#developmental editing examples

[theliteraryarchitect]

How to Make Readers Care About Your Plot

It's a funny little trick, really. Because the truth is readers don’t care about your plot.

They care about how your plot affects your characters. (Ah ha!)

You can have as many betrayals, breakups, fights, CIA conspiracies, evil warlords, double-crossings, sudden bouts of amnesia, comas, and flaming meteors racing directly toward Manhattan as you want.

But if readers don’t understand how those events will impact:

A character they care about

That character’s goal

The consequences of the event, whether positive or devastating

…then you may as well be shooting off firecrackers in an empty gymnasium.

Why Plot Without Character Falls Flat

Here’s an example:

A school burns down. Oh my god, the flames! The carnage! The dead and injured children! There are police everywhere—total chaos!

And your main character? Standing on the sidewalk, watching and crying.

Dramatic? Sure. But does the reader care? Not really. There’s no emotional connection, so it's basically a meaningless plot point.

Plot + Character Impact = Reader Investment

Now, let’s take the same event but give it stakes.

Meet Mary Ann. Mary Ann has been a middle school teacher for 25 years. This year, she gets a new student—Indigo. An unusual girl with clear troubles at home and a habit of burning things.

Mary Ann defends Indigo when the school administration wants to expel her, citing safety concerns. Mary Ann sees something familiar in Indigo—something that reminds her of her own sister, who was institutionalized as a child.

One day, Indigo explodes in rage, screaming, “Burn it down! I’ll burn this whole place down!”

Mary Ann is shaken. This isn’t just defiance—this is a real threat. She nearly sides with the administration but, haunted by her sister’s fate, fights for Indigo’s second chance.

Indigo is placed in counseling. A compromise that will hopefully solve the problem.

That night, Mary Ann sleeps soundly. She did the right thing. Didn’t she? But the next morning, on her drive to school, the radio blares an emergency bulletin. There's a fire at the school.

Mary Ann speeds through red lights. Her stomach twists. When she arrives… it’s too late.

Oh my god, the flames! The carnage! The dead and injured children!

The exact same plot point—but now it matters.

How to Make Your Plot Matter to Readers

The secret? Before you set something on fire (literally or figuratively), give your character—and thus your reader—a stake in the outcome.

1. Tie Events to Character Desires and Fears.

Why does this event matter to this character?

How does it challenge their values, beliefs, or personal history?

2. Make the Conflict Personal.

The fire isn’t just a disaster—it’s a gut-punch because Mary Ann fought for Indigo.

The outcome isn’t just tragic—it’s haunted by Mary Ann’s past regrets.

3. Show Consequences.

Readers need to feel what’s at stake before, during, and after the event.

The weight of the aftermath makes the plot stick in the reader’s mind.

The result? Higher engagement, deeper emotional connection, and a plot that actually matters.

Summary: It’s Not About the Events—It’s About the Impact on Your Characters

I used a fire in this example, but this applies to any plot development.

Even something subtle—a whispered secret, an unread letter, a missed train—can have devastating emotional weight if it affects your character in a meaningful way.

Make your readers care about your plot by making your character care about it first.

Hope this helps!

/ / / / /

@theliteraryarchitect is a writing advice blog run by me, Bucket Siler, a writer and developmental editor. For more writing help, download my Free Resource Library for Fiction Writers, join my email list, or check out my book The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers.

[daisywords]

I personally know there are multiple types of editing but I've never seen anyone explain it in a way that actually made me understand what the types of editing actually were (yeah cool that you say {}editing is different from []editing but *how*). So if you wanna explain, feel free to.

Your handy-dandy guide to different types of editing

disclaimer: writers, you can literally edit however works for you. these distinction can be useful to your process, or just if you're looking to hire an editor. Not all editors make distinctions in this way; there are various ways of dividing. But no matter what vocabulary you use, it's best practice to start with broad, big-picture stuff and move towards narrower issues. Some editors do all levels of editing, while some specialize.

Developmental Editing (Is it a good story?)

Developmental editing has to do with the content. For a novel, that means working on the bones of the story. The plot. The pacing. The characters. Do their motivations make sense? Can the reader understand why things are happening? Does the story drag in places, or seem to brush past important elements? Do all of the subplots get resolved? etc. etc. (At this stage an editor is mostly going to be offering suggestions, pointing out issues, and throwing out potential solutions. Beta readers can also be very helpful at this stage to get a reader's perspective on the story beats and characters.)

Line Editing (is it well written?)

Sometimes called substantive editing, line editing is zooming in a little bit more to focus on scenes, paragraphs and sentences. Once we've decided that a scene is going to stay, lets look at the mechanics of how it plays out. Does the scene start to early or too late? Does the writing style communicate the emotions we want the reader to feel? Does the dialogue match the characters' voices? do any of the sentences sound awkward or ugly? Is the movement being bogged down by too much purple prose anywhere, or is there not enough detail? (This can get pretty subjective, so it's important that the writer and the editor are on the same page with taste, style goals, etc.)

Copy Editing (is is correct?)

Copy editing is all about the details. Think grammar and punctuation. Do the sentences make sense? are they grammatically correct? Is the dialogue punctuated correctly? Any misspellings? Should this be hyphenated? Should this be capitalized? Should we use a numeral, or write out the number? etc etc. A significant part of copy editing is matching everything to a style manual (like Chicago or AP) a house style guide (individualized preferences from a publisher, for example), and a project's own internal style sheet (are the character's names spelled the same every time? if we used "leaped" in chapter 4, we shouldn't use "leapt" in chapter 7) Copy editing is still subjective, but less so than the earlier levels, so a copyeditor will be more likely to just go in and make a bunch of (tracked!) changes without consulting the author for everything.

Bonus: Proofreading (did the copyeditor catch everything? are there typos? formatting issues? have any errors been introduced?)

Lots of people say editing when they really mean proofreading. Proofreading is the absolute last thing to get done. It's the one last pass just before something is published. It's important, but as you can see, there's a whole lot more to editing than just checking for typos.

[feminist-space]

By Frank Landymore

Excerpt:

"Now, he was tasked with polishing up the AI's lackluster prose, and, to quote the BBC, "make it sound more human." If only there was a way of doing that with, uh, human writers.

Soon, Miller was the only human employee left on the team. It was down to him, and him alone, to fix up all the AI-generated articles.

"All of a sudden I was just doing everyone's job," Miller told the BBC. "Mostly, it was just about cleaning things up and making the writing sound less awkward, cutting out weirdly formal or over-enthusiastic language."

"It was more editing than I had to do with human writers, but it was always the exact same kinds of edits," he added. "The real problem was it was just so repetitive and boring. It started to feel like I was the robot."

And so Miller found himself in the unenviable position of legitimizing the intrusion of AI into his very own job by making the extremely fallible models appear more capable than they actually are. This hasn't been a fate exclusive to writers; in the service industry, for example, an army of underpaid, outsourced workers secretly worked behind the scenes to power the "AI" drive-thrus at the fast food chain Checkers."

Miller was cornered into that position, but across the industry, being an AI fixer-upper has quickly become a dominant new form of grunt work.

"We're adding the human touch, but that often requires a deep, developmental edit on a piece of writing," Catrina Cowart, a US-based copywriter who's edited AI text, told the BBC. "It's tedious, horrible work, and they pay you next to nothing for it.""

[mswyrr]

The annoyance people express with Lenore Dove is really over the top and strange. Given that both she and teen Haymitch are more childlike than any of the other leads, it also seems influenced by misogyny tbqh. ESPECIALLY since so many people adore and stan Sejanus and he's literally just like her - reckless and immature in how he goes about seeing and responding to injustice. The injustice is real, but they don't sense the danger to them and the people around them as real in the same way.

Edit - examples of what I mean:

Compare with the mindset of Katniss:

It's just a case of childhood ending sooner for one kid without even a single good parent to protect her and how it would have ended later (at a healthier and more natural time developmentally) if Lenore Dove had gotten the chance to grow up, as she should have. Both she and Sejanus could have grown up to be good, brave people, if their youthful feelings had been tempered by time and experience! It's meant to be a horror that this society literally doesn't allow kids to grow up in a healthy way. They either die or lose their innocence in some awful way.

Teen Haymitch and Lenore Dove are meant to represent the ordinary kids killed and broken by the Games, so they both have parents who are functional and have been able to protect them enough that they're still childlike. Lenore Dove's risk-taking is the behavior of a child who has been protected (as much as a kid can be in this world). Similarly to Sejanus (whose parents were able to protect him from harsh consequences), the injustice is so clear to them but not the consequences of their actions. She can't comprehend how reckless she's being with her life and her family's lives and she dies a child who never got to grow up within a system that devours children -- whether by killing them outright or breaking them.

Edit: quote from an interview with Collins where her logic in writing teen Haymitch seems to apply to her writing of Lenore Dove as well

I might personally find the traumatized parentified mini adults without parents (Coriolanus and Lucy Gray) or with "failed" parents who didn't protect them (Katniss and Peeta) more interesting as characters. But making SOTR about kids like that wouldn't make sense. It wouldn't serve the purpose of representing all the ordinary kids killed and destroyed by the system Gaul and Crassus and their generation created and Coriolanus' choice as a teen (and decades of choices after) gave new life and which Katniss then ends.

[unveiling-unguarding]

Let's fix the story of Dragon Age: The Veilguard pt. 1 - Prologue

I have spent the last week-ish just stewing and thinking about all the things that bugged me about Veilguard's story. Things I knew would bug me going in, having seen the gameplay reveal of the intro mission, but thought would fade as the game got over the hump of an awkward start. Nope.

This game, unfortunately, has such massive structural problems that I need to try to rework the basic skeleton of the narrative for my own sanity. So while my first instinct would quite frankly be to scrap the whole premise of what we got, I'll stick to doing some amateur developmental editing.

First things first, Bioware seems to not understand why people have wanted origins back in Dragon Age and are content to give lip service to various backstories without implementing the real reason people loved them - they mattered narratively, were intrinsic to the plot and various subplots, and provided solid character motivation at the very beginning of the story. For example, the human noble origin starts your warden's story off with the betrayal and murder of your parents at the hands of supposed close friend Arl Howe. So now you have very personal motivations to leave your home, become a Grey Warden, and be an active participant in the political landscape of Ferelden. Same goes for each of the origins you can play, each of which introduces the player to subcultures and subplots important to the setting.

Like Veilguard, Inquisition didn't do well with this, but it was fine since the real narrative hook for why the player's character becomes the protagonist is them gaining the anchor and stepping out of the fade in the wake of a world-altering calamity under uncertain circumstances. And most importantly, the game allows you to roleplay how your character feels about the whole thing. Rook, on the other hand (heh), is a character who only gets a short paragraph, functionally identical no matter the faction, about pissing off their higher ups before being recruited by Varric. Supposedly, Rook travels with Varric and Harding for the better part of a year before the game takes place, a timeframe we only learn a couple hours into the game.

This is all coupled with some painterly cutscenes where Varric gives us the lowdown on Solas and his plans. Which is fine, but does the bare minimum and gives our player character no personal stake in the story. We are left to infer our pre existing relationship with Varric (and Harding) and our Rook's reasons for stopping Solas. You can kind of define those reasons later on, but they are rather shallow and the game does not give them their due emphasis. Not to mention this comes at a point in the story I'd argue is way too late.

What should have happened to start the game was a mission that allows us to both define Rook's relationship with Varric and their stake in the story. You could conceivably come up with any number of specifics for this prologue mission, so I'll forgo getting too into the weeds, except to say that it should in some capacity involve Solas' agents that were seen and hinted at during Trespasser. Since the game insists on allowing Rook to be from one of six factions (a seeming holdover from the pivot away from a live service model for the game), the game should start off with a mission about narrowing Solas' ritual location down. Allow us to banter with Varric about the months leading up to that moment. Allow us to elucidate our feelings on what Solas plans and our taking leave from our faction. This would provide a great opportunity for have race or faction reactivity upon learning he was last seen in Minrathous, whether you're an elf or qunari hesitant to go to place that is generally hostile toward people like you or a shadow dragon eager to return home.

This would be a perfect lead in to contacting Neve Gallus for help and the existing opening mission, if you absolutely have to keep it in the game. I am still annoyed about John Epler stating that they wanted the beginning of this game to feel like the ending of a previous game. Why? That's the opposite of how a story should start. A story should start at the beginning, especially when one of their stated goals was to onboard new players to Dragon Age. It hamstrung them into leaving our main character's connection to Varric and the plot nebulous and undefined while they felt the need to shove in extremely awkward and on the nose exposition to tell the player about the veil, Solas, and ancient Elvhenan. Let the beginning of your story breathe, goddamn it.

Next up we'll talk about how the story handles Varric and why it's such a stupid fucking plot twist.

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

8. What sort of disability representation would you consider ideal for you?

11. What is one question, idea, or talking point about [your] disability that you are so tired of?

8. if speak for self n not for entire community! stuff that not shy away from realistic violent ableism n things that make audience uncomfy. want see accurate nonverval high support needs I/DD representation, not shy away from hard stuff but not tell it from entire life tragedy disability tragedy perspective, nor inspiration porn happy all time or secret little genius, or perfect lil saint angel (sometimes we real assholes). show HSN I/DD ppl happy & be okay with disability even when face with inaccessibility. see us date n in love! have sex! learn! be good at stuff!

n also want see HSN I/DD character just exist! outside disability stories.

EDIT oh n!! HSN people who can’t like. do “impressive things” but we still around bc take care community take care of vulnerable people still important !!

n also, just like wheelchair user character be played be wheelchair using actor, autistic character be play by autistic actor… want see nonverbal character be play by nonverbal person, high support needs character play by high support needs actor… which especially HSN I/DD actor, can be quite unrealistic (inaccessibility of acting & set + often our support needs n disability make acting impossible), so really hope when people celebrate “x character play by x actor,” like “(HSN) autistic character play by (LrSN) autistic actor,” we not just celebrate autism part but we also at least talk about how support needs difference power dynamic. because even if there no alternative, have someone autistic but not HSN play HSN autistic character, for example, not automatic make feel less mocked.

so many times see people celebrate some film disabled character play by disabled person!!! n it wheelchair user play by wheelchair user, which absolutely great!! but in same film nonverbal AAC user NOT played by AAC user not to even mention nonverbal person n no one bat eye n. just feel betrayed n ignored by all

11. oof many… why nonverbal about all the time experience n why shouldn’t say go nonverbal or nonverbal episode or sometimes nonverbal… how some people prefer nonverbal over nonspeaking n how they not always mean different thing… how disabled ppl will identify in way you not like even if you also disabled, like severity labels (also how not everything is fucking autism)… how having more support needs than nondisabled not make you medium or high support needs, how struggle more than non autistic not make you level 2 or 3… all ways autistic community awful to people with intellectual disability n also down syndrome cerebral palsy etc many I/DD… how no you can’t “reclaim” r word if you not ID how be bullied not same as systemic oppression… can go on n on

especially tired of these because… it not like they not important but. there so many other important things like how people without functional communication still not getting AAC, how so many I/DD people not get age appropriate developmental milestone appropriate cognitive intellectual appropriate education, JRC still shocking people, how special education often god awful but also next 4 years US lose many protection that keep it in place n lose what little had in first place… n instead of talk about those advocate for those advocate for direct changes, am stuck here talk about these terminology issue over n over n over again.

ask game

[genericpuff]

Have you seen the Webtoon "Working with an Editor" Video? I feel like this explains a lot of how the platform's Originals end up in the states that they do. Based on that vid, it seems their editors are less the developmental or copy types, and more acquisitions and managerial focused. Which explains how some series have "an editor" for editorial oversight, while not being what readers would consider "edited".

oh there are... definitely things about the editors I can tell you based on what I've read and even been told directly by some Originals creators (obviously their names are going to remain anonymous here lol) Before I go into it, every editor and every contract is different, I have no way of actually knowing what goes on behind the scenes due to not being an Originals creator myself, so please take what I'm about to say with mountains of salt as much of it was either learned secondhand through creator AMA's and at best, firsthand through anonymous Originals creators who I've communicated directly with. Ultimately you should be getting your facts from the creators who actually speak up on this matter, not me.

1.) WT has a VERY small pool of editors who are currently being stretched incredibly thin. Bre Boswell, as an example, currently oversees 20+ comics, including Lore Olympus (though not anymore haha), Nevermore, The Kiss Bet, Down to Earth, and Castle Swimmer. She is not the only one with this big of a workload. Obviously with one person having to oversee this many series at once, it's virtually impossible for them to do the actual "editing" part of their jobs, even if they genuinely want to.

2.) The role of WT editor isn't the same as a traditional editor - many of them are simply liasons between creators and Webtoons, meaning any questions creators have about their schedules, salaries, etc. are directed to their editors who then contact WT on their behalf and relay the response back to the creators. The bare minimum requirement for their job seems to be just making sure that creators are following terms of services. The traditional role of editing - proofreading, offering advice and storytelling tweaks, etc. - seems to be entirely optional and dependent on how much time the editor can devote to the series (see #1) + how much creative input the creator is willing to accept.

3.) With how low WT's standards are and how overworked a lot of editors have become, many editors actually stop reading their respective comics after the first few episodes once they're confident that the creator can handle the series on their own without needing check-ups that they're following ToS. So in that respect they truly do just become messenger owls between the creators and WT (and IIRC creators send their episodes to their editors to upload, they don't do it manually themselves). This is also why there are webtoons that share the same editor but differ greatly in quality of writing and art - how well a webtoon is written and drawn is often entirely dependent on the creators making it (it's why Nevermore manages to be so consistently good despite having the same editor as Lore Olympus which is consistently awful lmao).

As an added little thing, I will not say who, but there is a specific editor who... often gets a looot of special treatment from WT, from what I've been told and heard. A lot of their series get away with way more than what others do and get a lot more advertising privileges.

(and no, it's actually not Bre LOL from what I've been told Bre is actually a very sweet person who's very chill to work with haha)

[tales-of-wocdes]

I’ll be honest, while it make make sense for the MC’s recovery, as an adult reader I’d be pretty uncomfortable reading about a child being put in diapers and/or soiling themself in detail. It’d be a huge turnoff for me and I don’t think I would continue to read. Just in general my personal preference as a reader is to lean away from anything that infantilizes the MC more. On one hand, I recognize that their circumstances would mean they’re not on a typical developmental pathway compared to other 7-8 year olds. On the other hand, I think your writing already does an excellent job of capturing that while still doing justice to the MC’s age. They feel like a traumatized 7-8 year old who’s immature and confused because of what happened to them, not a 3 year old, is what I’m saying. I guess just personally I think a diaper or pacifier would sort of ruin that characterization for me, I’d much rather prefer the MC to gain some agency by learning how to navigate the bathroom on their own via wheelchair or rely on more age-appropriate toys for comfort. That said, these are just all my own thoughts as a single reader. Obviously other readers disagree with these preferences, and ultimately I respect that it’s your choice as the author to have final say about what does/doesn’t go. My point isn’t to try to threaten you with a loss of readership— I just want to express my own perspective and ultimately it’s your choice to make! I am really invested in this story and quite enjoy your writing, so I also trust that you know what’s best for your work.

Thank you for these thoughts. I appreciate it. This is valuable feedback and info about reader preferences, even if it is just one person :D I have a feeling you are hardly alone here.

The long post queue allows me time to think, but I don't really go back and edit my answers which are the immediate thoughts most of the time :D That would take a lot of extra time. This however, I think I will let jump the queue because I did say I would get back to you all on this and I think it is better addressed earlier on. And for me it has been several days.

I am willing to consider all suggestions, and appreciate receiving them (at least so far :D) but ultimately it is up to me to decide what I believe to be appropriate or what fits. I retain the right to always change my mind and thoughts mature over time. And here, I agree with you. A pacifier or diapers is not something I see happening in the story, even as an optional extra. Why? Because as you said, MC is immature and very confused but 7-8 years old.

Something to fiddle with? Yes, that could happen. Some kind of chewing necklace? Perhaps. I have been googling and indeed such things are available for older children and even adults. Sensory necklaces/toys I think they are called. For example in the shape of just a tube, or something that look vaguely like a fang. Age appropriate toys? Absolutely. Cool magical toys? Even better. I would be happy to hear ideas about those.

A "gift" from a totally out of touch "grandpa" that thinks giving a child something like a magical suit of armor is a good thing? That gets confiscated by Havard due to property damage? Absolutely... I wonder if there is a way to write random events... I'll look into it. This is btw, something I came up with just now. It is not something I have planned.

A "bathroom arc"? No. After a brief bit of thinking, I don't really want to write it at all so I won't. And I have a feeling that many people would not like reading it if I did force myself to do that. A comment in passing about odd bathrooms are for MC? Sure, that sounds fine to me, but leaving the gritty grimy reality-checks for something else is probably better.

This is all basically flavor text, which is one of the better aspects of interactive fiction but does not need to have a significant effect on the plot :D I want to accommodate reader preferences and offer up a pretty good level of choice, but there is still an overall direction I want to go.

[mufos-photo-album]

Do you happen to have any Piripu lore for the Piripu enthusiasts 👀

I feel like a broken record typing the things I'm about to type, however I realize a lot of the lore I have for Piripu has been sprinkled throughout my posts instead of being compiled in one place -- like I'm about to do now.

Before I start, I will note the "ownership" situation of Piripu is a little weird. By that, I mean that while I put out most, if not all, art and writing of Piripu, he still belongs to my buddy Dave (shorting to MBD from now on). With that in mind, the things I'm writing may be subject to change depending on what MBD thinks. The following is what I think his lore is.

The basic gist of his backstory: Piripu was once a Wayfarer (player character from Journey), white-robed, who guided others. One day, on his lonesome, he was attacked and killed by war machines. This time around, the process of being reborn/revived took a long time, and by the time Piripu came back to the world, a new society had been born and died (the Kingdom of Sky).

Upon rebirth, he was found by two familiar yet strange figures in the Valley of Triumph. These two are Odiwa and Kucevoz. These two would serve as Piripu's caretakers while he got his bearings. Unable to recognize the "new" world he was born into, the first and main part of Piripu's character arc/story revolves around him trying to return to his world (where he was once a Wayfarer).

Once Piripu was more confident in his new body, he snuck away from Odiwa and Kucevoz and later befriended Mufotsuki -- his first friend and de facto guide in the world.

Other things about Piripu -- you can think of these as fun facts or headcanons:

He is developmentally around 13-15 years old, a little less than a year younger than Mufotsuki.

He likes crabs, and even has a pet crab named Roast, who he saved from an abandoned crab cookout.

He is actually slightly shorter than Mufotsuki, though his hair always makes him look taller.

This one is more in the headcanon zone, but it's possible that "Piripu" is not the name he had as a Wayfarer. I currently like to think that "Piripu" as a name was given to him by Odiwa and Kucevoz. The name didn't really stick until he had to introduce himself to Mufotsuki.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that Piripu can speak two languages. First is "Wayfarer" (often represented by glyphs in comics where Piripu speaks it), and the second is just common Spirit language, used by the majority of the Kingdom of Sky.

(The events of the comic above aren't really canon, but show a good example of Piripu speaking his first language).

[crescencestudio]

๋࣭⭑ Devlog 37 | 1.29.24 ๋࣭⭑

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Hope the holiday season and the new year have been treating you all well <3 I've been hard at work this past month to get the revamped demo out to you all soon, so let's jump right into things ^^

This past month, most of my writing has been focused on the revamped demo, finishing Etza's first draft, and Druk's developmental edits.

The revamped demo is FINISHED w writing edits!!!! That honestly took way more time than I thought, but because I wrote the demo basically two years ago at this point, a lot of my writing style has changed. So while some people might think it is an unnecessary time sink, it was important for me to rewrite the scenes I could so that it felt like it accurately portrayed how the routes are looking. And, because my writing skills are better than basically 0, which is where I was starting when I first wrote the demo, I can better write a script that's closer to my vision of the game.

....So THAT ended up taking a while!!! BUT I finished that this month, which was a huge accomplishment to me and I feel much happier with the Alaris script than before, where I kinda... well, hated it. LOL

In-Game Sneak Peek: New Choices HEHEHE

Etza's draft is making good progress. I'm JUST ABOUT done with their first draft YAY!!! As I mentioned before, writing for the full game routes will be a bit slower for now since I'm now balancing more game stages than before (like coding, sprites, etc.). But I was pretty happy with Etza's progress this month since it does feel like the finish line is pretty close for their first draft ^^

And then Druk's edits are just about wrapping up!! Wudgey and I have been having lots of fun with Druk's route, and it's shaped up to be a personal favorite just because of how enjoyable the editing process has been, so I hope you all are excited for it!

For art, I've gotten some more backgrounds commissioned from Vui for the full game. I also decided to update the prologue art for the demo and commissioned dear friend @saffein-e for some prologue art and..... WELL..... SHE'S STUNNING. I'll let the prologue preview speak for itself HEH

In-Game Preview: New Prologue feat. New Art and Fade-in Text Effect

I'm so happy with it, and in general seeing the demo come together with all the new assets has been RRRRGGGHHH!!!!! I've coded most of the screens by now, but I don't want to show them all quite yet. I'll show one preview of the new communicator screens.

Communicator Feature: Texting (left) and Phone Calls (right)

First is the texting screen, and then I also updated the phone call screen! The sprites now not only emote (kinda like video call vibes), but they also auto-highlight based on who is talking!

Most of my miscellaneous stuff has to do with coding the demo. I've been doing a LOT of backend coding to make the game more polished. First is the example above with the communicator phone call feature. Without getting too into coding jargon, it basically is like a new version of the normal sprites so that it feels more interactive, with seeing the characters emote while talking to you, and has the auto-highlight function so that it is clear who is talking during a phone call!

I'm adding more camera work to the demo, more vfx/sfx to make things more immersive, and overall just adding a lot of polish to the game. It's been a lot of work, since it's involved adding alternative textboxes, cleaning up old code, revamping things (like sprites and other images), etc. But it's been worth it to see everything come together!

In-Game Preview: Pop-up Codex now instead of separate screen!

I'm hoping the beta demo can be done by the end of this week or next, so if you all would like access to it, please feel free to subscribe to my Patreon for this upcoming month! Highest tier gets access to beta builds for $10 <3

Finally, In other news, I DID release Intertwine: Another Life this month LMFAOOO

If you haven't gotten a chance to play it, please do! There's almost double the amount of script content. I've been doing an awful job of promoting it since I've been in the coding trenches. But I do appreciate the reception so far!! It was honestly bigger than I thought it would be, and I'm always so grateful for everyone's support ^^ Very happy you all liked the extra bit of content with Van <33333

For market research, I didn't do anything this past month. I DID play Date with Death in December and had massive brainrot from it. In fact, I made two fanarts of little Grimmy LMFAOOOO.

I'm sure most of you have played it, but if you haven't this is your sign to go play it. It's a free game and the amount of polish and features in it are crazy, so please show the dev team some love!!!

Hoping to have the revamped demo out soon, and the beta demo out even sooner. Hope you all have a great rest of your month, and I'll talk to you soon! <3

[theliteraryarchitect]

Hi, I hope this is the right place to ask this question I'm writing a story where there are a few characters who have been manipulated by their country/government. Quite a few of these characters are quite intelligent, and I want to avoid making them appear dumb or naive. What could I do to convey this?

How to Avoid Making Your Characters Look Dumb or Naive

This is one of those odd, counterintuitive things in storytelling where the answer is very different than you might think. The main thing that makes characters look dumb isn't what they know or even how they act, but the size of the gap between what they know and what your reader knows. This gap is called dramatic irony, and the larger it is, the more opportunities there are for your character to look stupid.

This gap presents itself in a few different ways:

You have given readers a lot of information that the main character doesn't have, thus drawing attention to their lack of knowledge. Writers will often do this by switching to another character's point of view.

As the author, you have inserted commentary in the omniscient point of view which (sometimes cruelly) points out your character's lack of knowledge.

Other characters are constantly pointing out the main character's flaws in reasoning, turning your protagonist into a kind of unreliable narrator.

Now, obviously there's waaaaay more nuance to the problem than this. In the thriller genre, for example, it's not unusual for the reader to know (usually through the villain's point of view) all kinds of stuff that the protagonist doesn't, and we don't necessarily think that they're dumb. And there's a balance—even with a tight point of view, writers will often drop hints that their main character doesn't quite understand the scope of the problem, even through the reader is still convinced enough of their competence not to think poorly of them.

However, I do believe the easiest solution to this quandary, especially for beginning writers, is to write your story with a point of view that's tightly focused on your main character, either first person or a close third. The reader will merge with your protagonist as their guide through the story. They'll know what your main character knows, and very little else. In the case of a character who has been manipulated by their government, the reader will discover this shocking information in tandem with the protagonist. Then, when the moment of revelation comes, your reader won't be a hundred steps ahead of your main character, so instead of feeling judgmental toward them, they'll feel surprised, indignant, sad, or whatever else your protagonist feels.

Hope this helps!

/ / / / /

@theliteraryarchitect is a writing advice blog run by me, Bucket Siler, a writer and developmental editor. For more writing help, download my Free Resource Library for Fiction Writers, join my email list, or check out my book The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers.

[invaive]

writing + editing comms for gaza 🕊️‼️

hello! i decided to make a separate post for this information. i am currently offering writing commissions in exchange for proof of donations to vetted fundraisers and/or relief organizations.

i am a published author and have had both poetry and fiction appear in multiple online magazines, which you can view here. i also have experience as a freelancer and have written commissioned works in the past.

you can get:

short stories (original or fanfiction!)

proofreading/editing!

poems about anything you want!

typewriter poems mailed to you!

probably literally anything else you ask for!

please check under the cut for guidelines, rules, and further information.

GENERAL GUIDELINES

must provide a screenshot, via ask or messages, with proof of donation. please make sure the date/time, amount, and name of the fundraiser is visible. donation date must be from within 24 hours of submission.

examples of acceptable screenshots:

currently i am focusing donation efforts on @/alaa-pales! please help her and her family; they are only ⅕ of the way to meeting their goal.

i will also accept proof of donation to any fundraiser on the OOB masterlist (please include line number!) or to the PCRF.

WRITING GUIDELINES

you will have the choice between prose (fiction or nonfiction) or poetry.

for every $10 (USD or equivalent) donated, you will receive 500 words of prose. ex. if you donate $50, you will receive 2,500 words.

for every $5, you will receive one short poem. if you donate more, you will have the choice to receive multiple short poems, or to combine the funds into longer poems. we can work that out in DMs!

i am extremely open as to the subject matter. i only ask that you do not request of me anything hateful/bigoted towards any group, and that you do not request anything purely pornographic. if you have questions, just ask!

you can find examples of my published works here and some of my other writing here. if you would like further examples, just let me know and i'd be happy to send you some.

PROOFREADING/EDITING GUIDELINES

for every $10, i will read 1000 words.

i can help with all levels of editing: developmental/substantive editing, line editing, copy editing, and proofreading. just me let know what you want our focus to be!

EXTRAS

if you choose a poem and would like it written on a typewriter and mailed to you, i would be happy to do so! minimum of a $10 donation for this. see examples below.

💚🤍🖤❤️ THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH ❤️🖤🤍💚

don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions!

TYPEWRITER POEM EXAMPLES:

(apologies for the low tumblr quality. they will be scanned at full resolution and i can email them to you + snail mail them to you if so so wish)

[huntersmoon1]

MAGI:THE LABYRINTH OF MAGIC X LOVE AND DEEPSPACE CROSSOVER IMAGINE IDEA!

The lads men meet their genderbent counterparts who are in a similar situation to Alibaba’s mom only none of them get sick and die.

(Edited: reworked the kids ages.)

(Edited again cuz they made I pic for Xavier and Rafayel too!)

Ok I just saw this great fan art right after watching the episode of Magi:The labyrinth of magic where it explains Alibaba’s past and about how his mother caught the eye of the king and they had an affair,she leaves and becomes a prostitute,gets sick and dies,all that. And that gave me a request idea.

If you wanna write this for me please hit me up. 🙏

I can’t write I just come up with the outline, the blueprint if you will.

This is the fan art the artists twitter is linked click on the picture to go to the page.

•So what if Sylus,Zayne,Rafayel,and Xavier meet their genderbent counterparts in the world of Magi that are in a similar situation in the way that they are prostatutes in the slums in order to survive like Alibabas mom only none of them get sick and die like Alibabas mom did.

You know the three princesses of the brothel in apothecary dairies? Well think of them in that way in the sense that they are the most beautiful and desired, well known prostitutes but not in a brothel and are instead in the slums of balbad. Even if they can’t dress luxuriously they are still the most beautiful. And instead of three there’s five,Sylys,Zayne,Rafayel,Xavier,and Mc.

Most of them will be disowned by their families for getting pregnant out of wedlock since that was VERY frowned upon way back then.

•They know MCs counterpart but she’s not genderbent and is instead a sister figure to them and an aunt to their children.

She is also a prostitute,they found her in the slums wandering around with amnesia when she was (they guessed) 17 years old and soon found out she was pregnant,

they tried to talk her out of becoming a prostitute but knew it was likely her only shot at surviving given the state Balbad had been in since the former king died and his short pudgy son took the throne,

eventually they gave in and showed her the ropes and how to work this job without getting hurt by customers or getting sick from them, how to spot the good,healthy,and rich customers, and how to send away the ones that are trouble or could get her or her kid sick,they helped her when she first arrived.

Mc has one 4 year old and one on the way.

•They all live together or very close by each other. Sylus’s counterpart knows Luke and Kieran,they are genderbent and they were her handmaids.

•Sylus’s counterpart has a 9 year old daughter who looks like her dead lover,a 2 year old daughter who looks like her, and has one more on the way.

She was a high class noble lady and fell in love with a soldier and got pregnant but he died before they could get married so her family disowned her and his family blamed her for his death and chased her away.

She took what little money her family gave her and left for the slums and became a prostitute since no one wanted to hire a ruined woman for any other job.

Her loyal handmaids who are Luke and Kieran’s female counterparts went with her,whether or not they became prostitutes too is up to you but they are her assistants and big sister figures to her daughters.

Her daughter can’t learn as fast as the other kids and has trouble learning and understanding certain things like for example math,or learning and memorising the rules to a new game, due to developmental delays caused by her mother not being able to get enough nutrition while she was pregnant with her since she lives in the slums as well as being born too soon.

She makes enough money so she and her children don’t starve now since she’s more well known by the noble class and not just the men in the slums.

•Zayne counterpart has twins,a girl and a boy. They are none identical but they both look like their mother.

She was a middle class lady, daughter of two doctors,Her husband was a kind medicine peddler, he died after being attacked by bandits not long after her twins were born since he couldn’t get the required medical treatment in time.

Her twins are 6 years old and were born in a land where there was plenty of food to eat so they came out normal and not early.

Their mother came to Balbad with them after she heard their were many sick people there that needed help and didn’t have anyone to leave them with,

She thought she’d be able to make enough to get by without having to charge the poor people by treating rich nobles,

but she didn’t know just how bad Balbads money troubles were so she ended up poor too and moved to the slums since she could no longer afford their living arrangements in the middle class.

She makes a little money as a doctor in various classes of the hierarchy but most of her money comes from prostitution since men of all walks come for her services.

•Rafayels counterpart has one 5 year old girl and a newborn son.

She fell in love with a rich man and he got her pregnant, he said he’d come back for her but he never did and she found him courting another woman,he abandoned her.

She was in the middle class, the daughter of an art dealing merchant, but she didn’t have the funds to support herself and a child, and her family cut her off and disowned her for getting pregnant out of wedlock,

so she sold her house and went to the slums so she’d have a decent amount of money for a while but eventually she had to find a way to make ends meet and since jobs aren’t offered to people in the slums very often she turned to prostitution since that’s the only profesión from the slums the nobles and middle class will pay decently not well but decent. She’s pretty well known by the nobles.

•Xavier’s counterpart has one 3 year old son.

She was a middle class noble lady who fell in love with a soldier and as soon as he found out she was pregnant he kicked her to the curb and when her family found out she was pregnant out of wedlock they disowned her so she moved to the slums with enough money she saved to get by for a while and be able to get enough to eat from the middle class so she would have a healthy full term baby.

But after her son was born eventually that money ran out and she turn to prostitution since no one in the middle or upper class would give someone from the slums a job unless it’s a prostitute looking for clients. She’s pretty well known among the nobles.

Not sure if this is the original creator but here’s a screenshot of a great fan art.

[vesemirsexual]

What is even more disappointing about how game!Ciri is written is that CDPR Can give us compelling and complex “ trauma and grief can cause you to repeat the cycle of violence” arcs for characters like Syanna and Lambert but apparently completely forgot what a huge part of Ciri’s character that is

the first time I played I thought she got amnesia as well because of how much of her fiery temper was toned down, and how her trauma is hardly mentioned ( and it's not like the characters in this game trauma are completely ignored it is talked about in some quests) I wanna see what she really would have done had she seen Emhyr again

I feel like game Ciri had two distinct groups they were aiming for: people who found Geralt even more appealing because of the fatherhood angle so they had to work his actual kid in AND hot girl fan service.

The thing is, if they gave her too much personality or depth, she wouldn’t have fit into these groups well and therefore people would’ve found her annoying and/or off-putting. People already do sometimes but not to the degree that they would’ve if they even BEGAN to touch on the absolute shitstorm that is Ciris psyche after everything.

Also realistically, they made the Witcher games centre about Geralt bc he appeals to their large majority male fan base: combatant, dark mysterious tragic past, ripped, attractive, fucks hot women, is a good guy while still also getting to do badass things and beat people up. If you look in depth at Witcher fans on different platforms when they talk about him, a lot of dudes are very much “oh my god he’s literally me”. Ciri could never be the focus because she wouldn’t appeal to that same group, and we know that every time a game is released people throw the weirdest bitch fits about female characters, especially main ones.

This is also why Ciri is made an attractive character, when realistically that tiny little facial scar they’ve given her is nothing, she’s spent her developmental years on the run/being attacked/under extreme stress so I honestly can’t imagine her being a tall skinny but also hourglass woman with one or two scars, and put her in a cropped shirt (such a bad choice it’s mildly hysterical).

I think Lambert and Syanna are also a really good example of how people handle angry traumatised characters too, because Lambert gets a lot more leeway than Syanna (and I say this as a big fan of both!) Like there are literally people out there and on this webbed site who say she is pure evil, one of the evilest people in the Witcher for being a fucked up mean trauma victim who hurt a Poor Little Meow Meow (Higher vampire with decades of life experience more than her, incredibly possessive, responded to emotional manipulation by violently attacking an entire city). Like Lambert literally brags about axii’ing a guy to shoot himself in the head with his own crossbow.

Ciri got done very dirty, but I see how and why it happened. Book Ciri deserves rights but unfortunately I think Games Ciri will always be how people perceive her, and therefore portray her in fic, art and other work predominantly (praying same doesn’t happen with TWN Ciri). We’ve been robbed of such a complex, angry young woman and I mourn it 🙏

Edit: I can’t even touch on the Emhyr thing because the fact she can reconcile with him is honestly mildly fucking horrific. Like even if they’ve removed the nasty ass incest factor, that man quite literally destroyed her entire world and was willing to do so further in order to get his way. The fact she can call him father in one ending is genuinely vomit inducing and so disrespectful to Ciri as a character (also the audacity to play down that Ciri literally sees Yen as her mama WHILE playing devils advocate for War McCrime is a whole choice).

[bardnuts]

couldn’t stop yourself from slighting romantasy even if your alleged defense of it. you don’t have to put other works down to promote your own. those readers can be your readers too. this is meant as genuine advice not an argument. your writing is so good but the chip on your shoulder is weighing you down. it’s okay to read this and not respond. you don’t have to turn every interaction into an attempted viral tumblr post.

OK, that's a little uncalled for, because I'm not doing any of those things. If you really did mean this as genuine advice and weren't just prickly because I don't care for a genre you really enjoy, you would come off anon rather than jumping down my throat over something I didn't actually say.

But I'm going to continue to take you in good faith here and explain my stance on romantasy more clearly. (Here's the original post.)

When i say romantasy doesn't challenge the reader, I don't mean it as a criticism. I mean that it's part of what makes romantasy, romantasy. It's part of the genre convention. I said this in my original post but what separates romantic fantasy from traditional fantasy is its approach to fantasy as in daydream rather than fantasy as in fantastical. It's wish fulfilment in its purest form, and by that metric it's unchallenging by necessity. I highly recommend the video I linked in that post because it's probably the best breakdown of the genre I've ever seen, and it also helped me finally articulate what it is about romantasy I just don't care for.

When I say most romantasy is badly written, maybe a more accurate statement is that it's poorly edited. The firehose of romantasy we've seen the past few years is a result of major publishing houses pushing out as much as they can to capitalize on a seriously profitable trend--romance is the best-selling genre of all time, after all, and the us markets have been on a fantasy kick since the early 2000s. It's a gold mine, and publishers do not give a shit about quality so long as it rakes in sales.

So as a result you have a lot of (often new) authors scoring their dream book deals with their first novels, sometimes the first novels they've ever written, and they aren't getting the developmental editing they need to make those books really sing. The resulting product is often shallow, meandering, riddled with typos, and populated with cardboard character archetypes.

This has sort of been a hell spiral lately, because early romantasy was a lot higher quality - that's the same trend that dystopian YA fiction followed, where you have very strong early examples while the genre is in its infancy, but the overall quality of the books declines as publishers rub their greedy little hands all over them.

So it isn't just about the saturation of a genre I don't really care for - it's also a kind of despair because this genre does have potential but it's being squandered.

And yeah, there's a lot of personal disappointment because I have literally lost count of the amount of times I've asked for recommendations for "good fantasy books" and skipped off to the library only to end up with something I put down after 20 pages because it's just that bad.

A lot of my frustration here is that lovers of romantasy deserve better romantasy. Admittedly, my standards are very high--but I think I have the right to keep them high. Books from major houses in general have seen a major decline in quality. Literature is not immune to enshittification.

HOWEVER, with all that said: if you're someone who regularly reads my writing and enjoys it, and you felt attacked because you felt I was condemning a genre you love, then please understand that isn't the case. At the end of the day (and thanks to Ellis for helping me figure this out), romantasy is a subgenre of romance more than it is a subgenre of fantasy. This is because its most important codifying tropes and conventions are those of romance: the wish-fulfillment aspect, the HEA, the romance as the centerpiece of the narrative world, etc. So I guess I think it ought to be shelved differently, because as it stands it feels as though it's parasitized my beloved genre, because I can count the traditionally-published fantasy books I've really enjoyed that have come out since 2015 on one hand, and I'm starving.

I'm (truly) deeply flattered you think my writing is good. So thank you for saying that. I really appreciate it.

[unwelcome-ozian]

SPECIALIST INFORMATION & SOURCES

Working with Children and Adolescents (books listed alphabetically):

Child/Adolescent Treatment Guidelines, LINK .

Dissociation in Traumatized Children and Adolescents: Theory and Clinical Interventions, 2nd Edn, (2015), by Sandra Wieland. Presents compelling case studies that elaborate the variability of dissociation in children and adolescents, and practical insights into five models of dissociation to support understanding and the application of therapeutic guidelines and interventions

Healing the Fractured Child: Diagnosis & Treatment of Youth with Dissociation, (2015), by Frances S Waters. Provides a wealth of information to support understanding, assessment, and creative treatment strategies and interventions for working with children, adolescents and families recovering from traumatic experiences

Nurturing Children: From Trauma to Growth Using Attachment Theory, Psychoanalysis and Neurobiology, (2019), by Graham Music. Distils and clarifies the interactions between mind and body, and the role of attachment as a source of trauma and recovery. Includes authentic reflections from the heart and mind of a highly respected practitioner

The Child Survivor: Healing Developmental Trauma and Dissociation, 2nd Edn, (2022), by Joyanna Silberg. A widely respected, comprehensive, and practical resource for treating children and adolescents with dissociative symptoms. Including information on assessment and treatment, and case examples to illustrate clinical dilemmas, this book has been praised by practitioners and adult survivors

The Simple Guide to Complex Trauma and Dissociation: What It Is and How to Help, (2020), by Betsy de Thierry. Written to complement ‘The Simple Guide to Child Trauma’, this book takes complex theories and clarifies them, to inform and offer practical advice to individuals caring for or working with traumatised children

Treating Children with Dissociative Disorders: Attachment, Trauma, Theory and Practice, (2022), edited by Valerie Sinason and Renee Potgeiter Marks. Filled with practical tools and examples, this book is a vital resource for professionals to enrich their practice with children who dissociate.