#direct discourse

[bettsfic]

Hi betts! I was wondering if you had any advice for writing Feelings. I feel like my fic writing is often a lot of this happened then this happened and then this event happened. I want to make sure it feels like things are being told by my character and not just a robotic narrator reporting the events. I've been going through your writing advice tag but haven't found a super relevant post to this so thought I'd ask if you have any thoughts on injecting more Feelings into writing.

this is a great question! unfortunately it has a very Big answer.

i think it's important first to consider the greater historical context of prose. prose is a relatively new invention in the history of humanity. prior to prose, there was poetry, oral storytelling, playwriting, and what we would consider now to be nonfiction. the concept of written fiction is kind of miraculous. it allows us to perceive the nature of being another person, within the quiet of our own minds. in other words, prose allows us access to a consciousness outside of our own. a fictional story is thus one in which a given consciousness, translated into language, experiences events in a cause and effect sequence, which is called a narrative.

what you're talking about, injecting Feeling into fiction, is a concept that tends to invoke debate based on separate schools of aesthetic thought. i know writers who would read your ask and go, "uh, good? reporting events is what you're *supposed* to do." and i know writers who believe that the entire purpose of the form is simply to convey conscious thought, external events be damned. personally, although i respect the opinions of these writers, i think it's all kind of silly to think one kind of writing is better than another. it is, as all things are, a creative choice of the author. i, the reader, am only meant to bear witness to those choices.

visualize, if you will, a spectrum between these two schools of thought: the reporting of actions and external events, which we'll call exteriority, and the reporting of inner thoughts and feelings, which we'll call interiority. all fictional prose falls somewhere on this spectrum. on the exteriority side we have writers like william faulkner, cormac mccarthy, chuck palahniuk. on the interiority side, we have virginia woolf, henry james, garth greenwell, donna tartt.

this spectrum is one of narratorial access. how much access do we the reader have to the experiences of the narrator(s), and how accurate are those depictions? how much detail are we given? how are those details chosen and why?

the most exterior writing is what some call "cinematic." many people are in the exterior school of thought because they believe "show don't tell" to be literal. "show don't tell" is ridiculous for many reasons, the most obvious of which is that (when taken at face value) if i wanted to be shown something, i'd watch a movie. the real meaning of "show don't tell" is the idea you shouldn't tell the reader the conclusion they're supposed to be drawing from the events of the story. again, personally, i think it's baffling why anyone has an opinion on this, when the truth is that showing and telling is yet another spectrum and every story falls somewhere on it. to have opinions on these things would stifle my enjoyment as a reader and closes me off to discovering new things.

when the reader has the least possible access to the narrator, the events of the story can follow any character at any time, and detail only what can be seen from the outside. my favorite novel that does this is Plainsong by Kent Haruf. i once tried to write in this style and found it tedious and difficult, but i'm a very interior writer. nevertheless it was a good exercise for me, if for no other reason than it sharpened my understanding of my own style.

if you move the down the spectrum just a skosh toward interiority, you invite inner observations. these are largely sensory: what a character sees, hears, smells, etc. here's an example:

an exterior action would be, "the door slammed." an interior observation would be, "she heard the door slam."

i have heard many arguments as to why the latter is "weaker" writing. i've heard them called "filter phrases," and have even read an essay on why you should avoid them. which, again, ridiculous. it's far more important to know when and why you might deploy a "filter phrase" than to deny yourself use of a potentially necessary tool.

inner observations force the reader into the perception of the narrator. "the door slammed" is a fact. it can't be contested. the author is telling me this event occurred and i cannot dispute it or interpret it. "she heard the door slam" can be questioned. all we know is that she heard it; we have no evidence it really happened, only our trust in the narrator to convey events with accuracy, which is how we get the idea of an unreliable narrator.

let's move one notch closer to interiority. now we have inner reactions and opinions. exterior: "the door slammed. the woman stood up and locked it." now we have the opposite scenario to the one above. with an exterior action, we're given doubt. why did she lock it? we have to use context clues to determine motivation and emotion. interior: "she heard the door slam. in a rage, she stood up and locked it." the second sentence confirms for us that the door very likely did slam, and also tells us outright that she's mad at the person who slammed it.

the reader has to perform an equal amount of work for both of these scenarios. in the exterior example, they have to puzzle out the emotions and motivation of the character. in the interior example, they have to puzzle out the accuracy of events and reasonability of emotional response. both create different kinds of tension.

generally speaking, the closer we move toward interiority the less exteriority we have, because the external events of the story matter less than what the character thinks or feels about them. using our example above, an even more interior approach would be, "when she heard the door slam, she knew it was over. how had it come to this? he was no different than the last one, or the one before that, or the one before that. as she went to lock it, she vowed: never again."

since i don't have a full story drafted out, pretend "the one before that" are all examples of times this situation happened before, and so two actions, the door slamming and the woman getting up to lock it, might take ten thousand words to tell, to give us context as to why she's in a rage about it.

here's an example of nearly pure interiority from a novel i'm working on right now:

And the only logic that came to me was that everything was made up of the souls of the dead and the yet-living. It felt blasphemous—in Kinraden, the afterlife is unity in a place beyond limited human understanding. But I believed the opposite. I believed we all came from things and would return to things, and that everything, at its fabric, was the same as everything else. I was a toy truck rolling across a hardwood floor, and a sunflower opening up in the light, and a can of Campbell’s soup heated on the stove, and a pig headed to slaughter, and my father giving a sermon to an audience of people looking for answers in the wrong place, and everything has a soul and so everything suffers. And that suffering crushed me, not because it exists, but because it is eternal. Suffering is the base of everyone and everything. 

(i apologize for using my own writing as an example, but i tabbed over and this was the first paragraph i saw, and it was surprisingly relevant, even though i am 100% going to end up cutting it.)

i know there is no exteriority here because i can't tell you where his body even is while he's thinking these things. i also don't know when exactly this is happening. the physical existence of the scene and his body within it is irrelevant to the information being conveyed, which is a major life philosophy and how it differs from his father's. within one paragraph, he's building a kind of polemic that will hopefully allow the reader to understand exactly how he managed to defy his father's indoctrination.

even though there's no exteriority, though, there are still images present. toy truck, sunflower, can of soup, etc. and they create visuals to hang onto so that it still feels, in a way, exterior. those physical objects, however, are not actually physical, but metaphorical.

what's also important is that this is a super fucked up line of thought and builds the state of his emotional unreliability as a narrator. he's conveying the events of the story with relative accuracy but his logical and emotional responses to them are in constant conflict. (he needs lots of help, which he will get.)

there is kind of a default in fanfiction, particularly fanfiction based in visual mediums, to convey all information within a physical scene, i suspect to stay as close to the canon portrayal as possible, because film/tv are also sequences of scenes. when in scene (direct discourse), characters are always physically embodied in spaces, moving and doing and saying things, at a specific point in time. but, circling back to my initial point, prose does not have to be embodied. it's not film. you can be fully in the mind of a character and have no idea when or where they are existing, and merely recount the events from an unstated time, if any happen to be relevant (indirect discourse).

(side note: specifically direct and indirect discourse refer to dialogue but i'm using the terms more broadly. direct discourse: "i just want that sandwich, man," tommy said. indirect discourse: tommy said he really wanted a sandwich.)

even though i've talked at length about narratorial access as relevant to consciousness, i want to touch base again to the idea of Feelings. it's hard to convey feeling in fiction, because your only tools are brain and body. either your narrator expresses their feelings in thoughts, or they express them in the description of physical experiences. it's kind of a constant battle which path you choose, but i hope some of the above can help you decide.

so now that you know the broader theory around (Thoughts &) Feelings writing, here are some exercises you can try:

begin a story in direct discourse, present tense, the events of which can only be understood through prior context. (for example, two characters are having a heated argument with no explanation as to why.) then, through the POV character's narration, move into indirect discourse, past tense, to explain the events that led up to the argument.

find a story you've written in third person and rewrite all or part of it in first person. the trick here is to become as disembodied as possible. in fact, your approach can be that you're simply writing a monologue from the character's perspective, in their voice, with all their potential misunderstandings intact.

try swinging the opposite way: write a fully exterior story (the shorter the better). then go back and thread in internal observations. and then go through and add thoughts and opinions to the events that have occurred. and lastly, go through and add greater context and cognition to deepen our understanding of the external events.

whew. this was a lot. but i hope you found it helpful!

and because i am trying to be better about self promo, i'd like to mention here that i'm a freelance editor and writing coach, and also i have a newsletter with more thoughts on craft.

[bonefall]

Anyway. Bi and Mspec Lesbians aren't a hotly "debated" topic or even new to queer culture, it's just the newest thing that bullies who REALLY want to be homophobic and even racist use to justify harassing gay people they don't like.

It's the thinnest possible veneer of progressive language wrapped around TERF and reactionary rhetoric so that they can feel righteous for forming an angry mob against vulnerable targets. If you're gullible enough to fall for the newest wave of bigotry within the queer community, and turn on your allies because they're "confusing" or "invading your spaces," the SAME way they turned on bi/pan labels, trans people, xenogenders, neopronouns, and aroace people before this, then get lost.

[lavenderprose]

The thing about OFMD is that not a single character is genre aware. Stede thinks he's in fucking Bridgerton on a Boat; Ed thinks he's in a soap opera; Izzy thinks he's in the fucking Bible and he's Judas. None of them know they're in a slapstick comedy. That's why the stakes are all over the place and why they all take themselves so seriously while doing the most batshit insane stuff and then get angry at each other about it. Izzy's sitting over here going, "I am your most devoted follower. I am the only person who loves you enough to betray you." Ed's response is, "Yes, it's me...thought I died?...well think again... " and Stede is standing between them like, "Ours shall be a spring wedding!"

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

The more I think about Anharion and Sarcean the more I'm convinced they are an allegory for queer trauma and Will will have to embrace, accept, and forgive himself in order change his narrative.

In which case I don't think the collar is compulsion but something else. James - once Anharion in a past life and a former novitiate in this one (he knows all the stories) - did say it wasn't. "All the stories are lies" and "the collar was working but he felt no compulsion", as well as his speculation the collar became tawdry wishful thinking by those who objectified him.

In many ways James has already accepted himself and embraced Anharion, and in so doing made himself a villain to the Light, polite society, and a self righteous religious order. Everything he does is repellent to them but they're also obsessed with him. He is unmentionable but always present. He is condemned for killing the Stewards but they're surprised when reminded they've been trying to kill him since he was 11. Of course he needed to die, he's an abomination. The Stewards were doing the Lor– Lady's work by killing such a corrupt creature.

If Sarcean and Anharion are queer allegory then there is definitely more to their relationship and perceived villainy than what we've been told.

I'm especially struck by how the Light always calls the Lady Sarcean's former love – using language that describes a tragic romance. All the while they dismiss Anharion as a perverse sexual fixation when it's clear in Sarcean's POV that it's Anharion who was the love of Sarcean's life. That Sarcean had loved him long before the Lady. That Sarcean chases pieces of Anharion throughout all his chosen lovers. That it's Anharion he bound to him across time and space. It mirrors how often queer relationships are belittled, the acceptable heteronormative relationship romanticized.

Will/James and Sarcean/Anharion's kinky preferences play into that too. There's a pressure for them to conform and never give into what they want to indulge.

[aq2003]

the thing that gets me the most about culture warrior weebs going "the anime designs for the greek gods are so much better than the woke leftist designs in hades" is that they are simultaneously the ones actively getting mad at hermes being east asian in the game. like they want to fetishize asian aesthetics so bad bc they cant let go of their oversexualized anime waifus but the minute an asian person actually gets depicted they lose their fucking minds

[nekropsii]

RUFIOH PROPAGANDA: Literally everything he has ever done to and about Damara - cheating on her and lying to her for years, seemingly never standing up for her when Meenah was terrorizing her, still chasing her image as a sex object to this day (particularly Aradiabot, who he says acts “just like the real thing”), and calling her his “psycho ex” behind her back constantly while acting nice to her face.

KANKRI PROPAGANDA: Straight up doesn’t think Misogyny is real and denies its existence outright, calling it a meaningless pseudoscience not worth any concern, discussion, or consideration. Slutshames Porrim directly to her face.

[splatattackz]

i also think people attacking those who play qsmp right now dont understand if you want them to play something other than qsmp then you have to actually idk support them when theyre not playing qsmp? pierre just made the great point of one of the reasons hes playing right now is because he does not have the luxury of being able to do variety and still get views and money. there are multiple qsmp creators in the same position. fit played yakuza yesterday and i never saw him break 1k viewers (and while things above 100 are still a lot of viewers, its not as usual).

if you want creators to not play qsmp to put pressure to compensate people, then actually support them when they dont play qsmp.

<3

[chaos-in-one]

I am once again asking people to stop degendering multigender and genderfluid people, especially to justify how we can fit into specific definitions of sexualities instead of just letting us define our orientation and what it means to us for ourselves. I promise you, it is not appreciated by a good portion of the community.

[quartergremlin]

i cant even comprehend this level of stupidity/queerphobia anymore. In what world does "why even bother transitioning if you're going to do woman stuff" make sense.

transcript:

Coworker: Okay so. You know what I don't get?

Quarter: mm.

C: Trans men who get married to men? and have kids? What's even the point?

Q (thinking): girl I know you know. like. the general concept of gay people.

[basilbots]

Y'all do not need multiple confession blogs to spread more negativity for fucks sake. Not even having the courtesy to use the pre-existing tsams confession tag for people to block any of these kinds of posts isn't cute either

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

thinking about how catra was angrier at adora, the VICTIM, for being manipulated by shadow weaver, than she was at shadow weaver for manipulating adora.

[decolonize-the-everything]

This sucks. These prices and these wages (and my own lack of them) doesn't fuck in the slightest.

And based on my recent posts and notes...y'all wanna strike huh?

Well since you insist on not doing it without formal organizing, can I ask if you've heard about the IWW and if you have, have you joined it?

"By age, workers ages 45 to 54 had the highest union membership rate in 2022, at 12.6 percent. Younger workers—those ages 16 to 24—had the lowest union membership rate, at 4.4 percent.

In 2022, the union membership rate for full-time workers (11.0 percent) was double than that for part- time workers (5.5 percent)."

I'll take that statistic from the BLS file on Unions as a 'probably not' since I don't have many older people following me.

Well, joining this union can provide you with all the formality and organization you'll need to get started and without compromising your say as an individual worker.

TLDR: Anyone, yes even if you're unemployed, can join as long as you have at least $6/mo and aren't a manager. No union bosses either. The idea is that it's One Big Union. Meaning it's strength lies in it's solidarity from unifying workers across All types of employment.

It's just a matter of finding your local union and they will help you with the rest.

Worried you might stand out?

In 2021, 14 million U.S. workers - or about 10.3 percent of the American workforce - were members of a union.

That's 1 in every 10 workers. And

In 2022, 16 million wage and salary workers were represented by a union[...]" (Bureau of Labor Statistics Union2.pdf).

You quite literally will be just be one of the tens of thousands joining a union everyday.

Social scientist Damon Centola's new research shows a cascade of change is triggered when 25% of a population embraces an idea.

Minority views of what is acceptable quickly become majority views. Historically, majority- rules economic thinking assumed change happened when 51% of a population wanted it. But in 1977, Harvard University's Rosabeth Moss Kanter studied tokenism in the workplace. She found that women as small minorities were subject to an oppressive culture of discrimination and harassment. But when women occupied 20%-35% of leadership roles, work culture shifted.

Centola's 2018 small-group experiments show how sensitive the tipping point is. Sometimes adding just a single person to the committed minority meant hitting 25%-and the transition from failure to success. Varying numbers of activists were planted into groups in 10 trials.

So if 10% are already unionized then we're halfway there... in a way.

Why join a union?

It's largest tool is collective bargaining, that's why organized strikes work better, it guarantees you have people supporting you. Using numbers helps enforce demands and rights be met.

We know unions work because they gave us all these things already.

So like... Yeah..

Join a union. Even if it's not IWW. Join one.

[ingravinoveritas]

(Just needed to make a separate post about this, because I feel like I'm having an aneurysm.)

Michael Sheen has a playlist on his Spotify for The Way, and one of the songs on said list is "I Who Have Nothing" by Shirley Bassey. Which has these lyrics:

This song. On a playlist for The Way. Which has a gay swingers scene at the beginning of episode 3. That Georgia Tennant is in. Where this happens, and after which the camera lingers on the two men kissing more than anyone else in the scene:

...Which of course could mean nothing. But...yeah...

[erros429]

why are you calling farcille sapphic representation when they aren’t even canon

had a very lengthy internal debate with myself on whether i wanted to answer this with an essay or say something short like “because i’m sapphic and they represent me.” but you guys can have the essay too.

i’d like to preface this by saying that i understand where you’re coming from. explicit lgbt+ representation is so deeply important and queer characters in media needs to be normalized instead of tokenized so that queer viewers can feel like there is a world that accepts them and that they can belong in.

HOWEVER. this does not also mean that queercoding and subtext should be devalued, especially given how ingrained it is in queer culture and media. historically, when it was a lot more dangerous to show a character as queer without villainizing them in some way, subtext was all a queer viewer could have. but it’s because of those small hints (see: the legend of korra) that we could have popular media that unabashedly shows queer love. however, even that representation has been stifled, either by only allowing the queer love to be shown in the end (see: adventure time, she-ra, and voltron) or by straight up canceling the show itself (see: the owl house, warrior nun, i am not okay with this, sense8, and first kill).

now let’s get into the actual discussion of farcille. more often than not, shipping arises more from seeing the buildup of a couple rather than when they actually get into a relationship. and this goes for any ship, not just queer ones. but you’re not questioning me on shipping farcille, you’re questioning that i called them sapphic representation without them actually being canon (and therefore they can’t be considered representation).

however, i wholeheartedly think that farcille cannot be read as anything other than romantic, and i genuinely believe that (MANGA SPOILERS) they’d pursue a relationship post-canon, now that falin is un-chimera’d and marcille has a less anxious attachment style to the people she loves. dungeon meshi doesn’t focus on romance whatsoever, and there honestly wouldn’t be any time to show romance anyway because neither character was in a position to be ready for one, so the only appropriate moment would be post-canon.

and that’s where the importance of subtext comes in. ryoko kui’s storytelling relies heavily on her audience’s media literacy skills. though laios is never explicitly stated as autistic, his character is written in such an exquisite way, that any viewer could easily guess what she was trying to represent there. i would 100% consider him to be autistic representation, even without him saying it in-text. now why shouldn’t i be allowed to extend that same logic to farcille being sapphic representation? all the tell-tale queercoding signs are there, just like all the tell-tale autistic-coding is present in laios. i don’t need the two girls to kiss to be aware of how utterly devoted and in love they are with each other.

[digitalgirls]

i think itzy should be allowed to shoot people

[coldgoldlazarus]

Maybe the solution to egg discourse, is that sometimes suggestions help trans people figure it out, and sometimes it pushes them deeper into denial instead, and so we shouldn't be making broad assumptions about what is or isn't good for someone, and just take each instance on a contextual basis?