just know that you could not skip to different songs on a cassette tape, that’s CDs. With tapes you pressed fast forward or rewind and prayed.

Also, VHS tapes did not have menu screens. Your only options were play, fast forward, rewind, pause, stop, or eject.

Y’all are making me feel like the crypt keeper here, I’m begging you 😭

[heyitsclover]

Unconventional format / mixed media / meta / epistolary fic ideas:

Script format but the characters slowly break fourth wall until they grow self aware and scream to leave but the script confines them.

Mock up notes of an author's fic outline only for a "fan favourite" / "author's darling" character to gain sentience and influence the story. The character changes the outline to suit their own agenda, and their changes are marked with a different colour whereas black text means it's the author's will. Maybe another character using another colour gains sentience. The different colours fight for dominance. Mom says it's my turn with the keyboard hey what the fuck man excuse me I'm literally trying to save my family can you guys let go and let me write your character arcs in peace OH FUCK OFF

Recipe fic. The story is told via those unnecessarily long backstories on a recipe blog in which you learn about someone's grandma or a breakup or literally anything. Bonus points if the actual recipe deals with worldbuilding (what ingredients are available? What utensils are used? How to serve this meal? Woohoo Dungeon Meshi) or in-cheek recipes (eg. "Recipe for making up with your estranged mother - Step 1: Mix patience, nostalgia, and filial piety and let it marinate for ten years. Step 2: Throw that shit into the trash because you're better than that")

Travel fic. A character is lost and trying to find their way somewhere. GPS directions, googling "x place to x place", tickets and dates, train station maps, leaflets. It gets weirder and weirder. You never get closer to your destination. You're walking around in circles. It's always 10 meters away. Where are you going and where have you been?

Receipts. Try to infer what a character is doing judging from the weird things they buy together. Also yipppee inflation tracker. On the other side, maybe it can be about a cashier/ shop owner getting to know their customers and what they order.

Written from the pov of an non-native English speaker, all the English words are italicized whereas their native tongue are the only words not italicized. Inspired by Kupu rere kē by Alice Te Punga Somerville. This is because I got salty about people from Ao3 Reddit saying they won't read a fic in all italics.

Murder mystery / "Among Us" style impersonation fic strictly using the chatfic format. Characters and readers will have to figure out which character has been killed and replaced from the way they text and use emojis. This is also because I got salty about Ao3 Reddit being a wee bit pretentious about emoji usage in fics. Maybe emojis can be important plot devices! Some people prefer to sign off messages with a heart emoji of their signature colour, so won't it be weird if they use another coloured heart? How about someone using lapslock suddenly using proper capitalisation and full stops? Can you tell if someone's phone has been stolen? What if someone's mother is pretending to text like their child? Why is someone suddenly only using UwU speak? Is it a bit, or have they been replaced?

Innocuous second person POV until the last line where it's suddenly revealed to be first person POV all along and the "I" has been stalking and narrating "you".

Other fun bits / Easter eggs / secrets to hide:

Decoding within the text itself. Maybe we get given instructions to find a word in x chapter on page y on the nth line. And when we as readers collect all the words, they form a sentence that spells out an important fact which the characters are oblivious to. Or maybe the in-universe characters find a book with the same title as the irl fic with a bookmark in it, and if you go to where the bookmark is stuck irl, you'll find the murderer plainly stated. The rest of the fic is about the readers having hard confirmation of who the murderer is while characters don't know.

A phrase is subtly repeated throughout the text of the fic and is spelled out with the letter that begins a sentence. It gives off the effect that the narrator is screaming and crying into the void (to the readers in the fourth wall) while trying to avoid detection. Bonus points if the same word is repeated for pages and pages to the point the lack of sentence variation feels weird and clunky.

Morse code!! I love morse code! Using onomatopoeia to convey the dots and dashes! The sound of rain pattering on the tin rooftop— drop, drop, drop. A low whistle of a train rumbling in the distance. He slowly sharpens his knife, creating a shiiing sound. A lengthy, high pitched squeal from his kettle. A dog barks. A sharp knock. His heart thumps. Dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot. SOS. Maybe a character's death scene spells out the name of their mysterious murderer. Maybe a character is reminiscing their deceased loved one and the scene spells out what the deceased person would've wanted to tell them— "LIVE ON" or "I LOVE YOU" or something.

[heyitsclover]

[heyitsclover]

like a solid 60% of weird fandom tropes were invented by women who needed slightly more avant garde ways to fuck spock.... wanting to fuck spock is in many ways a load bearing pillar of fandom like if u took it away the source code would just break theres like a molecule of wanting to fuck spock or reaction to everyone wanting to fuck spock within the heart of fanfic all fanfiction is about wanting to fuck spock except fanfic about wanting to fuck spock which is about women in stem

[heyitsclover]

fic planning be like:

[heyitsclover]

small writing exercises

make up an origin and meaning of a name

write a family history going back centuries

pick a character and make them ramble about their favorite thing

make up a fable, pretend it’s as famous as the Grimm fairytales. how does this fable affect the world and what would people reference from it? (i love this one because it can be as crazy and silly as you want)

make a commercial for something that really shouldn’t be sold at all. try to convince people to buy it.

ACRONYMS. but, like, try to have it make sense

make a poem about your story/something in your story

rewrite a classic but put your own twist on it

make up a detailed recipe

make a monologue with a plot twist or punchline in the end

create a ridiculously detailed timeline for a character

childhood memory (real one or make it up!)

improv rap lyrics

the story behind an inside joke

make up a mythical creature

pretend to be a commentary youtuber and pick a topic

the what if? pick a story and create an alternate ending to it

pick one scenario and several characters. how different are the reactions based on their personalities?

[heyitsclover]

The other day I was talking to some friends while looking into the history of worldbuilding. I was on a mission to find the first known occurrence of a "secondary world" story, that is, a story that 1) takes place somewhere other than Earth, and 2) contains no references to Earth.

Of course, this was complicated by the fact that a long time ago people didn't really know what Earth or a world was. This one was all they knew. So you have legends that contain things like spirit worlds or realms of the dead, but a lot of these stories took place "on Earth" back when they were first conceptualized (ex. faeries living in the hills, and the Underworld being literally underground, because no one knew what was out there).

A lot of mythical places are not described as other worlds but as "islands," such as Avalon. One that stood out to me is the Adventure of Bulukiya from the Thousand and One Nights. The protagonist anoints his feet with the poison of the serpent queen, which allows him to travel "beyond the Seven Seas" to the tomb of King Solomon. While on his adventures, he is described as visiting many fantastical islands. Sounds like an early portal fantasy to me.

Somnium by Johannes Kepler (1634) got a little closer, but still seemed like early "portal fantasy." In it, the moon is once again described as an "island," and a witch summons a daemon to transport her there with her son. There, they learn of its native creatures and their ways of life. Blazing World by Margaret Cavendish (1666) came soon after, featuring a female protagonist finding her way to another world populated by animal-people through the North Pole. Cool! Still not what I was looking for.

What surprised me most was that this secondary world genre did not seem to develop until the 1900s. In 1926, Hope Mirlees' Lud-in-the Mist was published, taking place in the titular fictional city, which bordered on the realm of the faeries. However, there is still a reference to the English in the novel, so it got disqualified on a technicality. Which means the first-ever known incident in history of human beings writing a story set in a world with no relation whatsoever to Earth is Lloyd Alexander's Prydain books, published in the 1960s. Which means the secondary world genre (a term coined by Tolkien, of course) is only 60 or so years old.

Even Conan the Barbarian, which predates Prydain, is set in a fictional "Hyborian Age" on Earth after the fall of mythical Atlantis.

(Other notable findings include the fact that verse 7:54 of the Quran refers to Allah as "the Lord of all Worlds," the earliest possible reference I can find to the concept of cosmic pluralism. This is a subject of debate, from what I read. The Greek philosopher Anaximander also proposed there were unlimited worlds, which eventually resulted in Epicurus dictating the Doctrine of Innumerable Worlds to Herodotus. The more you know.)

Anyway, my conclusion after looking into all of this is that "worldbuilding" as a modern concept is so, so, so new. It really opened my eyes to how I shouldn't get in my own way by freaking out too much about making my settings believable. Your living grandparents lived in a world where nobody cared about that.

[heyitsclover]

questions to ask your beta readers!

(pls add on!) i’m currently working with betas seriously for the first time, so i made a list of questions that have become increasingly helpful as i have those discussions! in addition to these, it’s also good to ask a few big questions specific to your piece.

GENERAL

what do you like most about this piece?

what doesn’t make sense to you/what was confusing?

what big questions do you still have?

what felt incomplete?

what do you think this story is about?

what were you most/least invested in?

CHARACTERS

always ask for “your thoughts” on your most important characters. nothing like “did tyrone come off as shy?” or “does leah seem bossy to you?”, because that can sometimes sway responses.

also ask for “thoughts” on key relationships between characters.

who is your favorite character?

who is the strongest character?

who do you wish you saw more of?

who do you wish you saw less of?

are there characters who don’t add anything to the story? what would make them add more?

did you confuse any characters with one another? (if you have a big cast)

what did you think about [character a] versus [character b]? (if you have two very similar characters)

if a character has a moral conflict in the story/does something morally grey, ask where they stand on that character’s actions. if they have a strong reaction with a different opinion, that might be something to look into.

which characters did you dislike (as people, not as characters)?

do any of the characters ever act out of character?

does the main character/narrator feel like the best person to be telling the story? if not, who does?

PLOT

are there scenes/chapters/plot points that don’t add to the story?

do any moments seem out of place?

how would you have wanted this to end?

if you’re considering taking a scene out, ask what that adds to the story, and what it would lose without the scene.

same goes with adding a scene!

which scene felt like the most important scene?

what was your favorite part?

if you could change anything about the plot, what would it be?

how did [particular scene] make you feel?

alternatively, which scene made you feel the strongest emotions?

STYLE

does this feel like the right pov narration (1st person, 3rd person, etc.) for this piece?

does this feel like the right tense?

are there any phrases, metaphors, etc. that were confusingly worded?

if the piece uses a unique writing style, what do you think about [style]?

if it has multiple povs/narrators, could you tell the difference between voices? which voice was your favorite?

OTHER

are there any grammatical errors? (optional, if you have a 300 page novel please do not make your betas do this)

what is your favorite restaurant/coffee shop/store so i can buy you a meal and/or gift card as a thank you for being a crucial part of my writing process?

[heyitsclover]

Bear Stars by Galina Egorenkova

[heyitsclover]

I've already said that my number one piece of writing advice is to read.

But my number two piece of advice is this: be deliberate.

Honestly this would fix so many pieces of bad writing advice. Don't forbid people from doing something, tell them to be conscious and deliberate about it. This could help stop people from falling into common mistakes without limiting their creativity. Black and white imperatives may stop a few annoying beginner habits, but ultimately they will restrict artistic expression.

Instead of "don't use epithets": "Know the effect epithets have and be deliberate about using them." Because yes, beginners often misuse them, but they can be useful when a character's name isn't known or when you want to reduce them to a particular trait they have.

Instead of "don't use 'said'" or "just use 'said'": "Be deliberate about your use of dialogue tags." Because sometimes you'll want "said" which fades into the background nicely, but sometimes you will need a more descriptive alternative to convey what a character is doing.

Instead of "don't use passive voice": "Be deliberate about when you use passive voice." Because using it when it's not needed can detract from your writing, but sometimes it can be useful to change the emphasis of a sentence or to portray a particular state of mind.

Instead of blindly following or ignorantly neglecting the rules of writing, familiarize yourself with them and their consequences so you can choose when and if breaking them would serve what you're trying to get across.

Your writing is yours. Take control of it.

It probably sounds like I'm preaching to the choir here because most of my mutuals are already great writers. But I'm hoping this will make it to the right people.

[heyitsclover]

if yall ever want like serious advice from me about how to solve burnout as a creative it's like...

literally ignore it. stop pushing. go do something else, enjoy your life, fill it with other things, do what brings you joy in the moment if you can.

go to the gym, take a walk to touch grass and look at dogs and smell flowers, cook dinner, watch tv with your friends, talk about your feelings as needed with ppl you trust, take a drive and blast your music, do the chores you need to do, the job hunting slog you need to do, read books that aren't for research, stop cordoning off your brain for The Craft or The Draft or whatever the fuck

forget about the project, stop thinking about it for as long as it takes to be excited again.

fuckin rest, basically

[heyitsclover]

GUYS. DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN WRITE CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE FICS ON AO3

[heyitsclover]

with the news of NaNoWriMo shutting down for good, I want to make sure to preserve Lemony Snicket's 2010 pep talk. every time I feel down about my writing, for the last 15 years, I've returned to this talk as a reminder of why I write. it's easy, especially now, to wonder why we bother doing what we do. here's a reminder for us all.

-

Dear Cohort,

Struggling with your novel? Paralyzed by the fear that it’s nowhere near good enough? Feeling caught in a trap of your own devising? You should probably give up.

For one thing, writing is a dying form. One reads of this every day. Every magazine and newspaper, every hardcover and paperback, every website and most walls near the freeway trumpet the news that nobody reads anymore, and everyone has read these statements and felt their powerful effects. The authors of all those articles and editorials, all those manifestos and essays, all those exclamations and eulogies—what would they say if they knew you were writing something? They would urge you, in bold-faced print, to stop.

Clearly, the future is moving us proudly and zippily away from the written word, so writing a novel is actually interfering with the natural progress of modern society. It is old-fashioned and fuddy-duddy, a relic of a time when people took artistic expression seriously and found solace in a good story told well. We are in the process of disentangling ourselves from that kind of peace of mind, so it is rude for you to hinder the world by insisting on adhering to the beloved paradigms of the past. It is like sitting in a gondola, listening to the water carry you across the water, while everyone else is zooming over you in jetpacks, belching smoke into the sky. Stop it, is what the jet-packers would say to you. Stop it this instant, you in that beautiful craft of intricately-carved wood that is giving you such a pleasant journey.

Besides, there are already plenty of novels. There is no need for a new one. One could devote one’s entire life to reading the work of Henry James, for instance, and never touch another novel by any other author, and never be hungry for anything else, the way one could live on nothing but multivitamin tablets and pureed root vegetables and never find oneself craving wild mushroom soup or linguini with clam sauce or a plain roasted chicken with lemon-zested dandelion greens or strong black coffee or a perfectly ripe peach or chips and salsa or caramel ice cream on top of poppyseed cake or smoked salmon with capers or aged goat cheese or a gin gimlet or some other startling item sprung from the imagination of some unknown cook. In fact, think of the world of literature as an enormous meal, and your novel as some small piddling ingredient – the drawn butter, for example, served next to a large, boiled lobster. Who wants that? If it were brought to the table, surely most people would ask that it be removed post-haste.

Even if you insisted on finishing your novel, what for? Novels sit unpublished, or published but unsold, or sold but unread, or read but unreread, lonely on shelves and in drawers and under the legs of wobbly tables. They are like seashells on the beach. Not enough people marvel over them. They pick them up and put them down. Even your friends and associates will never appreciate your novel the way you want them to. In fact, there are likely just a handful of readers out in the world who are perfect for your book, who will take it to heart and feel its mighty ripples throughout their lives, and you will likely never meet them, at least under the proper circumstances. So who cares? Think of that secret favorite book of yours – not the one you tell people you like best, but that book so good that you refuse to share it with people because they’d never understand it. Perhaps it’s not even a whole book, just a tiny portion that you’ll never forget as long as you live. Nobody knows you feel this way about that tiny portion of literature, so what does it matter? The author of that small bright thing, that treasured whisper deep in your heart, never should have bothered.

Of course, it may well be that you are writing not for some perfect reader someplace, but for yourself, and that is the biggest folly of them all, because it will not work. You will not be happy all of the time. Unlike most things that most people make, your novel will not be perfect. It may well be considerably less than one-fourth perfect, and this will frustrate you and sadden you. This is why you should stop. Most people are not writing novels which is why there is so little frustration and sadness in the world, particularly as we zoom on past the novel in our smoky jet packs soon to be equipped with pureed food. The next time you find yourself in a group of people, stop and think to yourself, probably no one here is writing a novel. This is why everyone is so content, here at this bus stop or in line at the supermarket or standing around this baggage carousel or sitting around in this doctor’s waiting room or in seventh grade or in Johannesburg. Give up your novel, and join the crowd. Think of all the things you could do with your time instead of participating in a noble and storied art form. There are things in your cupboards that likely need to be moved around.

In short, quit. Writing a novel is a tiny candle in a dark, swirling world. It brings light and warmth and hope to the lucky few who, against insufferable odds and despite a juggernaut of irritations, find themselves in the right place to hold it. Blow it out, so our eyes will not be drawn to its power. Extinguish it so we can get some sleep. I plan to quit writing novels myself, sometime in the next hundred years.

Lemony Snicket

[heyitsclover]

as dungeon master i have put a 140 percent tariff on characters with a tortured past who watched their parents die when a certain monster raided their village and now theyre out for revenge