#I did a lazy rereading so I’m sure I’ll end up finding many mistakes later

[halorocks1214]

For the writing ask! 13, 16, 21, 34, and 44, please!

Aaaaa thanks for asking! I’m sorry for the essay I’m about to give RIP

13.) Describe your writing process from idea to polished

Haha, to put it mildly: it’s kind of a mess

For exceptionally long multi-chaptered stuff, I usually create a semi-detailed to really-detailed outline out of worry I’ll forget stuff, which eventually ends up split into chunks by chapter number. For oneshots, regardless of length, I tend to plop myself down and starting writing, point blank period. I can’t think of any oneshot I’ve created recently or otherwise where there was an outline beforehand

Outline or not, both methods involve one key detail: I write completely and totally out of order. When I’m writing a scene and my brain just refuses to continue because it can’t think of anything/really wants to write something else, I finish the sentence I’m on, insert three plus signs where I stopped and hop to the part I know I’ll have a much better time creating. After I’ve written everything that came relatively easy to me, I go find all of my ‘+++’s and essentially pad in transitions and such. If those transitions become hard to write, well, I just add more ‘+++’s until there are none left. I tend to have a lot of ‘+++’s when I’m working on a WIP. It’s a miracle my fics are strung together as smooth as they are sometimes

Then, I take a break away from the WIP. Whether I leave the computer entirely or just go do something else online, I let the words leave my mind as much as possible. Ranging from a few hours to a couple of days, I eventually come back to the fic. Now it’s time for our wonderful friend proofreading to come in!

I am a One-Woman Show, so I try my best to catch anything egregious or totally unintelligible. Following the first proofread, depending on how much I actually like my work, I either wait a few minutes/hours again or I just proofread it a second time immediately. After the second proofread, it’s upload time, for better or for worse

Bonus: I have a bad habit of constantly rereading my stuff after posting it because I’m that much of a perfectionist. It’s probably a good thing I do, though. Because of my hyper-aware-of-mistakes train, I see things I probably never would have noticed even on something akin to a 4th or 5th proofread.

Still, if you read a fic of mine immediately after it was uploaded and come back a day or two later, you’ll probably find some things different lmao

16.) How many drafts do you need until you’re satisfied with a project?

Considering my fics never leave the Google Docs I start them on to see the light of day I’m gonna count ‘drafts’ as ‘times proofread’. Going with this, I technically have about 2-3 drafts. Add in my poor habit of editing out kinks after posting it to the public, I’d say about 3-5 (I get really anxious about certain stories oof)

34.) What was the hardest scene you ever had to write?

Giiiivvvee me a sec to find something lol. I’m taking this question as ‘what scene hurt you the most to create’ and not ‘what did you just struggle with writing in general’. The latter is boring because I can think of five dull conversations between characters I’ve made that were torture to get down

Ah, here’s something I struggled through (graphic depictions of violence ahoy, as well as bad writing/grammar. Sheesh, this is only two years old!):

Before Merek could even go into shock at the idea, the clippers came up and did their job, effectively leaving a gash, cutting through completely, on each lip between a fourth and half an inch long (the one on the top lip reached his nose almost). It was like he had two pairs of lips instead of one.

The man let go of Merek completely and started walking out of the cell. Merek slid down the wall and brought his hands to his new wound. Jesus, he was somewhat of an unflappable person, but right now all he wanted to do was throw up.

Part of him knew he couldn’t, especially with the wound, but another was just constantly trying to get him to say ‘fuck it’. Before any decision could be made, Merek felt his sister kneel at his side. Huh, he was on the verge of shock, how shocking.

44.) How much research do you do?

Uuuuuhhh, it depends on the type of fic really

If it’s something I’m highly interested in, I will have tabs upon tabs of info to make sure what I’m writing down is correct. Other times when I’m busy or it’s not really the main point of the story, I go with minor research and being vague

Instead of worrying about if my facts are right, I can insert what I do know and pad around that. Maybe I’m just a worry-wort, but I have less of a chance at being told I’m wrong if the reader can just insert the information themselves into the spots I leave blank. It’s half “I’m a weakling and can’t take criticism” and half “I’m just fucking lazy” 

Feel free to keep asking and maybe I’ll dump an essay on you too! ;3

[ringo-ichigo]

An Essay Concerning Grammar for the Aspiring Writer

I’ve seen an attitude spreading in the writing community lately. It is degrading on many levels to the writing industry as a whole and particularly to editors. This attitude is the belief that you don’t need to have good grammar to write. It is patently false and I will explain why now.

Firstly, we must examine what writing is meant to do. Writing of any type is a means of communication. We use it to express ideas on the page. Now what does grammar have to do with this? Grammar is the rules of the road so to speak. It is the foundation upon which you build. So shoddy grammar makes for poor communication. Poor grammar can cause your point to become muddled.

Take antecedents. If you say, “Sally hit Jen, and she regretted it,” your reader will become confused. The antecedent for “she” in this case is Jen. However, it doesn’t make sense why Jen would regret being hit. It makes far more sense for Sally to regret the strike, yet what you have written does not communicate that. This is just one example. There are many others such as tense changes making the timing unclear or incorrect forms of words causing issues. These all weaken your writing as you no longer are able to convey your message without confusion. No one wants to be confused and have to reread your writing in order to comprehend it.

Now, I can hear some protesting “But this author says you don’t have to be perfect at grammar to be a writer!” To which I will say, yes, he’s correct in a way. You can break the rules and still be a good writer. Shocking, I know. The issue is that you must know the rules first in order to break them. What do I mean? Simple. In order to use this writing technique, it must be done with a purpose like I just did above with the fragment. I did it to emphasize the word and to be an example. I had a purpose to it. But if you do not understand the rules in the first place, you have no hope of choosing the proper time to break them. Instead of enhancing your writing, poor grammar will weaken your writing as it will come across as ignorance or laziness instead of competence. Not to mention, it will draw the attention to the errors instead of to your skill with the pen. Remember, the nail that sticks out is the one that is beaten down first.

Specifically, run-ons will always weaken your writing, never strengthen it. The problem with run-ons and comma splices is they can always be broken into smaller, stronger sentences. When you break them, they also become easier to read and more impactful to read. No longer does the reader start questioning where the end of this sentence is. He can focus on what is happening instead of the glaring mistake.

Now let’s talk about why you need to fix it now while you’re still newer and earlier in the story rather than later. I share this from personal experience: it is easier to do it now than wait. If you wait, you will only create more work for yourself. Run-ons and comma splices require you to rework sentence structures entirely, forcing you to rewrite entire sections to fix one error sometimes. If you’re particularly egregious on these types of cascading errors, this could entail completely scrapping your work and starting over anew. I’m sure you’re already going, “But… I do this all the time. I’ve written six chapters and they’re all ten pages apiece. That’s sixty pages to rewrite!” Yes, you are correct. It’s a daunting task sometimes to admit that you must scrap everything and start fresh. But it is better and easier to fix these bad habits now when there is less on the page than to plough ahead and create an even larger amount of work.

Stopping and fixing errors now is better not only for the amount of work, but also because you will start to recognize patterns. You may find that you split infinitives constantly or always forget to place commas after certain dependent clauses. This will allow you to course correct early on and keep an eye out in the future for this. This way, when you go through a day’s writing to proofread for major errors, you can also look for these repetitive pitfalls and fix them. Not only that, but if you keep these in mind as you write, you will catch yourself before you commit them and eventually you may even find you have broken the habit. You’ve created less proofreading for yourself, improved your ability to communicate, and saved yourself time all at once. All because you took the time to consider good grammar.

It is time now to shift away from writing as communication, and focus on it more as an industry. Many want to write. Many try to enter this industry; many fail. Writing is a competitive industry. In a way, you are in an arms race of talent. Who can improve their talent and make it stand out the best? Thousands submit their works yearly to publishing companies and yet out of these thousands only a dozen or less actually manage to get published. Why? Simply put, writing is about outshining others and gambling chances. The only way to be noticed is to show the company you are worth investing time and effort into your work. This means you must show promise as a writer.

However, as I showed earlier, poor grammar can get in the way of your talent and communication abilities. You have hamstringed yourself before the race even began. When others have worked hard and put their best forward, you’ve left your glaring grammatical errors in your piece. Yours is difficult to read due to its errors, while the others have polished their pieces to near perfection. Would you rather read something hard to comprehend or something easy to comprehend? I prefer the latter, and most companies will as well. Minor and occasional issues are fine. But every other sentence being a run-on or comma splice? These are unacceptable.

This isn’t the only issue though. If you’re submitting to a publisher, the companies are run by professionals. Poor grammar is not only crippling your writing. It’s actively spitting in the face of a publisher when they see it. Grammatical errors come across as unprofessional. It conveys laziness as it seems you didn’t even try to polish this manuscript or take a second look at it before submitting. Bad grammar can indicate that you either have a lack of beta readers or at best, that you ignore their advice. Considering proper grammar is taught in schools, it also comes across as you being unwilling to learn and grow. Both of these mean that you cannot stomach critique, and thus any advice they might have to make you publishing quality is wasted. If you are too lazy to take it, it does them no good. If you are too stubborn to admit flaws, it does them no good. Why should they bother working with you if you can’t do the basics required of the job? Into the trash with your manuscript.

You don’t get an editor from a company when you submit your piece. You get an editor once the company has decided you are worth the gamble required to sell your book. An editor is there to help you take the final steps to get to a professional quality of manuscript. The company has to sink time and money into preparing your book for publishing. There’s no guarantee it’ll get the money back either. Books flop frequently, and the publisher can only have so many flops before they shut down. Sending in an error-ridden manuscript is like showing up to an interview to be a lawyer’s intern in a bikini and flip flops. You have come to the company poorly prepared and unprofessionally attired. Why should they bother with you? On an aside: you can hire an agent who will do the hard work of shopping for a publisher for you. Unfortunately, they too check your manuscript for grammar issues and may refuse the job if your piece is need of serious grammatical revision.

Not to mention, this attitude of “My future editor will fix it” is disrespectful to editors. They have better things to do than attempt to fix your grammar. Their job description is not “teach poor writers grammar.” That is your English teacher’s job and no one else’s. Your editor will likely have several other projects they’re working on in addition to yours. If they have to spend all their time correcting your grammar because you didn’t bother to put in the extra effort to correct it personally, you are wasting your editor’s time and effort. Your beta can at times fill in the role of grammar teacher, but it should not be his primary role to go through your works and point out your egregious number of run-ons. Finally, it is not your critics’ jobs to teach you how to fix your errors. It is one person’s job to learn how to fix your grammatical errors: yours.

Not to mention an editor won’t coddle your feelings. They will critique you, and it won’t be gentle. You will be expected to take their critiques as a professional and not throw a fit or defend your choice. If you are showing an inability to accept a random stranger’s critique without losing your cool now, how can you think “Oh, I’ll be able to handle it then.” You have none of the tools, none of the experience, none of the grace to handle it any better then because you have refused to develop them now. The time to build up that ability is now when you’re still learning to write, not later down the road. Stop procrastinating and start learning to turn off your insta-rage and listen.

Critique comes whether you are ready or not. If you are posting something to the public for them to read—even a first draft, you are saying to anyone who reads it, “This is what I consider acceptable for public consumption.” This is what you’ve set as your standard of what is your best work to the public’s eye. If that work contains swaths of grammatical errors, the public will comment eventually. It may take time, but someone with a critical eye will find your piece. They will likely comment, and if your grammar is so atrocious that it took labor to understand your writing, they will be nasty about it. They won’t care about your feelings because you have wasted their time and effort and given them nothing for it but a migraine. At that point, it won’t matter how good or bad your story idea is. It will not be able to outshine the errors hanging over it like a fog. Bad grammar will overpower your talent every single time.

With the internet, it connects you not only to possible reviewers but also to agents and editors. They can and will look into your past if you get past initial rejection. Agents will look into your websites. They will find your temper tantrum over those poor critiques. Those will color their opinion on your work because they’ve now seen what you will be like on this project. No one wants to have to fight at work. No one wants to bring that amount of stress into his life. Agents and editors will see your poor behavior and go, “That writer isn’t ready for this emotionally yet.” You will be rejected, and if you’re lucky, they might tell you why.

Lastly, I wish to impart this knowledge to you: loving writing is not enough. It isn’t. You can love writing all you want, but if you cannot listen to criticism and grow from it, you will never improve. You will always be suffocating in the valley instead of joining those on the mountaintop. Those people are the ones who took the time and spent the effort to better their writing through grammar and feedback.  You will always be looking up to them and wondering how they are so good and why you’ve plateaued. As someone who has been writing since she was eleven, I can tell you that I’ve had people critique my writing. I didn’t whine about poor reviews either. I understood, even at that age, that I had to listen. I posted my works knowing they might get bad reviews and knew that I would have to grow a thick skin and sift through the ones of “u suk” and “wow that was bad” to find the “Your writing lacks description” types. It doesn’t matter if they aren’t saying how to improve precisely. A critique doesn’t need to say “if you change x, then it will fix y.” A critique can be as simple as “You have an issue with run-ons.” Why? It pointed out the flaw. You can now locate the issue and fix it. Nor is it the critic’s job to teach you grammar. As I pointed out though, if your grammar is unreadable, expect that critique to be harsh enough to remove paint. You offered what could’ve been a five star meal and gave them your half-chewed leftovers instead. And who wouldn’t be angry at that?

Sources/Further Reading

Sources about grammar in general:

http://ask.dailygrammar.com/Why-is-grammar-important.html

https://www.clearvoice.com/blog/yes-good-grammar-still-important-heres/

http://www.witslanguageschool.com/NewsRoom/ArticleView/tabid/180/ArticleId/279/Is-grammar-important.aspx

http://www.startribune.com/top-10-reasons-you-should-learn-to-use-proper-grammar/348141711/

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-b-bradshaw/why-grammar-is-important_b_4128521.html

Sources about the writing industry:

https://blog.reedsy.com/perfect-submission-tips-from-a-publisher/

https://thinkwritten.com/6-tips-for-submitting-your-manuscript/

http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/pubtips

http://www.ian-irvine.com/on-writing/what-publishers-hate/

[takerfoxx]

“Fires of the Sun, Part 4″ Thoughts

I really need to go back and re-edit IM one of these days. Just rereading Fires of the Sun is making me cringe by how many mistakes there are. No, it's not a Deep Within scene! Why does it begin with a Deep Within?

Anyway, if I recall, that opening bit with Rumia was intended as a touch-base sort of thing. I had noticed that once Rin had let her go, she had started to fade into the background, and given her importance before that, I didn't want her to just slip off completely. I think her bit with getting threatened by Sakuya was partially created to at least give her something to do, even if it was more as a prop than anything. But it's been months so I don't really remember. At least it helped remind everyone of those bugs Wriggle sent out for help, so it's not like it was completely filler.

Funny thing about writing crises though: you kinda need them to keep going until you've hit that climatic finish. Which means any solution that would solve the crisis for the characters prematurely needs to be denied in some manner. That's honestly what that conversation between Sakuya and her allies was at least in part about: them reviewing any possible path that would cause the readers to go, "Wait, why don't they just do such-and-such?" and come up with a reason why they can't. Or have them try one workable idea only to slam the door in their face. Characters are annoyingly tenacious at times, and on occasion you do have to go the extra mile to herd them. Though if I recall, Kurumi did present some issues in that her vampiric needs had to be addressed frequently. Can't go into sunlight? Okay, that makes for a good reason for them not to flee through a window. But she's probably blood starved and I do not want her jumping onto one of the other kids and sucking them dry. Well, Sakuya probably came with some blood prepared, and she's likely to be empathetic toward vampire children, so that solves that. But yeah, part of writing these big scenes with lots of moving parts is foreseeing issues that'll get in the way and counter them ahead of time.

If I recall, I was constantly annoyed by the Dragon battles, and only went back to find some new way to keep them at bay. And I'll admit, it did get a little sloppy at times. I don't know what it says about me that I found writing a gigantic battle between Dragons and plant monsters to be tedious. I guess I just like my violence up close and personal.

Fortunately, Rin and Yuuka provided plenty of that. Rin's thoughts in that first clash mirrored my own, in that it felt so gratifying to pound Yuuka's face into pulp. I swear to God, the problems I've had with that character. To use a pro wrestling metaphor, she's that big star that's a huge draw and will guarantee sell-outs for your venue, but is just a whiny, spotlight stealing diva behind the scenes that you almost hate yourself for giving into them all the time, and yet you keep bringing them back because they sell tickets and try to make them look great. But then you finally get some leverage and don't need them anymore, trick them into a match that makes them look like a chump, and smirk from behind the curtain when your new top guy roughs them up. That's what that whole bit felt like. Yuuka really did help put this story on the map. She was by far the easiest character to write for, and any scene with her in it just felt…bigger. But oh my God, it drove me nuts the degree in which she would take on a life of her own and dominate the whole damn story. That kerfuffle with the robots was definitely the most egregious example, but there were others. I do feel I was able to get her character under control in the latter half of the Retaliation arc. Her breakdown after Marisa's death definitely helped. But even so, and even though I'm not yet done with her, this felt good.

I will admit to one bit of lazy writing though. According to my own rules, you can't send messages through magic when the Sirens are around. So…how did Rin control her duplicates? I did acknowledge this problem, but couldn't come up with a good reason and sort of brushed it off. Nobody really cared, but if I'm going to do a full look back, I might as well nitpick.

That gloriously pompous fly (I think I copied his speech patterns from the Helmacrons from Animorphs) though, that was another investment paying off. That whole thing with Wriggle's bug buddies came about because I had preplanned that tense scene with Elly trying to cut Wriggle's hair a way's back, didn't get a chance to use it, and wanted to stick it in before it was too late. The bugs crawling out her hair happened because I thought it was funny, then later, when Yuuka had captured them, I remembered them and figured I could do something with them. So, the bugs were out there, and I kept that (along with about a hundred other loose ends), and when the time came to spice up that garden battle, I remembered them and decided to pull the trigger. Downside? Dragons are fucking useless, okay!

After that was when I really cut loose with Yuuka lovecraftian roots. Like I mentioned in that chapter, I was playing a lot of the Dragonborn DLC for Skyrim around that time, and loved the eldritch scenes with Apocrypha, and decided to have Yuuka take some direct inspiration. So, slime, eyes, and tentacles. I swear to God, I don't know why eyes are such a recurring motif for me. I mean, I chose my avatar because I like Elfen Lied and it looks cool! I swear I'm not actually thinking about people's eyeballs day and night, they just keep popping up!

Illuminati confirm…

Righty then.

Anyhoo, Jun being a dog became unexpectedly handy. I got curious and looked up wolf behavior to see if they practice infanticide the same way lions do. Turns out, nope! Alphas protect the pack, the cubs, and the only infighting issues are usually with upstart young males! So, whenever Sakuya cracked a little more and wanted to get rid of the kids, it made sense for him to be uncharacteristically unselfish and step in. Having a big, hulking mass of angry muscle is useful for deterring murderous maids with slowly deteriorating mental states.

I…can't really remember if this was the point I had decided to have Sakuya threaten Rumia's life, if I had already decided that, or just have her take notice of Rumia as a way of making another investment, but regardless, that was where that scene started taking shape. I'm pretty sure it was something I had already committed to at that point thought, and was then planning on ways to relieve them of the kids and get rid of the rest of her team, allowing her to go completely rogue.

I did want the battle to end with Rin using Flandre's power to blow Yuuka to bits from the beginning though. So, what better way to pull that off than for Flandre to suggest it, thus planting it as a possibility, Rin to try and find it not working, only to bring it back when it was time? Because it's one thing to blow shit up. It's another to chuck bombs at shit, have them not go off, only to explode them later at a more suitably dramatic time.

For the four Yuuka scene though, I think the initial plan was actually for Rin to fight ten of them, grievously wound one for Elly to find later, and then just kyuu the rest to end the thing. It was cut down to four to simplify things a bit. Besides, it's been established that Yuuka gets weaker with each division, and Rin would probably have torn through ten with little difficulty. Besides, it lent itself to some symmetry, given that Rin was already using Four of a Kind, which I got a tremendous kick out of by having it time out like Touhou spellcards do. After all that distinctly non-Touhou-esque violence, it just tickled me to reintroduce the classic rules in the middle of a fight and have them be an inconvenience.

What? It made me laugh. Sue me.

Bringing back Kaguya and Mokou was a hoot as well. I really do miss those guys and all their bickering. And in my grand tradition in breaking up something horrifying with something silly, we have Rin's constant use of Phoenix Fire giving Mokou an itch. Though I think I brought them up here mainly because their later cameo in the next chapter was preplanned from way back and I didn't want their appearance then to be too out of left field.

And then I got to make up for my previous sacrilege by having all of those religious icons turn on Yuuka and burn her crispy. Like I've mentioned a few times before, my personal relationship with religion is a little complicated at this point. Regardless, I've never much cared for militant anti-religious attitudes, so this scene was sort of to make up for having those symbols perverted and destroyed earlier, as well as Yukari's previous trash talking of the Judeo-Christian faith in general. Having Remilia's spear (or Odin's. Whatever) be the first made for a nice bit of symbolism as well. Though it might have been stronger without Sariel directly commenting on it and offer an explanation as to why all those gods were suddenly taking notice just now. A little mystery goes a long way, after all.

Though I think at one point I was going to have Rin skewer the burnt Yuuka with Remilia's spear before dropping her into that hole. And maybe also sticking her into that broken crystal out of revenge. Can't remember why I didn't go through with it though. Hell, whatever happened to that spear anyway?