#how to write prose

[venniekocsis]

Writing Prompt: Prose vs. Poetry

Let’s explore prose and how it differs from poetry. Prose is written or spoken language in its ordinary form, without any specific rhythmic or metrical structure. It’s the typical style of writing used in novels, essays, and articles. Poetry, on the other hand, is a form of artistic expression that uses structured and rhythmic language, often with rhyme and meter. It’s more focused on evoking…

[opens-up-4-nobody]

The 1st time I watched all of tos Turnabout Intruder was my favorite episode. Despite the pretty intense sexism and crazy shatner acting, I just find the idea really compelling.

[lucidloving]

Ada Limón, "In the Country of Resurrection" // Jack Kerouac, Big Sur // Mary Oliver, "The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac" // Gregory Orr, "To Be Alive" // Dino Ahmetović // Siniša Simon, Magic Dance // Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver // Vladimir Nabokov, Letters to Véra (trans. Olga Voronina & Brian Boyd) // Mary Oliver, "Toad" // 木苏里, 全球高考 (Global Examination)

[shorthaltsjester]

i truly am baffled by some of the cr fandom when it comes to the topic of the gods and c1 and death in general because. the raven queen didn’t kill vax. in fact she gave him more time. she Does get the blame from keyleth and some from vex but even those two by the end were more so just holding grudges wrapped up in their own issues that were exacerbated by vax’s choices. but it was always vax’s choice. which, y’know, i’m aware of a portion of the cr fandom’s propensity for dismantling every interesting choice a character makes into something forced upon them, but the role of fate in exandria has never been like bad faith you must adhere to the path chosen for you, it’s much more like what brennan has spoken about wrt specificity: as one makes more choices they become more particular to a given outcome. but that’s not some curse by the gods that dooms characters that’s literally just. what living is.

and of course death is a complicated thing that everyone approaches differently but. god the amount of people who view vax’s dynamic with the raven queen as an injustice or his death as some unforgivable thing the raven queen caused some how? in the words of laura bailey, Were We Watching The Same Orb? it isn’t an injustice that vax, completely willing to pay whatever it cost him to save his sister, was bound to the Deal He Agreed To. his role as the champion was one he found meaning and purpose in. further, it was the raven queen that allowed him to be resurrected later in the campaign. like, it isn’t fair that vax had so little time but it is time he chose and time he was given, but vox machina tends to fall on the reaping the benefits side of unfairness of power in exandria. if what makes the gods — particularly the matron of ravens — irredeemable is that they have the power to make choices that mortals can’t like denying someone’s resurrection, how irredeemable must the group of heroes called vox machina (whose members drop like flies to be revived moments later) be to the everyday person who just has to watch the people they love die and make peace with it?

of course it sucks that vax could not have a happy ending or epilogue like the rest of vm, except of course, vex has a family and is happy and loved, and keyleth is strong and alive and protected, and i think that looks a lot like what vax wanted most.

[leaves-and-inks]

“Not fierce enough to run with the wolves, but too vicious to find belonging amongst the dogs.”

[ID: Digital illustration of a pinkish coyote on a textured purple/blue gradient square, on top of a cream paper background. The coyote twists in an unnatural way, its limbs in different directions. Its head is thrown back to almost be resting on its back, which it's raised at the read haunches. it’s tail is slightly longer than a real coyote’s and bent at several angles. Its mouth is open in a somewhat blank, aghast expression. it’s yellow eye is larger than average and wide open. the line art is scratchy and in various purple, except for the mouth which is in various shades of pink. The fur is textured and messy, and follows the same patterns of a coyote’s coat in a pink/purple color pallette. There is a cream outline around the coyote that matches the background and also cuts into overlapping elements, such as the back limbs or the head. The cream background has a paper texture that overlaps the rest of the image, In the bottom right is a watermark that reads “LEAVES AND INKS” handwritten inside an oak leaf shape /end ID]

[ivynightshade]

how i would beg, medusa, for her to look at me, and midas, for his golden clutch / all of this would ruin me / but at least i would be seen and touched.

fatima aamer bilal, from moony moonless sky’s ‘how can i escape my mind?’

[the-most-humble-blog]

<div style="white-space:pre-wrap">

🧠 THE MANNEQUIN WITH POWERS — Why Character Comes Before Plot or Die in the Void A Blacksite Literature™ Transmission (If your protagonist couldn’t grip a reader’s soul in a blank room, you already failed.)

I. THE VOID YOU'RE WRITING INTO

Let’s get this out of the way first:

If your character can’t speak — not literally, but viscerally — to the reader’s insides without the crutch of explosions, lore dumps, or a “cool” outfit…

You are not writing a character. You’re dressing a mannequin. And no one gives a fuck what a mannequin does.

II. IF THEY FEEL NOTHING, YOU BUILT NOTHING

Who cares what city’s under attack? Who cares if they’re the Chosen One? Who cares about your twist, your map, your seven-act structure?

If the protagonist you’ve built:

Has no secret

Carries no weight

Evokes no response from a quiet, tired reader on a Tuesday night—

Then you wrote into the void.

Your reader wasn’t “dumb” or “impatient.” They felt nothing. And they left.

III. THE LIE OF “PLOT FIRST”

You’ve been sold a lie:

“Just make the story exciting and the characters will follow.”

No. Never. Backwards.

Character always precedes plot. Character is the plot.

Because if I don’t care who it’s happening to — Then nothing happening will ever matter.

A reader can forgive:

A slow start

A clunky scene

A cliché trope

But they will never forgive the crime of hollow company.

You gave them someone to follow —

And that someone had no soul.

IV. THE MANNEQUIN WITH POWERS

Let’s define the threat.

The Mannequin:

Has abilities

Has trauma

Has a goal

Has quips

Has a backstory

But no voice.

No contradiction. No shame. No private thing they would die to protect, not because it’s powerful — but because it’s theirs.

This mannequin does things. Big things. High stakes.

And no one cares. Because nothing human is bleeding through the plastic.

V. ESCAPISM ISN’T A LICENSE TO LIE

Yes, readers want to escape. But not from humanity.

They want to escape into:

A place where flawed people matter.

A place where pain has context, not just screen time.

A place where characters don’t just “get better” — they get known.

Escape into fantasy all you want. But if you’re escaping the imperfections of the human condition, then you’re not writing fantasy. You’re writing propaganda for emotional disconnection.

And your reader knows it. Even if they don’t say it. Even if they reblog it. Even if they finish it.

They know.

VI. THE SECRET THEY DON’T BRAG ABOUT

Let me give you the fix.

Give your character one thing:

A secret they don’t brag about.

Something they hide not because it’s cool — but because it’s raw, vulnerable, humiliating, or sacred.

Examples:

She used to believe in God, and now she can’t even say “grace” over her food.

He kept a voicemail from his brother the day before he overdosed.

She has two daughters, and hasn’t seen them since the custody ruling.

He talks shit to villains but goes home and reads old love letters he never responded to.

Do not announce it. Do not reward it. Do not let them monologue it.

Let it live. Quietly. And watch your readers form emotional attachments like animals recognizing kin.

VII. PLOT WILL NEVER SAVE YOU

You can worldbuild forever. You can twist the timelines, deepen the lore, expand the pantheon.

But if your central figure could be replaced by anyone and the story still works?

You didn’t build a character. You built scenery in a cape.

Plot is what happens.

Character is who we blame, who we mourn, who we root for in spite of ourselves.

And if you skip that? You skip the anchor. You leave your reader floating — no matter how pretty the setting is.

VIII. THE READER DOESN’T OWE YOU A DAMN THING

Let’s be brutally honest:

Your reader doesn’t care how much time you spent.

They don’t care how much of your soul you “poured in.” They don’t care how important your themes are.

If they can’t connect to a being — not a puppet — then they leave.

Because they’re not in your head. They’re alone. Reading. Tired. Wanting to feel something.

And if your protagonist doesn’t show up with emotional currency in hand?

They’re gone.

IX. THE ONLY TEST THAT MATTERS

Write this down:

If your main character was in a blank white room for five pages — with no plot, no action, no powers — would I want to hear what they think?

If the answer is no?

Start over.

Not from page one. From soul one. You didn’t give them a person. You gave them a vessel to carry your story — and no one wants to be ferried by a stranger.

X. THE REALITY YOU’RE TOO SCARED TO ADMIT

You’re not scared of writing bad plots.

You’re scared of putting real, flawed, mirrored, shameful, holy you into your character — because if it fails, it’ll feel like you failed.

So you keep them clean. You keep them plastic. You keep them “relatable” in all the ways that mean nothing.

But the only thing that ever makes a reader stay?

Is the feeling that this character was carved from a place they weren’t supposed to see.

That’s what creates emotional loyalty. That’s what earns tears. That’s what builds cult followings, not just fandoms.

XI. SO FIX IT.

Kill the mannequin.

Bury the empty badass. Silence the sarcastic automaton. Throw the trauma plot in the fire.

Build a person. A person with shame. A person with weight. A person who reminds the reader of a truth they’ve never told anyone.

Then throw that person into your plot.

And watch the story ignite.

XII. CONCLUSION: YOU'RE NOT WRITING STORIES. YOU'RE WRITING PEOPLE.

You think you’re writing entertainment. You think you’re building scenes. You think you’re plotting arcs.

But you’re not.

You’re introducing human souls to strangers. And the ones who do it well? They become immortal.

Every good story is just a person you didn’t want to say goodbye to.

If you don’t have that?

Then what the fuck are we doing here. </div>

📌 If this made your spine straighten mid-sentence — reblog it. 🧠 If it exposed a hollow character you once thought was “done” — save it. ✍️ If it reminded you why we write at all — read it again.

And if it hurt? That means it’s time to start over.

Bonus:

🧠 FREE WRITING LESSON — THE MOST POWERFUL CHARACTER DEPTH TRICK YOU’LL EVER READ.

[altcvnningham]

adler can’t stop holding bell’s face when he kisses them.

and not gently, either, not the caress of a flower petal, delicate and sweet- bell’s barely a rose if not for all their thorns, and he wrings a hand round their jaw like one might wrench out a weed. rid and tossed to the dirt with all the rest. with all the red. with all that makes them wrong. with everything that came before.

if he can’t muzzle his dog, who can?

he bends their head upward in the interrogation chair, thumb dug into their cheek, squeezing the blood from their mouth into a sanguine rivulet between the web of his fingers; he jerks bell’s face toward the evidence board when their empty eyes fix on him a moment too long, enough to unsettle him; he stamps their chin under a hard thumb when he turns them to the light, soft pupils blown wide as he watches the sweet drug take hold; he digs his fingers into their jaw when they bark too loud at their duly master, shaking sense into his dumb mutt’s whistling hole of a head.

when he deigns to let them go, he makes a point to tear his hand away, sharp and spiteful, so even with the sting they still manage to find suffering in the loss. to yearn for the hand they bit back.

so the rest comes violent, too. the rest comes hungry. the rest comes when he wants it, and he wants bell, with such a blind fervour it drives him mad. where better men might leave, kick their losses to the curb and go elsewhere to get their fill, adler digs his heels deeper in the mud, the dirt where he buries all that red he carved out of them. if it’s tenderness he wants, he can take it for himself, and leave them with the hurt. it isn’t stooping to their level if he’s the one with the leash.

he kisses bell like he’s eating them from the inside. one hand squeezed tight around their flushed face, mouth forced open into an o-shaped pucker. he nicks their lip as smirking proof of his callousness, snags it on his sharpest canine. a peck that mocks affection. licks his way inside their mouth like it’s a threat, a proclamation. you let me do this to you. you let me in, bell. let me in, let me in. such a good dog when they do, loll their tongue out pathetic and starving. he drives his thumb inside, hot, wet, forces their mouth open by the hinge of their stiffened jaw- the last laughable vestiges of their reluctance, crumbling into dust fine enough to sift like sand between his fingers. guess science still has its limits, but so do you.

when he’s worked bell’s mouth nice and wide, he flattens their tongue with a thick finger, face clamped between the rest, and while they’re just about learning to make peace with it all- the humiliation, the degradation, submission made sanctification through the eager expectation of praise- he spits inside, and makes them swallow.

[six-white-venus]

before he was a martyr, jesus was a son.

[threewordusername]

the weight of a year.

d.b.a

[zvahlne]

headcanon: shadow knights can't cry.

it takes him a long while to notice. he had never considered himself much of a crier. it wasn't that he thought there was anything wrong with crying. he was just one to keep moving, keep doing, show the people around him and under his care that it would be alright, no matter what had happened. some might accuse him of bottling for this, though whether it was selfless for others (so they wouldn't worry; so they could cry while he carried it) or selfish (so he wouldn't have to think about it, wouldn't have to feel it), up for debate. either way, he would disagree, and had whenever someone close enough to him to notice the pattern mentioned it (usually cadenza).

...the last time he remembers crying was with cadenza. it was about joh.

he didn't cry in the nether (no water can last long there; how could he? your eyes could never get wet enough. every blink in the nether is stinging).

he didn't cry when he was brought back, not for his sight, not for ungrth (more surprising, but he was in shock. nothing felt real in those days, and after, he had things to do, people to care for).

it's when he loses 15 years and he comes back to his father's death and can't shed a single tear that he finally thinks he really ought to be crying. but he isn't. he can't?

he goes to ungrth's grave and he thinks of ungrth and he thinks of hayden and he thinks of joh and he thinks of garroth and he grits his teeth, he digs his nails into his palms, he gets a headache from how tight his brows furrow, he feels an ache so intense in his chest he's gasping for breath, but his eyes are as dry as they've since the day he died (he wants to cry, he should be crying, why isn't he crying?).

his life is taken from him, replaced with facsimile. the man he trusted more than himself betrayed him, and is now lost a dimension away. he's lost fifteen years, his father passed without him present, his friend's grave has been desecrated, the places he lived in and loved and protected fallen and rebuilt, all in his absence, all to be discovered all at once. he loses nearly everything, he watches helplessly as he loses even himself. and yet...

laurance can't cry.

[lilaccatholic]

Okay you need to explain the mafia thing without incriminating your family

Oh I so don't care about incriminating anyone lol everyone is either dead or the statute of limitations have passed. Family lore for a long time was that my great-grandfather came over from Italy just before World War I, met my great-grandmother, and raised a ton of kids on a farm.

Yeah, not what happened lol.

Turns out, he was *sent* over here by the mob (though the timeline was correct—it was still 1913 lol), got shoved into an arranged marriage (with a bride who was, oh, about 14 at the time and had her first child at 16), still had a ton of kids, and basically terrorized his little corner of the world so completely that the police force in the area where he lived was so in his pocket that they had to run new hires by him. His sons and cousins got involved in the, er, *family business*, and some of their sons did, too. My grandma's sister had an arranged marriage as well to the son of a mobster they were close to, and most of her brothers were involved in the mob, but God bless my firebrand of a grandmother who refused to marry someone she didn't know and snatched herself a former Coast Guardsman turned Ford plant manager and buzzed all the way off to Michigan. She put the literal fear of God in these people and demanded that they not only get rid of their more occult superstitions, but doggedly kept after her father until he repented of his past. She practically forced him to stay alive after he had a stroke until he got himself to confession. Somehow this woman survived being born premature in 1934 and decided to make it everyone else's problem until she got called home to glory in 2021. I miss her every day.

As for the rest of the family, there are probably some cousins still in Italy who are still "in", but everyone in the US has either died or left the business—in part because of said grandmother's crusading. As many of my fellow Italian-Americans know, there's nothing quite as terrifying as a tiny old woman with a rolling pin. She took after her mother in that way. Her mother, who had the unabashed temerity to tell her mafia boss husband that she had no intention of listening to him when he told her not to help nurse the sick during the Spanish Flu, and who used her husband’s ill-gotten gains to feed people during the Great Depression. She raised seven children to adulthood, lost a few others, and was basically such a force of nature that even 35 years after her death, she's still remembered with adoration as a great cook and helluva woman by all who knew her. I'm named for her and my grandmother—albeit the anglicized versions of their names—and somehow she managed to reach through time and give me her face. So, in a very special way, I carry these two incredible women with me at all times.

I'm highlighting these two women in particular instead of all the sordid mafia details for a reason. Oh, I could tell you about the wire taps and the FBI files, the people killed, the drugs and liquor they ran, how my grandmother's sister had terrors about a field where the bodies were buried when she was dying of Alzheimer's. We're mentioned on podcasts and in forums of crime junkies, and yeah, some of the people we knew were probably the inspiration for some of your favorite mafia films. But the truth of it at the end of the day is this: they destroyed people. They used crime and terror to ruin lives, and left behind a legacy of trauma and despair. But my grandmother who did everything she could to get the family out? Who prayed about the evil that had been done in her family's name until her death? My great-grandmother, who made the best of a horrible situation and tried to do good with the hand she'd been dealt? Who opened restaurants and fed the homeless? Man, they're stars to me. Not perfect in any way, but they took steps forward that helped end centuries of a bloody family legacy.

And, well, I'm pretty darn glad they did.

[lucidloving]

All images: VIVINOS, Alien Stage // Rixa White // Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince // S.K. Osborn, "A Hunger Like No Other" // Sing Shong, Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint // Sylvia Plath, "Dialogue Between Ghost and Priest" // Park Byungdae, STUDIO LICO, Yongsu Choi, & Manju—Cure // Renée Vivien // Tina Tran, "Until I started choking on our memories" // Mary Ruefle, "The Cart" // Jenny Slate, Little Weirds // Pablo Neruda, 20 Love Sonnets and a Song of Despair // Hozier—Francesca // Richard Siken, "Saying Your Names"

[brbarou]

the most fun part of baccano to me are the rules that narita sets for his characters and the conflicts that arise from each character having their own set of rules. ladd wants to kill people who are confident they won't die, and so when he's faced with czes (immortal) and claire (claire) it ticks him off. elmer is always lying, except when he explicitly states that he isn't lying, in which case we Know he's telling the truth. the way the reader's knowledge of these things is utilised is always so fun - like with the characters' speech patterns. you can tell who's speaking even if the identity of the character is purposefully hidden from you, like with ronny's "no matter" or nile's "i say this..." or begg's fast speech. all this combined with the rules of immortality makes for such Great moments which rely entirely on the reader's knowledge of how these characters and this world works. like the "my name is Le..." scene - it's all SO GOOD

[a-hymnforher]

[toskarin]

I keep tapping my finger on this idea even if I can't quite articulate it out into the full thought it probably should be, but there's something really interesting about how the primary difference between a game that generates stories and a game that does not is whether it's trying to emulate the presence of a gm

a lot of games very straightforwardly simulate "doing the cool thing" in a way that appeals to every sense they can reach, making a very in-the-moment authentic experience, but in retelling, because there isn't some sort of storyteller agent built into things, it feels exactly like trying to describe a dream, and unless you insert yourself into the role of someone who's curating that story very heavily, even the curious parts of it end up feeling very dry

describing something weird that happened in (for example) dwarf fortress comes with a much higher base level of intrigue just because there's a structure at work to force one of the most interesting aspects of the game, the procedural storytelling that provides a decent chunk of the appeal in the first place, to also be the one that's carried over when it's retold

which sort of brushes up against that now-long-proliferated bandwagon of making deeply sentimental and personal retrospectives and reviews of games, because what's being talked about in those, the personal experience of interaction with the game, is more broadly interesting than the secondhand ephemera of the game that trusses the narrative up