#applies to long stories or short stories or authors or editors

[starlit-clouds]

Hello writers!!!

It has come to my attention that many of you are making grave mistakes in writing. And when I say grave, I mean the absolute gravest of grave mistakes.

And that mistake is:

I see so! Many! Common! Words! Being! Used!

But don’t worry! I have some advice on how you might be accidentally using them and some words you can use to replace them!

Let’s start simple, shall we, with the word: The. Now the is an unassuming word. It’s often overlooked. It’s often very overused. Did you know that the makes up about 7% of all printed words? Think of all the other words that could be used! And did you see that? I just used the word the. Even I am using it, even when I know what to look for, so don’t feel too bad if you find yourself accidentally using it as well! Now let’s get to the words that you can use to replace it to help spice up your writing!

Instead of using the, try using: a certain, specific, important, or maybe even all three! (For example, instead of saying the banana sat on the pedestal, instead say a certain specific banana sat on an important pedestal. Wow! Look at that! That second sentence has such a higher word count! Using this method, you’re sure to reach that 1,000 word go— I mean. Using this method could help you spice up your writing by not using such a boring word.)

Pronouns— we all have a problem with this. Pronouns make it so hard to know who is who and what belongs to what. So solve this problem by not using them at all! Instead of using pronouns, instead use the name of your character! (Ex: Bob grabbed the chair with his hand and sat down in his spot —> Bob grabbed a specific chair with Bob’s hand and sat down in Bob’s spot. Look at how much clearer everything is! Wasn’t that first sentence just so confusing? But by just changing any pronouns to Bob’s name, everything just flows so much more smoothly.)

What— ahh, what. The word used to convey confusion. Too bad everyone is so confused on how much they are overusing it. Since it is used to show confusion, instead of using what, just have whatever you write be completely wrong :). As it will be wrong, it will clearly show confusion over the topic. (Ex: Ava stared at the stray cat her friend had brought into the house. “What is this?” —> Ava stared at a certain stray cat Ava’s friends had brought into a specific house. “Is that a dog?” Look! In both, you can clearly see that Ava is confused! And I’m sure that Ava’s confusion absolutely is directed at the same things in both sentences. They both absolutely have the same meaning. Except that one is clearly using a superior word than the other.)

And— now as am sure we’re all aware and could all quote off the top of our head, and is the word used to connect words of the same part of speech, clauses, or sentences, that are to be taken jointly (definitely didn’t copy and paste from google, haha. I know this off the top of my head like I’m sure you all do as well… right?). Anyways… and is used all. The. Time. Literally all the time. So imma be honest here, there’s not really one word that can replace and, but there are a lot of phrases that can! So instead of using and, use together with, along with, as well as, in addition to, what’s more. Also, you can use these all in the same contexts :D! You can trust me! (Ex: Steve would need his knife, the tarp, bleach, and an alibi —> Steve would need Steve’s knife, an important tarp, bleach, what’s more an alibi. Or Oliver needed to get away from Steve and when he said that, he meant he needed to get away now —> Oliver needed to get away from Steve together with when Oliver said that, Oliver meant Oliver needed to get away now. Look at how much of a difference replacing a specific word and can have :). Using this tip will surely make your writing stand out from the rest :). In a very good way.)

(Disclaimer: I am not responsible for any writers using these tricks who may or may not be harmed by editors reading their stories. Any writer using these tricks listed above are doing so of their own free will and are thus fully responsible for whatever potential bodily harm may potentially befall them.)

(Stated again to be made clearer: any writers doing this are doing so of their own free will. I do not have access to their google docs (or other writing programs). I do not have access to their emails. I do not have access to their addresses. I am not in their homes. I am not in their rooms. I am not behind them. I am not watching them type. I am not watching them write. I am not under any circumstances forcing them to use my tips :). I am simply providing them because I wish to help.)

[duckprintspress]

Meet Aether Beyond the Binary Contributor Terra P. Waters

Another day, another AETHER BEYOND THE BINARY creator to shine the spotlight on!

Before we get to that, just a note: hi, I’m Nina Waters, the lead editor, the person running this campaign, and the one who writes all these blog posts. I’ll be traveling for the next four days (Friday, Jan 12 – Monday, Jan 15) to vend for Duck Prints Press at Arisia in Boston. As a result, I will be slower to answer messages, reply to comments, and post updates (I’m going to try to post one, but I’m not sure I’ll have time). I appreciate your patience while I’m less available. And if by some chance, you’re attending the con, make sure you come and say hi! I’ll be at table D14 in the dealer’s room.

Now, on to Terra…!

About Terra: Terra is a scientist by day who lives in the Pacific Northwest with her family. She has been writing fiction as long as she can remember, and has always told her partner of 17 years that if she wasn’t a scientist, she would be an author. During grad school, she discovered fanfiction and immediately began writing her own. After many years and several fandoms (including Teen Wolf, Hawaii Five-0, and Stranger Things), she returned to writing original fiction. To date, she has self-published two novellas in a 90s-nostalgia polyamory comedy series and has drafted two YA/NA sci-fi novels. When not doing science or writing, you can find Terra indulging her yarn addiction and knitting.

Links: Archive of Our Own | Tumblr (pterawaters) | Tumblr (terrapwaters) | Instagram | Bluesky

Terra has previously published one short stories with Duck Prints Press, a Patreon-exclusive entitled The Wayward Timekeeper, and she also wanted to share a few of her works from AO3: 

Kope Kamekona (Hawaii Five-O, Steve McGarrett/Catherine Rollins/Danny Williams)

Forever’s gonna start tonight (Stranger Things, A/B/O, multiple ships and ot3s)

Other Delicacies (Our Flag Means Death, Ed Teach/Stede Bonnet) – this is the piece that Terra used to apply to Duck Prints Press, and several of us reviewers liked it so much that we sought it out and read the whole thing even though we aren’t in the fandom!

An Interview with Terra P. Waters

What motivates you to create?

My love for the ideas!

How did you pick the name you create under?

I’ve been using the name “pterawaters” since 2009, when I joined fanfiction.net. “Ptera” came from an old gaming character I had, “Ptera the Pterrible,” and “Waters” was a last name I really liked the sound of. For my original writing, I decided to go with a more conventional version of the name. I moved the P from the front of my name to the middle initial as an homage to my fannish writing name.

What do you consider to be your strengths as a creator?

My ability to brainstorm scenarios and know how to outline the plot from there. Longer-form works, where I get to dig into the character motivations and development. World building.

What do you consider to be your weaknesses as a creator?

Short stories, creating characters who serve the story I want to tell, adding enough description around the dialog and plot.

When and why did you begin creating?

I’ve been writing since I was a kid, and even took a lot of creative writing classes during college (aside from my science major). I get a lot of joy out of thinking “what if…” and then turning that idea into a story.

Are you a pantser, a planner, or a planster? What’s your process look like?

I’m most often a planner. I like to outline the story beats of any project before I write. Sometimes, I’ll be more of a plantser. I’ll write 1-2k words of an idea before I do the rest of the outline, so I can see if it’s an idea worth planning out further.

Which of your own creations is your favorite? Why?

I wrote a story called “Entanglement” that was part of a long Stranger Things fanwork series. It’s absolutely my favorite thing I’ve ever written, and I’m excited to get to the point where I can incorporate the rewritten version into my sci-fi series.

What are your favorite tropes?

Polyamory, First times/Getting together, Forced proximity (cuddling for warmth, only one bed), Soulmate AUs, Omegaverse, Fake relationship, Friends to Lovers

What are your favorite snacks and/or drinks to consume while creating?

I like herbal tea, candy, or a crunchy snack like popcorn. I’ve recently gotten into eating roasted lentils, which is a nice substitute for not being able to eat nuts anymore.

What is your “dream project” – the thing you’d see as the culmination of your work as a creator?

I want to finish a series of at least 4 novels and have them all in print.

When you look at your “career” as a creator, what  achievement would you most like to reach – what, if it happened or has  already happened, would/did make you go “now – now I’m a success!”?

I would like to have at least one full-length novel printed and for people to actually buy it!

Tell us about your pet(s).

I have two orange cats, Gadget (the chonk) and Gizmo (anxiety in animal form).

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

Finish the thing. My writing got so much better once I forced myself to finish fan works so I could put them up for other people to read. Practicing the first part of writing a story without practicing how to write the end leaves you never finishing anything.

Terra’s Contribution to Aether Beyond the Binary

Title: Ancient Hearts Unearthed

Tags: academia, alternate history, cancer, character illness (serious), f/nb, f/f (background), fat, first kiss, friends to lovers, getting together, hospital, modern with magic, mystery, non-binary, panic attacks, past tense, phobia (claustrophobia), pining, professor, scientist, third person limited pov

Excerpt:

Victoria turned and ran a hand over the runes again. “What bothers me is that these are early Age of Aether markings. You see the way they’re using archaic forms of our letters?”

Sasha leaned closer. “I’ll be damned. This doesn’t match the bronze-era artifacts in the rest of the cave, either.” They made a tiny humming noise. “Who else would have this much knowledge of ancient runes?”

As Victoria leaned as close as she could to the wall, she asked distractedly, “What do you mean?”

“Obviously, it’s a fake,” they said, mulling over the problem in their head. “Sanderson has wanted my place on the admissions committee since he joined the department.”

“What if it’s not a fake?” Victoria made a tiny, excited noise. “What if this is early Aether Age work? What if this is a secret that’s been buried for almost a thousand years?”

Sasha’s heart swooped at the thought. “We have to find out what that inscription says.”

You've read the interview! You've read the excerpt! Now go back the campaign!

[the-everqueen]

5, 7, 32, and 33? <3

5. what's a tag you never want to use for your work even when it applies? hesitant to call anything a "fix-it" fic because i feel like if the story resonated the first time, then it's not "fixing" the text, just considering the fallout of a different ending. "does it cohere" is a question i ask myself a lot in both my work writing and my fic writing, and i feel like that's a better approach. (unless it's the dreaming spinoffs. quite frankly i AM fixing that but the bar was underground.)

7. your favorite ao3 tag answered!

32. do you have a word/expression that you always use in your writing? oh god. it's not a word but i'm VERY aware that i tend to list things in threes. also that i substitute commas for conjunctions in a move i learned from a niche horror author way back when i was on writers' forums as a preteen. there's a handful of verbs i gravitate towards in certain tonal settings, which is a pain in the ass for editor-me when it's a long fic.

33. give your writing a compliment oof. uh. i think my obsession with character "voice" comes through re: internal narration and (usually) in dialogue. also i think i'm good at short, efficient sentences.

[chainofclovers]

🛒⛔🤗

🛒 What are some common things you incorporate in your fics? Themes, feels, scenes, imagery, etc.

In all my fic I think I try to get really small and zoomed-in. Like I want there to be a specific texture to the sensory experiences a character is going through, so I try to be as concrete and succinct as possible about setting descriptions and I try to make sure any physical detail is contributing to the tone in some way. Writing this out this seems very obvious and uninteresting, but it's important to me! I really admire writers who can paint this massive landscape and have a bunch of stuff going on, but I've accepted that my stories are about small things.

⛔ Do you have a fic you started, but scrapped?

I've abandoned at least 20 things. For Ted Lasso, I have two fics that I truly abandoned (as in they died and are buried in my Abandoned folder). They were both tiny stubs, no more than a couple paragraphs, and I think I ended up capturing the tone/substance somewhere else. I have a few more TL stories that still live in my In Progress folder, and it's possible (likely) that about two of them will never become anything that gets published. One because the idea itself turned out to be the joy, and one because I got the fun of writing the tiny part I liked and sharing it in discord, but didn't feel like continuing.

🤗 What advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?

It's okay to care about engagement, comments, and responses! Wanting to connect to a community and write for an audience is a good thing, and anyone who makes "write for yourself" a holier than thou thing is just being judgy. BUT you should not write with that end-point engagement as your sole motivation because your process will start to feel empty, and you might end up feeling disappointed. Basically just trust that your relationship to your own words and your relationship to your audience (both potential and realized) will change over time and ebb and flow and all that and that is okay and normal.

Sometimes you will work on something for a very long time and feel truly proud of it and maybe some people will read it and enjoy it but posting it will end up a bit anticlimactic. And other times you'll write for 40 minutes, post it, and the crowd will go wild. That doesn't mean one story is "better" or "more successful" than the other, and it doesn't mean your hard work was wasted. It just means it can be hard to predict how things go, so ideally you'll be happy you spent months on the one thing *and* happy you spent 40 minutes on the other thing and ended up with two stories you can get behind!

Finding a few fandom friends who are your ideal readers is priceless. These are people who might beta for you if you want to work with an editor, but even more importantly they are people who will talk about characters together, support each other's creative endeavors, challenge each other, be your friend, and cultivate the conversations that are part of what makes writing meaningful. I'm writing about this in the context of fic, but I think this is important regardless of the kind of writing you're doing.

Read novels, short stories, poems, fic, good journalism, etc. Just take in lots of kinds of words and figure out what resonates with you and what doesn't and why that is. It'll inform your own writing and you don't need to be afraid of being overly influenced by others.

Comment on other people's work. When you love something a writer or artist has done, try to find a way to tell them.

Don't apologize in your author's notes. The chef and food writer Julia Turshen says that disclaimers and apologies don't taste good, and that applies to a story as much as it applies to a meal you're serving. Personally, I find incessant apologizing before a fic annoying; I'd rather decide for myself if I like something!

(@thesumdancekid, your answer to this one is really good and I cosign it!)

From fanfic writer emoji ask.

[jecook]

A Guide to Beta Reading and Editing

For those new to reading other people's work through a lens of providing constructive criticism

I have been editing and beta reading for a long time, for friends, peers, classmates, etc. I made a lot of mistakes and embarrassed myself quite a bit, but I think I've gotten pretty decent so I'm writing this as a series of tips based on what I find personally helpful to receive myself and to do for others.

This isn't going to be a step-by-step thing, more of series of things to consider. I can't impart onto you a laundry list of literary terms and devices, the entire system of how we write in English and how every last dialect or accent might break convention, nor can I make you understand every way that narrative and sentence structure can affect tone and pacing. What I can do is help you think about how you engage with someone else's work. I think what makes people so nervous to beta read is the idea of responding critically to another person's work. Often, a lot of beta readers are unsure how to suggest edits for fear of upsetting the writer. This makes sense! You're just being compassionate! But most everyone asking for a beta reader is looking for feedback at some level, so the best thing you can do is give them that. If you read fic, if you read books, short stories, essay, you could try beta reading. Everyone has some level of discernment for what they think is good and for what they personally enjoy, and that is a lot of what casual editors do.

Who should I beta read for?

Friends, authors you enjoy, stories for fandoms and especially characters and/or ships you enjoy. When you see someone in your community asking for a beta reader, they are looking for someone who is already in their audience. If it's work you think you will enjoy, you will have fun getting to dive into their work on a deeper level. Especially if it's an author you already read, you will be more familiar with their style and able to provide better feedback for them. If you are nervous about getting into beta reading, working with an author who you are already comfortable with, like a friend, a peer in the fandom, or someone who you follow can be a good way to try out beta reading. You will already have some comfort with their style and probably them as a person, too, so it'll be easier to break the ice and be ready to communicate about their work

What does beta reading look like?

It goes like this: usually you read a piece, maybe once through just to get a general idea, then going back through to make suggestions. Usually an author will let you know what they want you to look out for. You might notice some spelling, punctuation, and grammar elements that could use adjusting. These things are often missed because of writing quickly while in the zone and usually hard to catch because an author is already familiar with what the words should say, so the brain fills in mistakes with what it knows it should be reading.

As well, you might see some things you personally think could use improving. Seeing a name several times when maybe a pronoun could be used, too many pronouns being used and needing more clarification, some sentence structure feeling too similar and needing variations, etc. These things are smaller details that you might or might not notice when reading normally, but as a beta reader, you can suggest changes based on your opinion and experience as a reader. The idea here is that if you read, you probably understand what makes for decent writing that you enjoy. Therefore, you can help someone else to get a reader's perspective on what works and what is not yet working. This also applies to broader things like pacing and overall structure. Could a scene be placed earlier? Was an emotional scene rushed? You might feel these things intuitively, like if you have ever read something and wished you could linger on a moment just a little longer. These things are helpful for writers to hear before publishing a work.

But how do you make these suggestions?

Seems hard but is actually very straightforward so don't overthink it! You had a thought process for why you wanted to suggest something, so just say that. Explain your thinking, otherwise, the writer can't understand why you have made a suggestion. This is very important so people can feel like they are understanding of suggestions and don't feel insecure about a bunch of unexplained edits that will just come off as demands for them to change. Explaining your thinking also gives the writer room to disagree, which is important since it is still their work.

This also has added importance if English is not the writer's first language because you can help them understand your perspective. Assuming ofc that you speak English as a native language--I am writing this guide from that POV, but many people will beta read who are not native speakers (or maybe you are beta reading a fic in another language! That is cool as heck, please carry on!)

Constructive criticism vs just... criticism

It's important as well to mind your tone in all comments and suggestions. You want to help a writer improve their work, not make them feel poorly about it. Beta reading is all about helping each other grow--you as a reader and editor and they as a writer. Since this is fandom and (probably) no one is getting paid, the mood should be considerate, friendly, and overall strive to be helpful. Meeting an author where they are at is the most important part. Think about what is going to be valuable to them at this time and don't recommend stuff that is going to be too much work, like overhauling a whole fic, unless the writer is down for that level of work. What level is their writing at and what level of editing are they interested in? If someone is just looking for flow and SPaG (spelling, punctuation, and grammar), they probably don't want to hear that you think the structure should be completely moved around. Conversely, if they say they are looking for someone to help them cut out 500 words from a 4,000 word fic, they might want to hear how flipping the structure could cut down their word count.

Another thing to consider when suggesting politely is to suggest alternatives. If you think there is a plothole, suggest how it could be fixed. If you think a sentence is awkward, what is a better way of phrasing it? If a word is maybe being misused, what is a better word? This gives the author more things to consider, so even if they don't use your suggestion, they might utilize your idea as a jumping-off point for a different way to adjust their work.

Perfectly balanced, as all things should be

Beta reading is more than just suggestions for changes. Constructive criticism doesn't just mean changes, it also means positive criticism. Tell authors what you liked and what is working well! When a twist makes you gasp, say so! If you can, maybe even say how they built up the scene or narrative to elicit that gasp. If you think a sentence was really well written, say so! If you can, describe what elements made it come together so well. Authors want to know what is working, what you are enjoying, just as much as they want to know what can be improved upon. Leave little "awww"s and "lololol" and reactions all over! Building up an author is very important when making other comments on their work. Creative work, especially what we do for free out of love and passion, is a tender place and it's easy to hit someone right where they are most insecure. Be compassionate when beta reading.

For Authors

Sometimes beta readers are not perfect. If they say something that you feel might be a little blunt, maybe they just were moving fast and not thinking about wording. It happens sometimes. Maybe they made a criticism or suggestion that you disagree with or maybe even made you feel bad about your work.

My best advice here is to ignore it. You wrote what you wrote and are happy with it! Good for you! Just because a beta reader had a different opinion does not make them the be-all and end-all. Or maybe you feel that they are right but their suggestion is more work than you want to do. Great! So remember the advice for next time and keep moving forward. It is fandom and people are thirsty for more all the time, so I promise your work will be loved and most people probably will not notice nor care about whatever it was that was pointed out. Seriously. A beta reader has their opinions and you have yours, but as the author, you will always get to choose what is best for you and your work. So be proud and confident!

If you don't think you can handle possibly having unwanted suggestions or criticisms though, maybe forego having a beta reader. It is also absolutely fine to edit for yourself and publish that way. Alternatively, ask a trusted friend and give them an exact idea of what you do and do not want feedback on.

Some final bits of advice

Ask the author what exactly they want you to look for. Maybe also ask them what they don't want feedback on. They might be looking for flow but not SPaG, or maybe plot help but not want to hear about characterization. Make sure you are both on the same page.

Always remember that everyone in this equation is a person who is doing this work in your free time for fun

And lastly, please don't be afraid to try out beta reading. If you read, then you can help beta test a fic. Just remember to be polite and encouraging and you too can help provide a little bit of fan labor <3

Always remember, above all things, to make sure you are having fun! Happy editing :D

[zimtlein]

Hey! I just wanted to let you know that I'm a huge fan, i love reading your fanfiction (one of my favourites would be once more, with feeling) You are amazingly talented and If you're free, I'd love some writing tips ❤️😊

Hi there! Aw, thank you so much!! I love giving tips, especially when someone sends me a little bit of their writing so I can see where their strong and weak points are - because every writing style needs other tips, tbh - but I can write out some general ones that apply to my writing.

A big one for me: never underestimate the reader. It's better not to explain something and potentially make it confusing than to explain something and make the reader think they wouldn't have figured it out on their own. Don't explain big revelations or plot twists, let them stand on their own. Don't connect points, just subtly hint at them. Let the reader think.

In that sense, "show, don't tell" is one of the biggest mantras I'm following. Instead of explaining a scene, describe it and let the reader figure out what exactly it means. Instead of a character being sad and depressed, describe the physical impact: tears in their eyes, stomach in knots, nervously fiddling their fingers, staring at the ground ... This way, the reader feels respected - because you, as the author, expect them to know what it means when a character behaves in that way without you spelling it our for them.

For me personally, this means to let go of the sentiment that your story has to have one definite meaning. Because if you explain less, there are more chances for readers to reach different conclusions than you intended. I'm okay with readers interpreting stuff in different ways than I do, and while I give every story a "main theme", it's okay for me if readers discover other themes that I didn't notice.

Exposition is okay, but don't overdo it. Sprinkle it in between more exciting scenes, or - what I love to do - integrate it into dialogue. So if you have character A and character B, and you want to let your readers know that they have been in a fight for over 5 years, construct a dialogue between A and another character C in which C expresses how great it would be if A and B met each other again. You don't need to mention anything about B before! This way, you give A and C more personality, you can tell the reader subtly how C feels about the fight, AND you've got some exposition. It's okay if readers don't know everything about the setting from the get-go - quite the opposite, it's far more exciting if readers have to put togethter the pieces themselves!

Don't drag out scenes or a story longer than they need to be. In fact, when editing, delete everything that doesn't move the story forward. A whole paragraph about a character running down the street - is it relevant for the plot? If no, delete it. A chapter in which nothing happens, you just wanted to describe two characters being lovey-dovey? You should probably delete it. Even if you're super proud of how you worded it. I think that's a rule that doesn't always apply to fanfic as the main goal is to have fun, and sometimes it's just plain fun to have your ship do stuff that doesn't move the plot forward. For professional writing, it applies - if you don't do it, your editor will be brutal. It does help, though. Makes the story more concise and easier to digest. (Yes, when writing fanfics, I don't always follow this rule.)

Most importantly, have fun. Especially in fanfic, the main goal isn't to be the best author ever or make as much profit as possible, but to write. To show your love for a fandom and for certain ships. Make your fics tropey as hell, write out that one scene that doesn't leave your head, make two characters kiss just because. Make your fics short or long, experiment with styles and dialogue. Writing should always be fun if it's your hobby, and if it isn't fun, take a step back and don't put so much pressure on yourself.

I hope this helped. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask!

[owlishintergalactic]

The Deadline is Approaching, But It's Not Too Late

On December 31st, submissions for Duck Prints Press' third and fourth anthologies will close, but there's still room for fanfic writers who are interested in writing queer, original stories. I know some of you out there might be nervous—I know I was when I applied for the first anthology, Add Magic to Taste. While it wasn't my first publishing credit, it was my first paid story, and I am well aware of brain weasels that whisper, "You're not good enough." I almost self-selected out, but I didn't, and the experience was something amazing and hard to describe.

I don't want anyone to miss out on an opportunity to get their stories out into the world, so I thought it might help to both offer some advice on picking and polishing a piece last minute, and link you to the story that earned me a place in the anthology—imperfections included. A quick disclaimer here: I am an editor and a judge, but this piece is based on my experiences as a writer. This isn't an official Duck Prints Press post, just my personal opinions and advice as someone who has gone through the process herself and the things I kept in mind when I created my writing sample.

For my entry, I composed an entirely new short story in two, very long, stressful, and obsessive days. You don't have to do that if your muse isn't the sort to pop out 1-2k words in 48 hours. Since we're down to the wire here, why not start with your backlog of previously written stories? I wasn't satisfied with my fics because I'd gone on hiatus for a couple of years, but many of you are writing fics right now! Duck Prints Press is for fanfic writers, and most of us authors have a decent selection of published and unpublished stories to choose from on our hard drives and Ao3 accounts. Take a look at your stories, you may already have a sample you're proud of. What you are looking for is a good example of your writing that has a plot, well developed characters, a setting with enough detail the judges can imagine it, and something that can be made fandom-blind friendly. If you do decide to quickly create a new sample, like I did, a lot of this will still apply.

What to look for? Find yourself a story that's within 1 to 2k words, or slightly over if you're willing to whittle something down. If you aren't a short story writer, take a look at your longfics. Often, scenes and chapters can act like self-enclosed stories and with a bit of editing can serve as a perfect sample. For example, you might have a scene where a character is nervous about throwing another character a birthday party and that nervousness/tension is resolved within the >2k scene. In the midst of your larger story, you've told us a smaller story! It's perfect. During this process, you will want to make sure you're picking out a story with a plot and not a vignette. Looking at the birthday party example above, a vignette would be Character A's observations of the party he has thrown for Character B. He might wax poetically how he loves the man, and how pleased he is Character B is enjoying himself. The same is a story if Character A is a little bit in love with Character B and is nervous about giving her a perfect birthday party. The party ensues, shenanigans happen (or don't happen), and their relationship grows stronger because of it. I think of it like this: a vignette is like a photograph in written form, while a story is a moving picture.

Now to Edit. It'd be amazing to find the perfect piece right off the bat, but most of us don't have something that fits in every way. Even if you did, you'd want to go over it at least once more for spelling and grammar. So here is some things to look for in your pre-existing piece. You can find the rubric here to help guide you more, but don't let perfect be the enemy of opportunity. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes and the judges are also writers.

As I noted above, go over spelling and grammar to the best of your abilities. Editors can do a lot, but it helps to show you have a decent grasp of mechanics. If you are lucky enough to have someone who can beta you at the last minute, send it on over for a second check. Send in your best effort and let your words shine.

Read the piece as if you have no knowledge of your fandom, or if you can, have someone with no knowledge go through and see if anything trips them up. Making something fandom-blind friendly can be as simple as explaining fandom specific terms and adding brief descriptions for characters.

Check to make sure you have all the elements of writing in your selection: description, dialogue, exposition, action, and inner monologue. Your characters should exist in an environment they interact with, they should have thoughts and feelings (a unique voice), their conversation should flow, and their bodies should do something while they're talking. Like grammar and spelling, these are important writing mechanics. Not every scene needs all of these things, but it's important to show you can do all of these things.

Trim if you need to. Unforth, the founder of the press, has written a post on editing an over-length story down to size.

Check to see if anything needs to be tagged.

Now check out this post on how to write a pitch for the story you want to write for the anthology.

Most importantly, be confident. You write better than you give yourself credit for. I know you do. We are our own worst critics and what we see in ourselves isn't what everyone else sees. In the words of Shia LaBeouff: Just Do It. This is your chance to shine, and you can shine! Even if you don't make it your first try, the feedback you receive could help you grow so you can make another attempt. You rock, and you are worth taking the risk. (If anyone is curious, this is the story I used as a sample. It's posted on Royal Road: Will You Go)

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Any suggestions and advice for publishing short stories online?

Oh, I have lots of advice, weather you all want to hear it or not is the question.

but here are a few things I think are very important.

1. 

The big one is write what you want to write. Sometimes some subjects are more popular than others and you get stuck in the rut of wanting people to like your stuff, but I tell you if you aren’t writing what you want to write than its going to feel like a chore and you’re going to want to quit. This has happened to me a few times where the stuff I WANT to write wasn’t doing as well so I turned to stuff the masses liked more and was just miserable, but I’ve come to the conclusion that writing what you want is most important.

2. 

And I think this is what you might have been looking for. And take this advice with a grain of salt because this is how it worked for me. 

Being successful in short stories.

The internet is a fickle place. People come here for quick cheep thrills, and are not easily invested in characters. I sort of accidentally did it the right way, where I focused on episodic subjects rather than characters for the first fifty to a hundred stories, then slowly began to add in character development when people were invested. A lot of people I've seen try to get into HASO have this problem. They know the genre is popular but they introduce a universe and characters too quick. People take one look and go, oh that’s too long, or uh I have to learn about more characters. I think, if you want to get into writing short stories, its best to hook your viewers with a concept first and then slowly build on the characters over time until you have snagged them without them even knowing. Than you can play to their obsessive need for worldbuilding once they are already hooked onto you.

Funny things sell. Yeah I know internet viewers love angst, but that's only when they know the characters really well. Starting off its best to sell something funny, and then give them the angst later.

3.

People on the internet are pushy. And if you get a big enough following someone is going to argue with you about your world or try to convince you to do something you don’t want to do.

Don’t listen to them.

Yeah sure taking ideas and concepts is great. It helps keep the readers engaged if they know you are at least listening to their ideas on occasion, but if you really don’t want to do it, than don’t do it. This sort of circles back to tip one, but this one involves a bit of peer pressure. 

4.

Ignore critics. I know this one might be controversial as constructive criticism is good. The issue is people on the internet do not know how to go about constructive criticism. They will say something rude and then be like “I was just trying to help” that’s not how you do it. If I am going to take criticism from anyone and really apply it, it has to be from someone I know and trust so I know they have my, and my story’s best interests at heart. Perhaps they may be trying to help, but writing for people is super hard. Your putting a very personal piece of yourself out for the whole world to see, and even well meaning criticism can be rough.

Did you know that there are a lot of authors who don’t read comments or fanmail on or abut their books for this reason? They have editors and people they trust to tell them what they need to fix.

Perhaps this is a bit in depth, for what you were looking for, but if you want me to elaborate on specific topics, I would love to help. I love to write, and if I can get other people into doing it.  I will consider that a win. Please ask questions and message me about writing. I would love to help

[yamayuandadu]

Wikipedia troubles, or “Father Enlil, (...) don't let your precious metal be alloyed there with the dirt of the underworld“

clarification regarding my post about troubles with a certain site i’ve been contributing to a lot for the past few months. To preface this with a mythical metaphor: in Inanna’s Descent, when Ninshubur pleads with the other gods to save Inanna, she uses the formula “don't let anyone kill your daughter in the underworld. Don't let your precious metal be alloyed there with the dirt of the underworld. Don't let your precious lapis lazuli be split there with the mason's stone. Don't let your boxwood be chopped up there with the carpenter's wood.” Currently this is what is happening to the Inanna article, I am afraid.

So, long story short, as most of you probably have noticed I am contributing relatively often to wikipedia as of late, starting with the creation of a Matara-jin article a few months ago. Among other things I wrote, rewrote or at least significantly improved the following:

articles about Mesopotamian medicine goddesses:

Ninkarrak from the western frontier, Nintinugga, who was associated with funerary offerings, Ninisina, who took over Inanna's gimmick in Isin, Bau, who became a healing goddess by chance, Gula, who eclipsed her peers - as expected from someone named “the great” articles about Inanna's courtiers and associated goddesses:

Ninshubur, her sidekick (my best work overall imo, the one article I wrote which I think fully deserves the “good” badge but I am not vain enough to apply myself), Ninegal, a goddess turned into her title, Nanaya, just the horny part distilled (bought a book just for this one!), Irnina, inexplicably cthtonic personified victory

articles about Mesopotamian gods too insignificant for anyone else to care about them:

Tishpak, a god so foreign nobody knows where he came from, Sebitti, seven warlike brothers, Enmesharra, Enlil's evil uncle, Urash, not the earth goddess – there are two... Urashes, Ningishzida, Dumuzi but with a snake gimmick, Zababa, a war god who's NOT Nergal, Ninimma, Enlil's court scribe, Gatumdag, popular as ersatz mom among kings of Lagash, Manzat, the rainbow

articles about Mesopotamian goddesses whose main trait was being someone's wife: Marduk's wife Sarpanit, Adad's wife Shala, Shamash's wife Aya

articles about Hurrian gods: Alalu, primordial vanquished king of gods, Kumarbi, his son, divine Saturday morning cartoon villain, Ninatta and Kulitta, a pair of divine musicians who always appeared together, Allani, oddly joyful queen of the dead, Šauška, who was so firmly genderfluid there's two of them in the most famous image of the Hurrian pantheon, Lelluri, a mountain goddess, Kubaba, who isn't Cybele, Goddess of the Night, who has no proper name despite being a case study in important religious rituals, Belet Nagar, who was like Ashur before Ashur got popular, Nupatik, who was important but we don't know why

articles about Eblaite gods: Ishara, “independent lady of love associated with scorpion and cannabis” popular everywhere where she went, Aštabi, a war god who really wanted to be like the weather god, Hadabal, who used to be famous but vanished out of blue, Kura, whose mask had to be renewed each year, Adamma, who left her husband to hang out with Kubaba

articles about Elamite gods: Pinikir, sort of like a bootleg Ishtar and an international sensation, Jabru, who exists only in Mesopotamian texts about Elam, Humban, mandate of heaven personified, Ruhurater, oddly obscure creator of mankind, Inshushinak, the underworld judge and his Akkadian helpers Lagamar and Ishmekarab, and Simut, the “strange star”

articles which were borderline unusable before due to low quality of sources:

Astarte, who was much more than vintage Bible scholars might lead you to believe (but not a fertility goddess), Dagan, who wasn't a fishman, Qetesh whose existence proves that Egyptians were fond of making ocs for their favorite foreign franchises

assorted articles about general topics pertaining to Mesopotamia:

Sukkal,  Hurrian religion (ongoing project), List of Elamite gods; also a much needed overhaul of List of Mesopotamian deities (ongoing project)

and, last but not least, a solid chunk of the Inanna article.

Two guiding principles of these ventures were the following:

people who cannot access academic resources or don't know how to use them and as a result rely on wikipedia aren't any less deserving of receiving up to date, credible information

Wikipedia's mode of operation isn't flawed in itself and the only problem is lack of will to edit it

I think I did a pretty good job at these two things, honestly. I made sure to rely on rigorous, credible, and, if possible, easy to understand sources, and removed the horrors which sometimes were hidden in bibliographies: a book written by a hate preacher who believed Bush didn't start enough wars; 1930s race science; what I can only describe as a hybrid of Woman's Encyclopedia and a bdsm manual; a fringe book asserting that Minoan palaces were graveyards and that Egyptians only learned mummification from superior Minoans; etc. Of course, it’s a thankless job, but as long as I could make the site more credible undisturbed, that’s fine by me. I even got some help in a few cases, most notably that of the god list, indicating that the work was on some level appreciated. The only problem I've encountered prior to today came from editing the Ereshkigal article – I've removed the claim the Burney relief depicts “Lilith”; this edit was however undone. I left a message on the editor's page, complete with links to articles about the Burney relief AND about the possible Mesopotamian forerunners of Lilith (who are undeniably not depicted on the Burney relief). They're responded rather dismissively to it, and asserted that even if unproven, a connection existed, so I pretty quickly gave up, as they relied on sources which were outdated or fringe. I focused on fixing two long, important articles instead: the god list, and the Inanna article. Some parts of it were alright, but there was much work needed: fringe theories trying to assign greater antiquity to relatively late myths, and frankly insane hyperdiffusionism, had a prominent place in the article, while well attested association between Inanna and similar deities from cultures closely associated with Mesopotamia wasn't, much of the info was outdated, scandalous hot takes about Dumuzi's treatment were all over the place, the section on Inanna's descent favored Jungian confabulations over credible research, etc. My progress on fixing that had been slow and steady. However, today the aforementioned person intervened when, in between editing the Inanna article and the god list, I reverted a dumb, brief , unsourced edit – made by a third party - which asserted that Inanna's descent is “similar to Persephone” which it isn't – if anything is similar to Persephone in Mesopotamian mythology it's Nergal and Ereshkigal. They pretty clearly didn't take it well: not only the unfounded speculation went back up, but they also added a “source” affirming it, from a controversial -medical- author, not an Assyriologist. They also added Persephone to the list of Inanna equivalents in the infobox, removing any credibility whatsoever from it. The author of the claim this is all about relied on sources so antiquated that they interpreted Inanna's sexual character as her being a child-snatching boogeyman. Inanna's primary connection to boogeymen is that she was invoked, alongside Nanaya whose sexual connection is even more blatant, to -ward off- child-snatching boogeyman Lamashtu (whose character was not sexual, because sumerians and akkadians weren't victorian aristrocrats and weren't paranoically afraid of sex - and why would a demon representing death in infancy be sexual in nature, anyway?). Simply put, the book in mention is worthless as a source. Of course, I reverted that; when it went back up (despite a justification being included in my reversal) I edited the Inanna article to remove this outlandish claim (you have a limited number of possible reversions per day for some arcane reason), also adding other information about Inanna I had prepared: a few tidbits on Assyrian royal inscriptions which involved the warlike and erotic aspects at once, suggesting that transgressors should lose both potency and bravery in battle, some info on love poetry about her and Dumuzi, that sort of stuff. The weird person reverted my edit – removing valuable info – and reinstated the claim. For a moment I lost my cool and reverted this edit, which sadly put me in the reversion overuse danger zone, but which was a necessary sacrifice to save the credibility of article I put weeks of work into. See the edit history here. As you can guess HaniwaEnthusiast is me. I left messages critical of this decision on the talk page of the article and on the talk page of the outlandish editor. Sadly, they responded rather rudely, and basically declared Wikipedia isn't meant to be credible, and that favoring academic sources over random crap is an “ivory tower” approach and should be discouraged; they also insulted me but that's much less relevant and much less hurtful than their desire to spread lies. If you ask me it's more of an ivory tower attitude to say people who cannot access or don't know how to use academic sources do not deserve equally credible info and need to be at the mercy of weird wikipedia editors. What's the main problem here, though? That person is a mod. Not a random user. They have 16 years of Wikipedia experience. They spread fringe, pop-spiritual claims about Lilith and the like, so I assume they have an ulterior religious agenda of some sort, which they seem to actively encourage judging from these ventures. I'm not sure if the Inanna article is a lost cause yet but I do think the weird addition of Persephone they made is a step into some hellish direction, and I am entirely certain I cannot win this conflict. Simply put, I think that if this is the sort of staff the site has, this is a lost cause. I am not sure if I will go back to editing.

[literaticat]

Even if you make sure you are well within the appropriate word count for your genre and age category, could an agent still ask you to rewrite ti reduce word count?

Of course they could. Just about anything could happen.

Will they? Probably not.

Here's a truth-bomb that I am pretty sure none of the authors reading this will believe (though I BEG YOU to try and believe it) --

99% of agents and editors don't care about "word count" nearly as much as authors think we do.

(There is ONE exception, and that is in specific kinds of e-book/audiobook original or category romance for particular lines, that absolutely must fall within certain word count parameters -- that is *literally* the only time I have ever had any editor say a word to me about word count. And that exception applies to very few of you. And if it applies to you -- you know it ahead of time.)

We want books to be the length of books. The length that they need to be, in order to be a complete and satisfying story. We give very general ideas of word count (with VERY WIDE parameters) just to give you a vague idea of what the "norms" are in your category. If something was *wildly* different from the norm, that might be a problem, because then it wouldn't be the length of a book. Like - if it is an extremely low word count, then it might be a short story or a novella, not a novel. If it is an extremely high word count, then it might be better off as two books. At a certain point, it would have to be -- after all, we are making physical objects, so we are limited by physical constraints -- there is only so big a book can be, and still be comfortable to carry and read. As long as your book is generally about the length of, you know, a normal book... that's fine. If you are anywhere in the ballpark, you're fine. Even if you are in the parking lot of the ballpark, that's fine. Really!

So, since you ARE in the ballpark, I can say with some amount of confidence that they are NOT going to ask you to cut down on words just because of some nebulous "word count" reason (unless they are asking that because it is for one of those few romance imprints or similar that DOES insist on x-amount of words, in which case, they would tell you that).

They might, though, if the book is reading too long. In other words -- there are lengthy books that read very quickly, that you race through and don't even notice the length. There can also be shorter books that drag -- maybe the pacing is off, or there are points that feel repetitive or redundant. (Have you ever been to a movie and said afterward, "that was good, but it could have been about twenty minutes shorter"? Like that.)

So, if your book is dragging, an agent might well say, "look, this feels about 10k words too long, and here's what I suggest."

(ETA: Likewise, if your book feels like it is too short -- like, there needs to be more there to make it totally satisfying as a novel -- they might suggest you ADD something. But it probably wouldn't be *because of the literal word count* that they would ask that, per se -- it would be because it didn't FEEL LIKE a complete novel yet!)

Make sense?

[thecraftyfoxthewriterscorner]

Using Descriptive Language

Hey Story Crafters,

While I was reading Hannah Whitten’s For the Wolf, one detail about her writing that caught the attention of my writer-editor brain is her use of deliberate descriptive language.

This is different from conscious language, which focuses on the intent behind the use of certain language in written work, and how that language may be received by the reader. Fiction editor Crystal Shelley is an expert on this topic, and in addition to this excellent blog post on conscious language, she has a conscious language style guide for authors available for purchase on her website, if you’re interested in learning more.

Deliberate descriptive language is a little different; it focuses on craft instead of the reader, though effective descriptive language should still leave an impression on the reader. In the most basic sense, descriptive language uses imagery to illustrate a comparison and/or emotion to the reader. Hopefully, you’ll evoke an emotional response or resonance from the reader as well.

Example of descriptive language: Dread lanced down his spine, freezing his limbs.

However, leveling up your descriptive language is a goal to set for the editing phase. First, finish your novel or short story. After you’re done writing, review the themes of your novel, the setting(s), and the personality of your protagonist (or personalities of your main point-of-view characters, if there are multiple POVs).

Then, during the editing phase—more specifically, the line editing phase—you can start reviewing the existing descriptive language for opportunities to be more deliberate with it.

Taking character personality into account while using descriptive language calls back to a few earlier posts I wrote on dialogue—more specifically, how dialogue (both internal and external) should be unique, distinct, to each character. This is true for descriptive language as well. For example, if Character A has the ability to manipulate water, the descriptive language in their internal dialogue might feature a lot of references to liquid, coolness (temperature-wise), and/or aquatic life.

A reader’s emotional response or resonance to descriptive language, which I mentioned earlier, applies to this idea of using descriptive language that suits a character’s unique personality. I strongly believe this aspect of descriptive language—highlighting a character’s unique personality and voice—is important to creating compelling characters, and a compelling story. As an editor, I do my best to help authors achieve this effect during a line edit.

Links to dialogue posts on Substack: [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Editing Dialogue]

A couple of examples…

Example 1: For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten

The main setting is a magical forest, and the protagonist, Red, has magic that influences plant-life. A lot of descriptive language in the novel focuses on nature, of plant-life growing or dying. Sometimes it’s described in a beautiful way, and sometimes in a terrifying way, depending on the mood of the scene.

A description of Red trying to use her magic:

Letting out a long, slow breath, she tried to quiet her racing thoughts, to focus her intention. Growth, roots digging deeper into the soil as ivy leaves spread wide.

When it was clear in her mind, she reached for her power. Tentative, the barest touch, but it opened like a flower. (For the Wolf, 145)

Additionally, Red associates her love interest with things she loves. She loves to read and spend time in a library; her love interest spends a lot of time in a library. So this library smell is something she notices, especially when she’s feeling attraction for him.

Example 2: The Library of the Dead by T.L. Huchu

Note: I’m currently reading this novel, so I’m only picking out a couple of examples from what I’ve read so far.

The protagonist, Ropa, can see and talk to ghosts. Which means there’s a lot of language involving death imagery:

“This place [the everyThere] makes me sick. I feel as if I’m decomposing and worms are eating my body.” (The Library of the Dead, 51)

Her voice is strong, and the use of deliberate descriptive language makes it even more distinct:

“Alien as the idea may seem, this plane of existence [the everyThere] is grafted to our own like a stillborn Siamese twin.” (The Library of the Dead, 51)

From what I’ve read of the book so far, there isn’t another character who would describe the plane of existence where ghosts linger as one that’s “grafted to our own like a stillborn Siamese twin.” It’s a very specific image, unique to this specific character’s distinct voice.

These are just some of my thoughts and observations on deliberate descriptive language. Feel free to add any thoughts or examples below.

Remember, don’t try to experiment with deliberate descriptive language until after your novel or short story is complete. Focus on getting the story out first, and then on developmental editing, to make sure your story is as strong as it can be. Experimenting with language happens in the next stage, with line editing, when you can focus on tweaking sentences around to improve flow, clarity, and impact through descriptive language.

If you are at the line editing stage of your editing journey and you’re in need of another set of eyes, I might be able to help you out! I offer line editing as one of my services—and it’s my favorite type of editing to help authors with.

Learn about my editing services!

If you’re interested in working with me, get in touch! I’d love to hear from you, and to learn about your project. I’m currently booking clients up until December.

Send me an email!

Until next time!

Best,

Leah

[klaineaddictsfanficrecs]

Fic Name: Butterfly Wings

Fic Author(s): HKVoyage

Fic Summary: A fashion blog started at University launched Blaine Anderson’s fortune and fame. As Vogue’s new editor-in-chief, he is struggling to find an original angle for an upcoming issue. Kurt Hummel has recently arrived in New York City after finishing high school, and is having no luck building a musical theater career, so he decides to explore another passion of his: fashion. He applies for an internship at Vogue, and Isabelle sees in him the perfect fresh face to liven up the magazine, and convinces him to try out as a model. Kurt meets Blaine, and in spite of their 10-year age difference, sparks fly. Can they overcome misunderstandings and sabotage to find their happily-ever-after? Klaine model AU.

Fic Trope(s): Model Kurt, Business Man Blaine, Age Gap, Slow Burn

Fic Length (Word Count): 212,446 words

Fic Rating: Mature

Fic Warnings or Triggers: Angst

Fic Status: Complete

My Review: I know I'm taking the easy road by reviewing this author because she's fairly popular in the fandom, but there's one main reason that I'm writing a review for this particular story. In short, it's amazing. It pulled me in immediately with its interesting storyline and interesting depictions of my two favorite boys.

I especially love how the boys are different from their canon personalities, but at the same time, they are still Kurt and Blaine. Blaine is the confident, smart, sweet, strong character that he was in the show and Kurt is the sweet, sassy, baby penguin at first who morphs into a much more mature young man.

The slow burn in this story is tormentingly sweet as ththis ste author takes her time with letting the boys discover their true feelings for one another. I won't lie. It took me so long to do this review because I decided to read this again before I reviewed it, and I had forgotten how much I had yelled at the boys and their obliviousness the first time that I read it. I love to torture myself with this trope though, and this is masterfully written.

I think my favorite thing about this story though is how beautifully crafted it is. I love the referenced canon lines interspearsed throughout the dialogue. I love all of the clever connections to the title. I love the witty humor spread Ithroughout the story. And I love the premise. I mean, admit it. We all wanted to see Kurt as a model, in the pages of Vogue where he belongs because no man should be that beautiful. This is just a brilliant story. Seriously, stop reading this and read the story instead. You know you want to click the link. Go for it.

@hkvoyage

Fic Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7308514/chapters/16599232

[writerforfun]

How to Write Young Adult Fiction: 10 Tips from Legendary Author R.L. Stine

What Are the Characteristics of YA Fiction?

YA fiction is a genre of literature that bridges the gap between middle-grade fiction (which is typically targeted at middle schoolers) and novels written for adults. Some of its characteristics include:

Age-appropriate for readers approximately 14 and up

Primarily targeted at readers in high school, but there are YA readers in all age groups

Some YA novels, like the Harry Potter series, have been read by more adults than children.

Protagonists are almost always teenagers, although characters of all ages can be represented

Some culturally risque topics—including violence, sex, and death—may be present

Young adult novels are typically in the range of 60,000 to 100,000 words R.L. Stine’s 10 Tips on Writing for Children and Young Adults

Robert Lawrence Stine, better known as R.L. Stine, is one of the most recognized authors of children’s horror novels alive today. He’s been called “the Stephen King of children’s literature” and has penned more than 300 books for kids aged 7 to 15 years old.

Below he offers a number of essential tips to keep in mind if you want to learn to start writing for children and young adults. Consider these principles when developing your own writing skills. Don’t forget to utilize creative writing prompts as often as possible. Professionals throughout the children’s publishing industry—from executives to editors to your fellow children’s book writers—keep these ideas in mind when they’re evaluating the work of new authors.

Don’t worry about moral lessons. People think that everything written for children needs to have some sort of moral lesson. But it’s good to remember that some books can have entertainment as their goal. Adults have the freedom to read whatever they like. Why aren’t children sometimes afforded the privilege to read for kicks alone?

Kids want to be entertained. Be aware of this double standard as you enter into the world of children’s literature. Kids want to be entertained, and you are competing with movies and technology in an unprecedented way. You need to write something they’ll want to read as much as watching something on their iPad. Approach your novel with this in mind, and you just might get a kid hooked on reading.

Tune in to your target audience. In order to entertain, you have to be tuned in to your target age group. Middle-grade books are generally aimed at kids aged seven to 12 years old, and young adult or “YA” fiction is geared toward 11 to 15-year-olds. Interestingly enough, a huge number of adults now read YA novels—which is also something to keep in mind.

Kids like to read about kids who are just slightly older than them. Most of the characters in Goosebumps novels are 12-year-olds, and the characters in Fear Street books are usually between 16 and 18.

Hang out with kids as much as possible. If you have kids of your own, pay attention to what they and their friends find interesting. If you know teachers, talk to them. Ask your friends and family about their kids, and what they like to do. Volunteer at schools or other appropriate venues. Kids are smart, and they can immediately sense if something they’re reading is out of touch. Avoid specific pop culture references when possible.

If you can pull it off, kids make the best fans. Children have a deep desire to live inside the books they read. Create a world they can’t wait to go back to and you’ve developed a captive audience that’s difficult to replicate among adults.

Keep your target audience in mind when coming up with themes. When writing middle-grade fiction, you want to entertain young people with creepy, spooky stories—not terrify them entirely. No one in R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series ever dies. There are no guns, and if there’s a ghost, it’s from a death that occurred long before the story took place. For the most part, real-life terror should be kept out of middle-grade horror. Readers need to be aware of that the monsters are fantasies, not reality. It’s possible to build much scarier narratives when kids feel confident that none of the frightening things could happen to them in real life.

Keep your stories full of short, descriptive sentences. Kids don’t have to learn new words or struggle to get through a passage. There’s nothing to keep them from reading on to the next chapter. So be aware of your readers’ vocabulary level. The difference between a nine- and 15-year-old’s reading ability is often staggering, and you have to write in such a way that kids find your story both interesting and accessible.

The opposite principle applies to YA horror. You want it to feel “real,” as you are writing for a much more sophisticated audience. R.L. Stine jokes that in Fear Street he “kills off a lot of teenagers.” In order to scare this age group, they have to believe that everything that’s happening is real.

YA horror comes with its own set of rules. If you choose to pursue YA horror, you’ll need to make a decision about how far you are willing to go with language, violence, and sex. R.L. Stine’s YA material doesn’t have sex scenes (he jokes that there’s lots of “heavy kissing”). However, other authors are taking things further these days, and the standards are constantly changing. See what’s out there and determine which end of the spectrum you’d likely find yourself.

Article source: here

[werewolves-are-real]

hot take: writers on this site are amateurs. And you can’t expect them to be perfect.

Writing is hard - specifically, writing so that the audience comes to the exact conclusions/perspectives you want is difficult, and fic writers vary wildly in terms of experience and skill in this area. Short stories or fics are also often unedited, not workshopped or reviewed with others beforehand, and sometimes posted immediately. Some fic writers are TEENAGERS.

It’s insane to see people get worked up and indignant because writers - who are usually well-intentioned - make mistakes and portray situations poorly. (Or, as the case may be, run wild with headcanons that might be Problematic). Even if you dislike the implications of a scene, a characterization, a situation - there’s a big difference between someone trying to make a point and just *failing* versus someone trying to be malicious.

I don’t see this a lot in comments on AO3 - though I admit I don’t exactly scrawl through other people’s comment sections either - but people sure do like to get angry on tumblr. And the ‘cancel culture’ here can take things to ridiculous levels.

When I was taking an introductory creative writing course at college, someone in my class wrote a short story about an interfaith couple, a christian woman and muslim man, visiting the christian’s home for christmas. It was very brief, and if I recall correctly the big scene was the muslim eating pork to fit in/make his girlfriend’s parents happy.

I thought this was pretty gross - it read in a way that portrayed the muslim character as giving up important parts of his identity/religion to satisfy other people’s expectations, and framed this as a positive thing. The writer insisted that this wasn’t true, that the story was meant to show the importance of ‘compromise’ to make other people happy. It was supposed to show that some things in life - like getting along with other people, especially family - should be prioritized, and therefore wasn’t islamophobic at all. And they would know, because they were jewish and also didn’t eat pork. 

And I said, okay, great. We’re not talking about you being jewish. I’m saying that this story has problems, and there’s nothing in it that talks about compromise, no hint that this christian couple is trying to ‘compromise’ or be considerate of the muslim character’s needs, and either way it’s wrong to think that it’s positive for someone to have to sacrifice such an important ideal for a relationship.

I would like to emphasize; I do not believe that this person was islamophobic. And yes, they were Jewish, and they weren’t trying to trivialize Islamic dietary restrictions either. The author was not malicious and I genuinely believe they were trying to write a story with a good moral meaning, but they did a bad job, it wasn’t portrayed well, and to me - as a reader - it held a bad and radically different message regardless of intent.

This is something worth pointing out to them in a workshop, obviously, since we were trying to improve each other’s writing. It is NOT something to get angry about, and it’s not a reason to accuse the author of being racist or islamophobic or whatever. They were not a professional writer, and imo they didn’t do a good job. The end. 

I’m rambling but just - some of you need to calm down a bit and remember to be kind with people who are literally amateurs writing for fun. People who might be posting as soon as something’s written because they don’t want to stress over a *hobby*, people who do not have professional editors combing over their works and offering suggestions. Writing well is hard and it takes a lot of effort and skill to convey the meaning you *want*, and even then, people come into stories with their own backgrounds and assumptions that might not be shared. 

And? If you accept that this is true for fanfic - it also applies to TV writing/professional authors/etc, at least to some degree. Yes, these people should be held to higher standards - they *are* doing this professionally, they have editors, etc - but writers still aren’t going to be perfect. They’re human, and humans make mistakes, and humans aren’t always aware of *what they don’t know* about a minority group/sensitive situation. You can accept this and still want them to do better. even call for them to do better, without outright ‘canceling’ someone or deciding they’re an irredeemable bigot. This won’t do anything but intimidate writers into *not* tackling difficult issues, which presumably is not the goal.

And the same principal ABSOLUTELY applies to everyday posts on this hellsite. I’m not saying the issues don’t ‘matter,’ but you can’t reasonably expect every single person to have perfect understanding of all the latest Discourses everywhere, about everything, AND be able to write casual posts with perfect vocab/phrasing that can’t be possibly (often deliberately!!) misinterpreted as hostile. People get angry about the tiniest things on here, often reading into messages to get angry about a message that wasn’t in the original post to begin with. 

For example - people getting angry about posters who use ‘outdated’ terminology. This is not malicious - people just aren’t up-to-date on whatever is lately concerned the ‘correct’ vocabulary.  Or, another example - if someone discusses a show and calls a bi character/actor gay they are probably not trying to deny bi people exist, they most likely a) don’t know better or b) just spoke imprecisely. That’s it!! You can correct them, I guess, but why are you getting so upset? I see long, angry, pointed rants about this all the time, tacked onto casual one-sentence posts which, believe it or not, were not meant as political declarations. I might tell people I’m a lesbian bc I don’t want to dredge into the details of my precise brand of queer and it gets the point across - people do that too.

People are going to use the wrong words and fumble, sometimes. That’s... really not the most important thing about what’s being said. Look at a person’s attitudes, not whether their language is perfectly PC.

Forgive mistakes, be patient. Start assuming that people have *good intentions* and you’ll be a lot happier

[opbackgrounds]

As many of you noticed, the other day I posted Part 1 in what has become a series on my thoughts on sexism in One Piece. If you are somehow seeing this post first, I would recommend clicking the link as I’ll be adding to the foundation I built there. 

I already had some pretty strong thoughts on this topic before receiving the original ask, but in the spirit of not wanting to sound like a douche academic integrity I decided to do a little cursory research into what other people meant when they said that One Piece is sexist. Here’s a collage of some of my favorite hot takes

As much as I’m...confused? Unsurprised yet somehow disappointed?...I don’t want to mock or belittle the people who feel this way. I think one of the most dangerous things in our modern internet age is that discussions only get surface deep before they devolve into shouting matches, and when the other side is vilified as ignorant or immoral or whatever it only serves to divide people into groups that grow evermore hostile to one another as the shouting matches get louder. It’s a short jump from your opinions are stupid and bad to you are stupid and bad for having them and I really don’t want to go there. 

Tl; dr: I don’t care if you disagree with anything I’m about to say, but if you send me harassing messages please know that I will laugh at you for presuming to think that I care.

Dropping the S Bomb

So first things first, a couple definitions. Sexism is prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination against a certain gender, in this case women. Chauvinism is excessive or prejudiced support for one's own cause, group, or sex. Misogyny is dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.

I start with definitions, because there are an astounding number of people who misuse these terms when making arguments. When talking about things like character design, Oda’s typical hour-glass figure is leaning into a stereotype that leads to the objectification of (fictional) women. An argument could be made that One Piece is sexist in that way. 

But it’s not that cut and dry, and I am always of the opinion that context matters. I argued in my previous post that there would be a wider variety of female character designs if there were more women, and the exaggerated aesthetic of the series lends itself to the exaggerated busts and butts typical of One Piece ladies. 

There’s an interview that came out around the time Strong World was released that I think is helpful when talking about this sort of thing. 

I approached it thinking that since I’m drawing for a boys’ comic magazine, then it’s my job to make sure they enjoy what they’re reading. When you actually do become a professional you’ll start getting fan letters and other things and you’ll soon find that the overwhelming majority of them are from girls. Boys just aren’t the type to pick up a pen. (laughs) They don’t have things like stationary or stamps and they don’t think about going through the ‘grueling task’ of writing someone just to say, “That was cool.” Boys are a life form that enjoy something but won’t bother to tell you that they actually do.

So I learned that girls will flood you with their opinions and when I took at step back and looked at the world of manga, I realized that there are a lot of people out there that made me think, “This [author] is really just going along with the girls’ opinions.” And ultimately, if you’re considering those opinions as the ‘needs of the customer’ when you write the story, you’re just left with a girl’s manga. (laughs) It’s like, if you do that, you’re only writing to entertain girls, and that’s just wrong.

Oda writes for his target demographic, pre-teen and teenage boys. He doesn’t seem to care much for the opinions of his female audience, which again could be perceived as sexist.

And to an extent maybe it is, but I also think it’s smart. You only have to look at the mess that is the new Star Wars trilogy to see what happens when a storyteller tries to appease a fan base. The end result is that everyone goes home from the theatre miserable. 

Humanity has been telling stories since time immemorial. They’re so ingrained into into the collective psyche that we have developed certain metanarriatives, types, and archetypes that have in turn been refined and distilled and applied to certain types of stories meant for certain types of people. The “rules” for telling a “boy’s story” are different than the “rules” for telling a “girl’s story”, just like I would not expect a romance to be told in the same way as one of Shonen Jump’s battle manga.

Incidentally, this is part of the reason why I think many romances in shonen fall flat. Stories best suited for fighting, camaraderie, coming of age, and growing into the best version of yourself are forced to try to include tropes and story beats that just don’t fit, and the end result is often just...bad.  

And, yes, these rules are arbitrary. They can and do change. Just look at shonen battle manga of the 80s vs the titles that were popular when One Piece started in the 90s vs what’s running today. The fact that Oda maintained an audience for over two decades while writing for a demographic that ages out every few years is nothing short of incredible. He clearly has a pulse on what his audience wants while maintaining a clear vision for the direction he wants One Piece to go.

Nor is this an individual effort. Oda works with his assistants and editors when it comes to making these decisions. It’s impossible to say how much he’s been influenced by these other voices, both in the past and now, even if he is ultimately the person responsible for what does and does not get put to paper.

What’s more, society changes. What is considered sexist now would not be thought of as such a generation ago. Our descendants will shake their heads at all the crazy, backward, terrible things we think are normative, and that’s not even taking into consideration differences in culture that not only exist between generations, but nations. America is going to have different ideas of what is and isn’t appropriate behavior than Japan, which undoubtably influences Oda’s sense of humor, which in turn influences the sorts of gags he puts into his comic.

I want to walk a fine line here, because I think there are objective standards that people should be held to regarding sexism while also acknowledging that getting people to agree to those standards are is impossible. If people truly feel as strongly about Oda’s character design and fan service as they make it seem online, then by all means comment on it. It’s not going to change Oda’s mind, but maybe with increased awareness the next generation of storytellers will be better. 

At the same time, I think that the indignant masses need to take a deep, hard look at what they’re calling sexism. Are you really going to claim, as I’ve seen, that all fan service is sexist? Are you really going to say that Robin and Nami are weak characters because they don’t get fights? Are you really going to say that Oda’s the most sexist mangaka out there, using, Fairy Tale as an example of female characters done right?

Because if you are, you’re setting yourself up to be thought as just as vapid and uniformed as those who are only reading for tits and ass. There are legitimate criticisms to be had, but just because you don’t like a thing doesn’t mean it’s bad storytelling. Just because Oda puts something out there that you don’t approve of doesn’t make it sexist. Audiences need to be better at thinking critically about the media they consume and learn to look past the sensationalism of click bait articles to truly explore the issues at hand. 

This is getting long again, so I think I’m going to split this into another post where I’ll dive into some specific examples within the series itself. Once again, thank you for your time. I promise I’ll wrap this up soon and move onto other, hopefully more positive, things.    

[adam-t-cox]

Self Publishing Overview

Alrighty,

Time to talk about self-publishing. What is it? How do I start? And why on earth would I want to do all that work?

In self-publishing you are going to wear all the hats. Every. Single. One. unless you pay someone else to wear one for you ie. a professional cover artist or designer. So, this will be very labour intensive for you and take a lot of your time. If you are working full-time like I was going into this, then be prepared for a lot of late nights or very early mornings to get the work done.

You are responsible for every step through the process and the very first one might seem like a nonstarter for most of you, but I’ll explain why its very important later in this post. Here’s the list of steps:

1. Read and understand the legal agreements for each service of each platform you are planning on publishing on!

2. Commission a professional copyeditor.

3. Commission a professional artist or cover designer, possibly both. And get the process started, this could take a month or more to complete.

4. Create accounts with all of your platforms.

5. Create an account with your countries ISBN regulatory body.

6. Get the ISBN numbers.

7. Format your paperback and save it as a print-ready PDF.

8. Order proof copies of the paperback version of your book.

9. Format your eBook and compile it into a .ePub file.

10. Make sure all of your materials for publishing are ready. (All artwork, covers, and text files)

11. Review and make any necessary changes on each format.

12. Publish your work and celebrate all of your hard work. You’ll deserve a weeklong vacation by the end of it.

13. Apply for your copyright! it’s cheap and easy compared to the alternative legal fight you may have if you don’t!

Now I’ll be going into more detail on each of these (excluding #1) in later posts but for now I’ll give a brief overview of what to expect from each one.

First, reading that damned legalese. This is something you want to do with a large pot of coffee, and a giant bag of peanut M&M’s. I won’t sugar coat it, reading this crap sucks. I hated it, but I’m glad I did read it. This is the binding agreement between you and the platform you will be using. It details the terms of the agreement, the rights and responsibilities of each party involved in the agreement, and any penalties that will be incurred if the agreement is broken. The penalty part is for you, none of these entities are going to be held liable for anything that happens to you or your work. Read these agreements carefully! The three platforms I used have agreements that were easy to read, understand, and had nothing I didn’t expect to see in them. One platform, who I won’t name because their legal department can be a bunch of dicks most of the time* was super sketchy in their agreement. It was about three times the length of the others, and basically gave them a lot of rights they shouldn’t have when it comes to your work.

On the positive note, there was some great stuff in there detailing DRM or Digital Rights Management and how each platform would take steps to ensure your work is protected online. Two of the platforms also have programs in place to ensure your book is accessible to libraries around the world, which is pretty cool and great because who doesn’t love libraries. They’re awesome.

Next a copyeditor. This one is easy. You suck at editing, admit it, and move on. Hire a professional and your work will be 10x better.

Probably at the same time as the copy editor, commission a cover from an artist or designer or both. I’ll go into more detail later, but this is important for obvious reasons as it’s the face of your book. Its going to take a while to make so start the process early on.

Next, while you are waiting, create the accounts with all of your chosen platforms. It may take up to two weeks for your account and banking information for payments and tax forms to be processed and approved. So again, get this done early.

Also find your country’s ISBN regulatory body. US: Bowker. Canada: Library and Archives Canada. Create an account and wait for it to be approved. Again, this can take you to two weeks. When its approved request (Canada) or buy (US) your ISBN numbers. You’ll need one for each format you publish your work in. Hardcover, paperback, and eBook all need their own numbers.

Now onto formatting. This is easily a weeks worth of work for each edition (I’m talking outside of your normal life responsibilities here work, family, sleep etc.). My suggestion is once you get back the copyeditor’s notes start this for your paperback version first.

Once the paperback is formatted you’ll need to submit your PDF’s for the cover design and body of the book and order proof copies so that you can check the look. Artwork brightness or colour profile might need tweaking, or the margins may need adjusting. Depending on which country you are in this can be a hassle. Thanks to Covid and the Canada-US border being shut down it took nearly two weeks to get my copy whereas someone in the US could have theirs in two days.

While you wait for the proof copies you’ll need to format your eBook. This process is complicated, and a total pain in your butt, be prepared for the suck. I’ll have a very detailed post on this later on. Long story short: Use Scrivener it’s the cheapest option to get the job done, they have good articles, and the finished product looks great.

Now let’s say you didn’t snap your laptop in half and throw it over a bridge after all of those frustrations and what is now probably months of work. You’ve got everything organized, and ready to publish. What’s next? What are you forgetting? What do I do now?

PUBLISH IT!

Your work will be up for review on each platform, some will go live before others, but it’s done. Congrats. Apply for your copyrights update your ISBN logbook and call it a day. Take a week off, you deserve it.

Now after all that you might ask: Is this really worth it?

Yes, yes it is.

At the end of the day, I am biased on this subject. I loved and hated the process of getting this thing done, but I was so happy when I was holding a copy of my book in my hands after eight years of work. If you want specific reasons how about these:

1. Full Creative Control:

You are in charge and have full rights to do whatever you want with your work. You get to publish it with every little amazing thing you put into your book, and no one can tell you to change it. Your cover art is your choice, the fonts are your choice. This book will feel completely and wholly yours from cover to cover.

2. Bigger Royalties:

As a self-published author you set your prices for each of your works. You also get a bigger share of the profits. Traditional may give you up to $1 if you are lucky and a damn good author. Self-publishing even with your prices sitting well below sale prices in brick and mortar stores you’ll see a bigger margin then that.

3. Bragging Rights:

Self explanatory really, at this point you are amazing, no one can deny that. If they try, stuff a copy of your book in their mouth.

And again, that’s enough typing for one afternoon.

Hope this enlightens you a bit, more good stuff to follow in later posts,

-Adam

P.S. The next post will be focused on starting the search for a literary agent.

P.P.S. *Hint: it rhymes with schnapple.