#Writing meta

[incorrectsmashbrosquotes]

It's actually funny, in a meta way, how people are salty about Miquella being a villain. Because, like, that's how it is in-game too.

The people of the Lands Between wanted Miquella to be the solution to their problems. To be the promised savior. The God who would get it all right and do what Marika tried to do and failed so resoundingly, bring an age of infinite prosperity.

But, no, it doesn't work like that. Gods can't solve their problems. The Gods want their own ends and then convince people that what they want is what's best for them. The fans are the same as the poor bastards in the Haligtree, waiting for their savior, only for it to turn out he's just another spoiled kid.

It's brilliant, from a writing perspective. They kept Miquella vague, letting the Soulsborne fandom do what it always does, theorize, investigate, and build up ideas. We built up an image of Miquella as a savior, a hero, one of the only truly heroic characters to understand and get it right.

But in the end, Miquella fooled us as well as he fooled his own people.

[coyote-nebula]

To everyone who has lush fields ripe with story ideas but is struggling to go out and actually harvest them with your writer’s scythe: that’s alright. There’s a reason.

I see writers despairing or making self-deprecating jokes about how many wips they have, as if the ability to come up with the idea is equal to the ability to finish it out into an end product.

It isn’t.

A lot of our ideas come about, not because we were determined to be productive writers, but because daydreaming is an internal escape from life’s demands.

Writing is a demand, too.

Resting and relaxing are basic needs, unlike the high level, abstract satisfaction of being creatively productive. That’s why you might daydream (which is a mild and normal form of dissociation) ideas that you feel good about, and then struggle to research, write the words, fill plotholes, check grammar, revise— all the critical thinking and executive function things involved in creation. Your basic needs must be satisfied before your higher needs can be met effectively.

So, if you’re daydreaming about your stories extensively to mitigate stress, it’s expecting a lot of your stressed self to return from fantasy land, sit down in the cold hard real world and do the hard work to write masterpieces of literature. Those operations are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Writing is hard. Making yourself feel guilty is only going to make it harder. You don’t have to atone for entertaining or distracting your mind by making that available to other people. Daydreaming is a valid end in itself.

Don’t feel bad about having ideas but not being able to write them. Scribble some notes if you can, if you want, but above all enjoy the escapism and take care of yourself first. The words will come after.

[dduane]

Ma’am Im in the final third of writing my first draft for my novel (just passed 70k words!) do you have any advice about book marketing or self publishing? Ive been looking at something called Royal Road also in regards to those two things but no on I know has even heard of it…

First of all: congrats on your 70K!

"Do I have advice about marketing or self-publishing?" Wow, probably way too much, at this point. But for the moment let's limit ourselves to specifics. :)

I hadn't heard of Royal Road either, so I went and did some poking around. Below is an article that deals with some basic questions about them.

(Adding a cut here, because this gets long...)

Having read this article, I went and had a look at Royal Road's ToS, and their fee structures.

The fees were the first thing that gave me pause. Specifically, this; while RR has free options for readers, they don't appear to have any free options for writers. (If I'm wrong about this, I invite anyone with a pertinent link to point me at it.)

Now, the rule in writing as regards money is this: "The money flows toward the writer." This rule was codified years back by writer Jim McDonald and called Yog's Law (and over here at John Scalzi's blog there's a discussion of the Law and what it involves in these self-publishing days). It means that any kind of professional writing or writing-for-pay that involves the writer paying someone else to get their work where people can read it must routinely be carefully examined. You, after all, as the writer, are the source of the product and of the value in the product. If you're paying anybody to help get your writing seen, you need to look carefully at who controls whatever you're paying for along the road to being published.

So: if you use RR, you're paying them to show your work to people. (It seems a bit like AO3, except RR charges you for publishing with them.) Their ToS emphasizes that you own your work, but if you use them to publish, "...you grant Royal Road a non-exclusive, worldwide, sub-licensable, revocable license to use, display, promote, edit, reformat, reproduce, publish, distribute, store, and sub-license Your Content on the Services. This allows us to provide the Services, and to promote Your Content or Royal Road in general, in any formats and through any channels, including any third-party website or advertising medium."

Okay. So how, though, do you get paid for publishing on this site?

RR simply says that you're allowed to link your work to your Patreon or your PayPal account, and can accept donations that way.

Well, that's nice. But it doesn't strike me as much in the way of a payday. (Especially after what Patreon takes off its subscribers' earnings these days.)

What people are seeing this work?

Just Royal Road members, as far as I can tell.

And how many of those are there?

...I'm finding it surprisingly difficult to quickly determine that with any certainty. There are numerous sites that talk about millions of pageviews (assuming that's what "M" means these days): but views are not users.

And what is feedback worth, from that readership? ...Also hard to say.

This equation has way too many imponderables in it for my liking.

There are a number of articles scattered around that discuss numerous webpublishing options and which seem preferable. (This one seems to rank RR highest.)

...If I'm starting to sound unenthusiastic about this whole prospect, I think that perception would be correct. From where I'm sitting, RR looks to me kinda like paying for feedback... and from what might be a fairly small, and at the very least, limited, pool of contributors. I'm not at all sure how this experience would be likely to do anything much but help you feel better about yourself as a writer. Which, well, sure, that's nice. But is it value for your money?

More: how does what you get from RR actually help you transit into the wholly different experience of getting your work edited, getting a cover for your first novel(s), and learning about marketing out in the broader marketplace? That's unclear to me.

(I have to add one thing here as a general caveat. I'm in the Really Annoying Congestion stage of a head cold at the moment, and as a result my view of everything today is significantly jaundiced. But I also have to say that I doubt this particular assessment is going to change much after my nose stops running.)

So. If I was in your position, I'd be tempted to give the RR concept a miss and start inquiring into how best to use actual online publication resources that feed into a system where to get your work at all, people give you money.... because Writers Gotta Eat. (And yes, there's a whole self-publishing strategy that runs on the Nickel Bag paradigm: make sample work free online—sometimes through a retailer like the 'Zon—and then have all the samples "point at" work that people have to pay for. But that's another discussion.)

Anyway: hope this has been of some general help!

[luckydragon10]

Fic Writers: You Need No Justification

I've had a few noteworthy incidents recently with the way readers have chosen to engage with my fic.

First, an early TLDR: Fic writers, you are under no obligation to justify either yourself or your writing choices to your readers. Ever.

There may come a day when a commenter thinks they can say whatever they like, without any care as to how that might affect you. They might, possibly, even be hoping to get a reaction. When that happens, I want you to remember that this commenter Is not your audience. 

And you don’t have to let them walk all over you. 

Recently, a commenter chose to disagree with my characterization and relationship dynamic choices, starting with a dismissive “Naah” and saying “I don’t like this idea that…” and “I don’t like this {character}...” and “I am sad now…” and “I can’t continue.” 

And I chose to tell them to back off. Firmly. Then I got a response that really concerns me.

Name is hidden for no reason in particular. Because it’s a throwaway name anyway.

First of all, this commenter folded as soon as I showed I wouldn’t cater to them. Second, the fact that this person comments anonymously with “random names” is a dead giveaway that they know their behavior isn’t above board, and that having it traced back to them would be less than fun for them. 

I also had another commenter recently who willfully chose to ignore tags, triggered themself, and left a comment about how upset they were. Similarly, I reminded this person that they chose to read the fic and recommended they make healthier choices for their own sake. 

So once again: As a fic writer, you don’t have to cater, you don’t have to placate, and you don’t have to justify yourself.

(Note: The threads are frozen already, no need to go searching or get involved.)

[wetcatspellcaster]

Metapost: "The Ascendent"

**this is a meta for my fic, Pieces Still Stuck in Your Teeth, and NOT a discussion of the BG3 game canon in any way. If you try and make this into a disk-horse, I will BITE you**

(spoilers under the cut for Chapters 1-23 of Pieces Still Stuck in Your Teeth).

So... remember in the Chapter One endnote when I said I was a Spike/Buffy fan first, and a person second? x

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In more seriousness, there was a number of fictional seasonings/ingredients that went into creating what I felt was the villain of a Gothic horror, and what I felt could turn the Ascendent into something that was both 'fixable', and something I enjoyed writing.

Those ingredients were:

Spike and the idea of 'soulless' vampires in the BtVS canon - do I like this conceit of BtVS worldbuilding and how it's used in the show? No. I think it often underlines how bad Whedon is at writing romance. BUT I do think it gives Buffy this free pass for which vampires she can/can't like or adopt, and I needed some of that for my protagonist. I need a 'I can fix him' moment - BtVS has those in fucking SPADES.

Howl's Moving Castle (this one was accidental, I'm still mad at myself but I can't deny it's there) - man conducts magic ritual for power, removing an essential part of himself in the process that needs to be returned

Picture of Dorian Gray (the idea of an exterior staying pristine while something hidden suffers and decays)

Curse of Strahd (the soulless in Barovia, which I mentioned in Chapter 23)

The idea of default moral alignments in D&D. I have a whole chapter arguing against this in my thesis (mostly bc it's often applied to entire races) but I was fascinated by creating a set of circumstances where I feel like a default moral alignment is valid, actually. 7,000 deaths seems like a good set up. I wanted to imagine a being that was trapped within a default moral alignment, and the laws of its very being prevent it from being good no matter what it tries, and it knows that (this kind of creates a feedback loop with the Spike/Buffy stuff)

The parts of the BG3 canon I took and REMADE (I'm stressing this throughout, I was making a horror story and a horror monster your honour):

Astarion conducts the Rite of Profane Ascension with scars on his back, but has to scar Cazador's back personally, suggesting that um... the Rite REALLY SHOULDN'T BE CONDUCTED BY SOMEONE WHO'S GOT THOSE SCARS. Cazador wasn't going to do it that way, is all I'm saying!!

The idea that Ascended!Ending Astarion is a concentrated version of certain traits that have persisted throughout his story - his flirtiness, his understanding of sex as a mechanism and expression of power, his use of a façade as a mask for trauma he refuses to acknowledge.

The lines alluding to dissociation in the brothel foursome, post-Ascension.

The idea that Astarion seduced Tav to survive or protect himself- in my case, because I made the Ascendent empty save for Astarion's survival instinct, the idea that he would gravitate towards Tav as one of his default modes to potentially survive made sense to me - this is why it becomes an obsession.

･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ

For me, when writing, the Ascendent is a few things:

An intensification of vampirism in a different, fucked-up direction. Yeah, A!Astarion, you can walk in sunlight and you can eat and drink and don't need blood. But you are still a hungering maw of emptiness that feels like it will never be whole or close and connected to the living - just now in a wildly different, metaphysical/existential direction! Welcome to depression, alienation, and otherness!

A soulless being, that knows it is soulless - that initially was very happy with its life but then as the years passed, increasingly spends its every waking moment knowing there is something innately wrong with it that it can't seem to shake, no matter how much it engages with life and all the pleasures of life. (see the 'every meal without savour' speech)

A magically literal metaphor for Astarion's dissociation in moments of extreme trauma, up to and including the fight with Cazador - essentially, the moments when there is nothing but a performance or an exterior, because the self/soul are suffering and they cant' come to phone right now

Astarion's survival instinct. As I say in Chapter 23 - Mephistopheles thinks it is an empty body, who's performance is trying to deny the reality of it's own existence. Rosalie, who has a bit more understanding of Astarion, sees that the performance is not just a coping mechanism but one of Astarion's main modes of survival. The Ascendent is Astarion's survival instinct/techniques for endurance, without any soul or person behind them to protect. This is how I tried to tie in the flirty, hypersexual persona and wrap it with a bow.

I wanted a monster that was undeniably scary, and monstrous to me (oh? you can't fit in or be happy no matter what you do and no matter how hard you try, and you think there's something intrinsically off? how's that autism diagnosis going Emma) but that I also felt sympathy and true sorrow for. I needed to have motivations for him chasing after Tav that I could write meaningfully from and sympathise with.

Not only has Astarion used Tav as a life-raft once before, they've also proven to be the most secure thing he's ever clung to. Of course a rabid survival instinct Astarion would become obsessed, and see them as a potential solution to the problem (this was then intensified by Rosalie also being a walking, overbearing moral compass, and having bound him in a contract in the first week of living, accidentally - a lawful good immoveable objects meets a default moral alignment unstoppable force.)

...Because I also wanted that moral alignment spice!! Wizards of the Coast, default moral alignment is fucked up actually!!! Imagine something trying so desperately to be good - literally being bound in a pact and having been told to be good - but the laws of the universe and its very essence are like "nah mate, we kind of want to destroy and annihilate everything, we're neutral evil personified". That's scary!! that's fucked up!! that's what a birth from 7000 deaths gets you!!!

･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: ･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ:･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ･ﾟ✧

So, now for the actual timeline, for people who aren't interested in my silly musings but mostly just want answers lmfao.

Rosalie makes the decision not to intervene in Cazador's mansion, making it seem like she'll support whatever decision Astarion will make there.

Rite of Profane Ascension happens. Astarion conducts the ritual, rips his own soul from his body, the Ascendent is born with literally zero context. Mephistopheles is fucked in Cania, because a bunch of stuff has just gone wrong.

(oh, by the way, the Ascendent knows Infernal as a default language. Bc it's born from an Infernal rite.)

The Ascendent is now default neutral evil, and feeling some kind of way. Rosalie and him break up. He's supposed to have everything, but the one thing he thought was a done deal - his most stalwart suppporter - just rejected him.

Netherbrain defeat (the Ascendent is not invited. Imagine being an all-powerful, hypersexual survival instinct vampire, and your ex-girlfriend neither wants you for sex, nor your power.)

Rosalie accidentally binds the Ascendent (a soulless devil) in a pact demanding that he never kill anyone, when that's literally what the Ascendent's new existence/new default moral alignment is driving him to do. Then, she fucks off and goes into hiding.

Well. The Ascendent can just get another wizard, to help him learn all of Cazador's secrets to cope [Hemlock is recruited].

The years go by! The Ascendent is doing sooooo well. Everything is great, guys! I'm rich, I'm beautiful, I have lavish parties and lots of sex - why do I feel nothing? I'm a vampire perfected - I have no hunger for blood, I can walk in the sun, I can enjoy all the freedoms of a living, breathing man - why do I feel like I'm starving? Why does everything turn to ashes in my mouth? I have friends - oops, I've sabotaged all those friendships with my innate neutral evil destruction. Why can't I feel anything? What's wrong with me? I'm doing everything right? Why doesn't it feel that way?

Also, I can't kill anything to feel better about it, because my hidden ex-girlfriend bound me in a pact.

In this time, to reflect the gradual degradation of the Ascendent's happiness and it's increasing awareness that it is something Other and innately wrong, the reflection starts going weird. Starts going strange. Starts getting a bit fucked up. Almost as if, when he looks in the mirror and sees a person, *nothing* should be what's there. Imagine being a spawn who couldn't see your reflection, and then a vampire who could see it's reflection, but knows that they're innately empty. Knows there's nothing there. I'd freak out a little bit about it as well tbh, I'd go a bit tooth and claw and elongated jaw about it.

The Ascendent finally admits that's there must be something kinda fucked about it. Life just ain't working out, lads. He starts looking for any and all impossible cures that will help with the malaise in his soul (and that innate essence problem, caused by default moral alignment). These include: more bad decisions, such as a house in Cania bc the Ascendent is hoping he'll feel more at home with devils than he does with mortals. All it does is make him feel more isolated and alone.

But eventually, he settles on two things! - Wish (Hemlock's idea), and Rosalie (the Ascendent's idea). Clearly, we just need Rosalie back! Her leaving is actually what fucked him up in the first place - none of this existential bullshit! She fixed us one, she can fix us again.

But looking for Rosalie hasn't worked out. In order to get a shot at her, the Ascendent goes and bargains for his own soul from Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles, adding a new sheet in excel titled 'what the fuck happens when i give this soulless monster a soul to play with?', agrees and starts tracking his new data.

Obviously, just putting the soul back in yourself will fix you. But the Ascendent, the nothingness living inside Astarion's body, will die. Taking the soul back would erase itself. The Ascendent - who is survival instinct personified - would never do this.

So instead, it starts interviewing and cannibalising the soul. Bc a soul is what it needs, this is the closest it's ever felt to being alive. Bc it's made this all about Rosalie, he thinks he's found his solution. The chase is making him feel alive again. It's true love, lads! not the soul.

Wish auction happens - the Ascendent is beaten to the punch by some unknown (hot) wizard.

This avenue cut off, the Ascendent makes the decision to try and win Rosalie back.

Astarion advises that to make her come back to the Gate, he should murder a bunch of people. Because this comes from the soul, not the soulless devil nothingness, it circumvents the pact.

...The events of Pieces begin!

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And finally - the Ascendent tries to destroy Jar!Starion for many reasons in Chapter 19:

The Ascendent knows that it dies, if the soul and the body get reunited (or is that constant high alert survival instinct just no longer needed, because the problem is fixed? you decide.)

The Ascendent values Tav above itself. Tav is going to fix them. Astarion believes he could never fix himself.

Dissociation - that soul isn't me. I'm here, looking at my soul. If I get too close, it'll kill me.

Self-hatred - that soul isn't me. That man made a mistake, and I've had to live with the consequences. He doesn't deserve to live, for what he's made me become.

The knowledge that Rosalie/Tav will only ever want that version of him, not the one that's living and breathing, that sees itself as the most wretched, fucked-up version of itself. So... give them no choice. They have to deal with me and love me at my worst.

And if the Rite didn't work - if the version of the Ascendent walking around isn't the best one, and the one people want... what was it all for? Why does the Ascendent feel like this? Why does it have to suffer?

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....And, that's my little meta post! If anyone has any questions about the timeline or any motivations at any points in the fic, I'm obviously more than happy to explain things via ask/comment, as always!

TLDR: I just wanted to make a Gothic horror. I wanted a dark romance, fucked up obsession vampire/mortal dynamic, but I also wanted a situation that was scary for both Astarion and my Tav. I personally think an Astarion who is so dissociated and separate from reality that he feels that in his bones daily, is scary. It's the lingering impact of the traumas the Rite and those 7,000 souls embodied.

I was literally just trying to make it a horror, for everyone involved.

[heartoflesh]

Who knew, the key to writing was to just write 😀

[dndeceit]

I love writing Remus in general, but I love how easy it is to use him as a convenient plot device. Need an important item broken? Just have Remus get bored and start rough housing someone. Need someone to take an action that would otherwise be out of character? Have Remus goad, trick or otherwise annoy them them into it. Need everyone to move to a new location? Remus just knocked down a bunch of store displays dominos-style and we need to leave before anyone knows we were involved. Need to have a certain arrangement of characters taking rides home together? Remus let the air out of Roman's tires for a laugh, and he certainly can't be in the same car as him right now.

All conveniently inconvenient and none of it really seems forced...

His talent for chaos is truly a boon for writers in need of a way to nudge the narrative.

[lily-alphonse]

Astounded at my ability to make myself SOB over fictional characters that I AM CHOOSING to put in awful scenarios.

Positively baffling

Im in my tragic ending era and its as much a horror for you all as it is for my sinuses lmao

[deliciouskeys]

Not to get all high school lit class, but what is the function of the ice cream cake in episode 4?

(Aside from it probably being a jokey reference to this popular meme image of Antony Starr?)

Anybody else think they could not eat ice cream cake in that situation? You might say that none of those staff anticipated just how violent it was going to get down there in B6, but they must have known there was a non-zero chance of them dying. Security cameras were cut. HL is clearly not in a stable mood, even with the pleasantries. They clearly quietly freak out.

I want to pinpoint why he brings the cake. Is their eating it and at least pretending to be calm part of the pantomime he wants played out? Kind of like when he asks Marty if he’ll forgive him about Frank… I wonder how it would have gone if people were more genuine in their reactions instead of suppressing emotions and trying to act like nothing happened in hopes it will keep the situation from escalating.

I ask because it’s brought up several times. “Cake’s melted I’m afraid.”, and the shot of the cake as he leaves, looking eviscerated.

[highfantasy-soul]

So I need to get something off my chest about 'writing' and what a show is trying to do vs if the writing is the best to show that.

I haven't seen this complaint so much on Tumblr, but it has been brought up several times in a Discord server I'm in and I don't think there is the best place to address it (it might be taken as too political or an attack against specific people) but I really really needed to write out how I'm feeling about it.

So a massive complaint in this Discord is that the writing of the Acolyte is bad. The ones making this criticism claim that they like the ideas behind the show, but the execution with the writing is terrible and they need to get a whole new writing team for season 2.

So. Hmm. How to not get too in my feelings about that.

Let's take a look at who the writers are. We have:

3 men - 2 of which are men of color, the last I don't know enough about to say if he's part of a specific marginalized identity or not

and we have 7 women - Leslye who is openly queer, 3 black women, an asian woman, a trans woman and activist, and another who I again, don't know enough about to say if she's a part of a specific marginalized identity (other than her femininity) or not.

I didn't do deep dives on them, they're writers, so it's kind of hard to specifically find out 'hey, do you personally have a lot of experience with colonialism/religious trauma?' BUT I think that just baseline seeing how many women, people of color, and queer people there are on the writing staff and the way I could see so many extremely nuanced and real things on screen that I personally know about gives me a good idea about their own experiences/knowledge about such subjects.

Despite the claim that 'they like what the story is going for', the understanding of how the writers are telling that story isn't translating to everyone. I have a little suspicion as to what unites the people who 'don't get' the writing despite claiming to like what the show was going for. Kind of like how people 'liked what the civil rights movement was about, but those leaders and their methods? Get those out of here and accomplish the goals in a different way'. Or reading a classic and having no context for who wrote it or when the story was written and trying to judge it based on your own very limited understanding and claiming it's "bad" because you, personally, are just not aware of anything outside of your own world view.

It's important to be able to identify where your own understanding might be lacking - and acknowledging that just because YOU don't 'get it' doesn't mean that the writing is BAD. It just means... you don't get it. Personally, I don't get every single show made for a very specific audience - especially racialized comedies specifically for the race the writer/performer is. As an example, Dave Chapelle (horrendous transphobia aside) wrote a great deal of his material for his very specific audience of Black Americans. I personally, as a not-Black person, wasn't sure how to feel about some of his jokes - but what I DIDN'T do was say that he was bad and 'I get that he's making fun of his own community, but he should do it in a different way, maybe get a different writer'. Because I'm not the one equipped to judge that. I acknowledge that his comedy is outside my wheelhouse and honestly, for Chapelle's case when it comes to his racial jokes, I simply remove myself from the equation and just look to other Black people and how they react to his comedy to see if he's stepped over a line. (Also, when it comes to comedy, as he himself pointed out, some white people were laughing a little TOO hard at his jokes - I think that's mainly an issue with comedy and poking fun at yourself only to have someone not in your 'group' not take it as friendly ribbing but rather more malicious - and so he dialed it back).

Comedy is a bit different than any other media - I do think that comedy requires a lot more knowledge of the subject matter to know when the person is exaggerating, critiquing, or affectionately ribbing that is pretty important to know before internalizing what's said in the show. If you're not aware of that stuff, you might hear a stand-up routine and internalize a lot of really harmful stereotypes so I think it's ok to step away from comedy that isn't "for you" in a way that I don't think is particularly great for ALL types of media that isn't "for you".

With romance stories - I just don't get why a character would make all their decisions focused around getting a romantic partner, maybe I actively dislike watching/reading about that, but what I'm NOT going to do is say Jane Austen is a bad writer. I can point out things I disliked aside from the romance aspect or even larger writing critiques, but I'm not going to say that 'I see what she was going for, but get a different writer because I didn't get it'. Those stories were intensely personal to her and many people see themselves in the characters she wrote. Just because *I* don't get their motivations doesn't mean others don't.

So, examples aside, I think it's incredibly important that before we say 'the writing was bad', think about if maybe it's just that you don't have the meta understanding of the groups being highlighted in the story. It does give me the ick when people say to 'replace the writing table' on The Acolyte when the story trying to be told is of marginalized groups interacting with massive colonial institutions and the generational trauma that causes - and when you look at the writers....they are part of the groups affected by those issues, and the ones who are saying 'replace them'....aren't (largely).

When you 'don't get' something in media, especially if that media is telling the stories of groups you don't belong to, go to see what those groups are saying. There have been articles written about The Acolyte from the points of view of marginalized groups and meta posted around about how these irl subjects are being handled. In my opinion, as someone a part of such effected groups, I think the writers have done an incredible job with the show.

The main issue I think (good faith) people have is that DISNEY didn't give the show more time to tell its story, but then they lay the issues at the feet of the writers for 'not explaining enough' - but the things they want explained, largely I find are things that...were explained enough if you know the basics of colonization, missionaries, and generational trauma.

Other complaints I've seen boil down to "the show should have told me everything in order, clearly, and told me what to think about it and each of the characters - because I was left guessing, instead of using my own brain to think about it, I have decided it's bad writing because everything wasn't fed to me in a straightforward way" which again, isn't a fault of the writing, it's a flaw in the way you THINK all shows need to hand-hold you. Just because a show doesn't spoon-feed you the story and character motivations, doesn't mean the writing is bad.

Finally, I've seen critiques of the writing (and story) to the effect of 'it's a Star Wars story - it NEEDS to fit into the Star Wars box/expectations and if it doesn't, that means it's bad writing' - which again, kills diversity. You want surface-level inclusion where "yay! It's a woman doing bombings now! Cheer for her!" rather than "Look, it's a woman doing war-crimes and we're pointing out that war crimes are STILL wrong and here's other marginalized people fighting against that!"

So before claiming 'the writers need to be replaced', take a step back and look at why you feel that way, take a look at who the writers are and what story they were trying to tell, and first consider: maybe you just aren't knowledgeable enough about the subject matter. And just because it's not 'baby's first colonizer story', doesn't mean the writing is bad. Maybe you aren't the center of the universe for once and maybe its OK for you to feel a little behind in understanding - it just means there's new stuff for you to learn! Which is a good thing!

Obligatory explanation that all this doesn't mean that you can't critique the writing or that if you critique the writing that means you 100% are who I'm talking to in this post. All I'm saying is that maybe before having the knee-jerk reaction 'get rid of the writers', take a look at it from this perspective to see if you 'not understanding' isn't on the writers, it's on you and your life experiences not preparing you for such a story told in this way.

[sam-glade]

Poets of Tumblr: how do you do it?

What is your process for writing a poem?

Do you plan it or do you get stuck with inspiration all of sudden and must write it down? How much do you revise and edit? Do you let it sit between revisions? How long does it take to create a poem?

(These are genuine questions from a curious fiction writer who hasn't dabbled in writing poetry)

[landwriter]

i am sorry i was so close-

[dduane]

How to keep focusing on writing without procrastinating on your work or getting distracted by other things?

(desperate laughter)

(a) My writing is my work. All of it.

(b) As for "not getting distracted by other things": Other Things are always there. If you're smart, you include them... as excluding them is damn near impossible.

HTH.

[kritischetheologie]

are you happy with the state of your blog and corner of the internet? or is there something you wish you could change?

I'm gonna level with you anon I was real scared you meant this as implicit criticism before I saw you saying it to a couple other people too.

God I'd love to actually finish a godamn fic again someday and get back to posting. I'd love if I really clearly had a blorbo on the grid I was all in for and a ship I was crazy over. I miss being close to a lot of the mutuals I don't talk to as often (hi hit me up) I miss the days when it all felt shiny and new and exciting. I don't miss the person I was in 2022 and I especially don't miss the way my life was going but I miss the way getting into this fandom felt like falling in love and the way I felt so much smarter and cooler and prouder of myself than I ever had before.

And like-- a lot of why I'm not posting so much anymore, in addition to the no ship on the grid I go crazy about no blorbo on the grid I die for no feedback loop of mutuals chatficcing 24/7, is that my life is now good enough that I'm struggling to find time for writing. I'm watching inconveniently timed races on tape delay. There's less space in my life for f1. Which is good but also makes me feel like I'm on the outside watching everyone have fun without me, except also so many of the people I used to like and look up to have left or moved on so now everyone is a bunch of people who weren't around for any of the iconic shit. I feel like I have senioritis, basically.

[cinnamontails-ff]

Astarion's Deleted Dance Scene

Now that I'm wrapping up my draft for MA, I'd just like everyone to know that my initial draft contained a scene very much like this one with Astarion doing what he calls a "post-trial ritual" and Zoraya walking in.

I never managed to make it work, it's a crappy scene, but ugh, in my heart, this is canon.

[abyssalaerlocke]

Realising I dislike hinting/leading up to a big thing at the end of an episode, and dropping it at the start of the next episode, because it feels like the writers are dragging things out just to string me along (this also feels like the plot and twists can't stand on their own to keep me interested, so they're contriving things to make me addicted to bingeing yet another episode instead).

Even if there was a big thing at the beginning of the episode, if that was then followed by most of the episode being lead-up, then by the end I've forgotten we actually got something that episode — it feels like a lack of progress, and nothing's borne fruit, no satisfaction's been given for all of that.

Ideally, the episode's plot bears fruit at the end, I feel satisfied, I feel like something's happened, I may share in the characters' joy at success after the planning and work they put into it, or share their devastation at its failure.

The part that keeps me interested in seeing what the next episode holds is that culmination resulting in more questions than answers. Maybe some personal lore was dropped, or some answers about the short-term plot, but it fuels questions about the long-term plot (or vice versa. This interaction between short and long-term feels important in tying the pieces together into a larger picture, and engaging interest). Something happened and I want to see the fallout/consequences and/or what they do about it.

So I'm trying to keep this in mind with my writing. My first chapter is shorter than my baseline, but it feels like the perfect place to end it. It culminates in things, but establishes motives for the characters, what they seek to answer/achieve in the work.