speculative fiction writers i am going to give you a really urgent piece of advice: don't say numbers. don't give your readers any numbers. how heavy is the sword? lots. how old is that city? plenty. how big is the fort? massive. how fast is the spaceship? not very, it's secondhand.
the minute you say a number your readers can check your math and you cannot do math better than your most autistic critic. i guarantee. don't let your readers do any math. when did something happen? awhile ago. how many bullets can that gun fire? trick question, it shoots lasers, and it shoots em HARD.
you are lying to people for fun. if you let them do math at you the lie collapses and it's no fun anymore.
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i learned about Shiniuzhai, a convenience store hanging on a cliff in Hunan, that’s been nicknamed “most inconvenient convenience store” in China (x)
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proud to say that I have never once in my life figured out the whodunit in any crime story I've read or watched. I just let the facts and clues wash over me, absorbing absolutely none of it. I am the audience they think of when they throw in red herrings, in case you've ever wondered "who would fall for this obvious false lead". it's me. I am the idiot viewer/reader. not once has an obviously framed clue revealed anything to me. my head is completely empty when I consume these stories.
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[image id: a four-page comic. it is titled "immortality” after the poem by clare harner (more popularly known as “do not stand at my grave and weep”). the first page shows paleontologists digging up fossils at a dig. it reads, “do not stand at my grave and weep. i am not there. i do not sleep.” page two features several prehistoric creatures living in the wild. not featured but notable, each have modern descendants: horses, cetaceans, horsetail plants, and crocodilians. it reads, “i am a thousand winds that blow. i am the diamond glints on snow. i am the sunlight on ripened grain. i am the gentle autumn rain.” the third page shows archaeopteryx in the treetops and the skies, then a modern museum-goer reading the placard on a fossil display. it reads, “when you awaken in the morning’s hush, i am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circled flight. i am the soft stars that shine at night. do not stand at my grave and cry.” the fourth page shows a chicken in a field. it reads, “i am not there. i did not die” / end id]
a comic i made in about 15 hours for my school’s comic anthology. the theme was “evolution”
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me: this is a background character who's in one scene, has two lines, and is completely irrelevant to the rest of the story. i am going to stop obsessing over what to name him and use the random name generator on behindthename.com. i am going to accept the first thing it gives me and move the fuck on.
behindthename.com:
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Someone on Reddit keeps getting recommended the Jane Austen subreddit despite knowing nothing about Jane Austen, so they posted an Ask Me Anything. Best response so far:
Sorry JA, no longer a truth universally acknowledged.
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i learned that there's a Japanese beetle that when eaten by a frog will haul ass through its digestive system and escape out the back end unscathed (x)
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