#prose protips

[tiodolma]

People: Merlin was right all along! But he is away! From now on, we shall write everything he says and compile them in a book! Fr. Blaise: Hey, should I stop writing the book you instructed me to write now that they're going to make a new book about you? Merlin:

(Prose Merlin)

(Vulgate Cycle)

....

Protip: Don't piss Merlin off lol.

[helldustedstories]

wow nevermind, i wasnt trying to be weird just trying to compliment you but i take back my compliment

youre not like stolas at all and you should write stella instead since youre identical to her, a rude uppity bitch. learn to take compliments and dont assume its meant in an weird way

its no surprise you only write with the same 4 people bc youre rude and uppity and your writing might be good but its only purple prose

oh and you dont want to make other people feel bad but your always bragging and being uppity

enjoy your day i guess stella lmao

Again, normally I just delete this sort of thing and move on, especially because I don't like feeding into any sort of "drama." But at this point, this is about more than just me. This is about boundaries.

Unfortunately, I am forced to do this publicly because by choosing to continue to contact me anonymously, I have absolutely no way of having any sort of nuanced discussion with you about why the messages you've been sending me have not been okay and have crossed my boundaries several times over.

You don't know my history or what I've experienced. I don't owe you anything. But because we're doing this, I guess it's time to pull out that history and to explain to you exactly why what you did wasn't okay, especially this last message.

I have been stalked on tumblr before. It started out very similar to your first message, which I do still have saved, seeming very positive and encouraging, but it made me uncomfortable. So when I didn't answer, I got another message, this time asking to see a picture of me. I am normally fine with sharing pictures for munday sometimes, or if I feel like I'm rocking a particular look, but having someone I don't know on the internet blatantly asking, even if it is couched in another 'compliment' is wildly uncomfortable.

Again, I understand that neither of those things were malicious and were even likely well-intentioned, but respecting people's privacy online is something that is important. And when I didn't answer either of the first asks, that should have been your cue to let it go. I even turned anon off for a while because the first two made me uncomfortable.

I ended up turning it back on and got another ask, and this one felt even more bait-y than the first two. Protip: if you start a sentence with "no offense," what comes after it is usually going to be offensive. If you also have to add that something can be seen 'in a good way,' then you are acknowledging that it can also be seen in a bad way, and continuing to push that on someone else is probably not the best idea.

And when the majority of the messages go "compliment by putting other people down - actual thesis of the ask, trying to push your own thoughts onto others - other compliment putting other people down," it doesn't actually feel very much like a sincere compliment anyway. It feels like a way to continue to push your own thoughts and feelings on other people by dressing it up as though you're complimenting them.

I also have deep-seated trauma when it comes to random, unsolicited praise from people I don't know, especially when it's worded in the way that you did. Is it something I've been working on? Yes, absolutely. But telling me "learn to take a compliment" is a deeply triggering phrase, so congratulations, you're getting this whole rant instead of me just deleting and moving on.

What you said to me was not a compliment. If you have to put other people down to build someone else up, that's not helping anyone.

You sure seem to know a lot about what I post and who I write with. If you wanted to write with me and didn't get the chance, for that I am sorry. But it would have been much better if you had approached me either by sending me an ask with your actual URL or sending me an IM. I'm always happy to write with more people, but it's a two-way street. I do my best to reach out to people, to send memes, write open starters, etc, but if people don't reach back out to me, I can't exactly force anyone to interact with me.

Also, to all of your other points, part of the reason I write Stolas so well is because I've been where he is. Not exactly, not entirely, but I've been in an abusive relationship was for years. Kept going back to them despite everything because I didn't think anyone else would ever want me. Wrecked havoc on my self-esteem and my ability to form normal relationships with other people.

So sure, you can call me Stella all you want, say I'm an "uppity bitch," but I'd honestly love to see what you're referring to. I have done everything in my power to be as calm and level-headed as possible, and the only reason I am currently addressing this at all is because it has now become harassment.

If you have something you want to say to me, you are still welcome to send me an ask as yourself or IM me, and I'll be more than happy to have an actual discussion. But otherwise, please leave me alone. Please don't do this to someone else, either. You don't know their history and what might send them spiraling. If you want to send someone an anonymous compliment or try to brighten someone's day by telling them they're doing something well, then stop with that part. Make it specific, not just a generalization. If you like someone's headcanons, tell them that; if you like the graphics they edit, mention that. But don't use sending a compliment as an excuse to push your own agenda on other people, and if they don't reply, leave them alone.

[cedarbranch]

okay so: Playing With Matches, Sweet Tooth, Truth or Dare (my beloved), Convicted Criminals of Thought (my beloved!), Moth To Light? sorry i'm pretty much obsessed w all of your fics. humiliating . send ask

omg this is extremely flattering... i have stans... stroke my ego some more why don't you anon /j

this is going under a cut, i'm about to YAP

sweet tooth: i wrote this one for a holiday exchange in the gm server i was part of at the time! (cat, if you're out there, i think about your story about being mistaken for a lush corporate tester every damn time i walk into that store). i used to really dislike writing for prompts so it was a mark of how much i loved that little community (and how much it energized me) that i worked up the nerve to write something like this, lol. i had also never written a coffee shop au before. michael's dislike of coffee and subsequent anxiety over what to order was 100% a projection from me, LMAO, i was like how can i write a coffee shop au when i hate coffee and have no idea how coffee shops work?? (oh, i can make that the whole premise!) i had to watch a few youtube tutorials on how to do latte art so i could make sure i was describing it well. oh, and the hot chocolate gerry gives michael is my personal spice blend that i love to use in hot cocoa! protip: hot milk, melt a heap of chocolate chips directly into it (with a sweetness level of your choice) then top with cinnamon, nutmeg, and just a little bit of allspice. god tier.

also, i'm writing this while drinking a latte, so needless to say I've Changed.

truth or dare: okay this is hilarious to look back on because i... CANNOT remember for the life of me what possessed me to write it. i think this was something i started spitballing in the gm server and then everyone went "CEDAR IF YOU DON'T WRITE THIS I'LL AAHDHSFHDFHSGJK" so, i got enabled, basically. i'm pretty sure this was also written when the trans gerard keay AO3 tag wasn't an official archive tag yet and i was trying to brute-force it into existence... there were a couple tags i did this for (see also: it/its pronouns for michael the distortion, monsterfucker gerard keay). i was kinda making it my mission to churn out enough fic under these tags that they got recognized by the tag wranglers, lol, especially trans gerry. because i started writing gm SO early i was like "i have the opportunity to shape the fanon dynamic here and i am making SURE everyone sees gerry as trans, dammit!" this fic was also a milestone for me because i think it might've been the first pure pwp i ever wrote :) still not something i do very often because i am so frequently led astray by Plot, but it's nice to have in my skill set!

moth to light: MY BELOVED!! excluding current wips, this is the fic i am most proud of. it definitely marked a shift in my writing where i was starting to introduce relationships that felt less fanfic-y/easily romantic, and more akin to the dynamics that compelled me so much in the various source materials i interacted with. i've already discussed the main points of what i was doing with this story in various ask/ao3 comment responses, but the core of it was about monstrosity and self-acceptance, how gerry could fall in love with a monster, and the uneasy space where trust and fear coexist. there are definitely some things i'd change about it if i could - i think certain bits are a bit choppy and rushed, scene transitions were not a fully developed skill for me - but overall i think the dynamic between gerry and michael is what makes it hold up so well. and i also can't help but look back at it fondly because that kind of dynamic is SO characteristic of my writing now, and i consider this fic to be the first time it really emerged.

i also think it has some neat prose and exchanges of dialogue... at this point i'd already written several fics that captured the mind-breaking physicality of the spiral, and it was a challenge to keep finding new ways to express that in words without it becoming repetitive - but a very fun and stimulating challenge! i laugh because this, too, is something that's become characteristic of me. turns out i just really enjoy trying to capture fantastical, overwhelming mental-physical sensations on the page. i think physicality is a big part of my narrative voice and i also enjoy writing in extremes, so it makes a lot of sense why i like it so much!

there were a few points that everything else in this fic grew around. the entire exchange leading up to "i could change your mind, i think" was one of them. see also, "it's not the spiral i belong to, it's you." "that doesn't make you a monster" / "doesn't it, though." michael and gerry being protective of one another. gerry lost in the hallways - it was very important to me that michael actually come close to killing him at least once, and that the reader felt that danger. it was something that i felt was missing from gm fic at the time (and there was barely any fic to begin with - moth to light was the second ever gm fic on ao3 that broke 20k. i'm not sure how long you've been around, anon, but MAN those first couple years of being a gm shipper were wild).

i also had a ton of fun setting up gerry's complicated pull toward michael!! it's romantic, but there's so much psychology beyond that. like, when he first finds out who michael used to be: "There are a hundred new questions bouncing around Gerry’s brain—what did Michael think of Gertrude, before she betrayed him? Why hasn’t he tried to take revenge on her now? Does he remember his descent into the Spiral? Did he know what was coming? Did it hurt to lose himself?" it's his own future he's scared about, and if he'll end up just like michael. i hope that came across.

ah... so fond of this one. i crack myself the hell up with how obvious it should've been that i'd wind up writing hannibal fic. a character who drives every conversation by responding with some indirect, metaphorical bullshit and a distinctive speech pattern? a character whose descent into monstrosity is well underway but he can't stop agonizing over whether he can tolerate that part of himself, much less embrace it - but his love interest's presence allows him to? a relationship dynamic where it's constantly uncertain whether one's intentions are lethal, and the answer always feels like "obviously yes" but also "obviously no"?? they're literally hannigram. hannigram is the fucking BLUEPRINT of this dynamic, i just didn't know it yet. i actually caught myself in one of my current wips a while back accidentally fucking recreating the michael-at-gerry's-throat "please don't" scene damn near word for word, and i thought to myself, HOLD ON,THIS VIBE FEELS A LITTLE FAMILIAR...

so yeah, uh, if you like the vibe of this fic, maybe watch hannibal?

convicted criminals of thought: i felt fucking insane when i was writing this one fr. it took me like 4 days, i think?? NEVER have i banged out 19k so fast.

the fic was mossstly just born from me loving the concept of beholding avatar powers used for smut and really, really wanting to write that with gerry, LOL. i didn't expect it to be so long and plotty, but the dynamic i wanted ended up requiring more setup than i originally thought it would... i was really trying to push the sexual tension and i was also taking a step into writing much more explicit kink than i had in the past. like moth to light, i would say this fic represented a turning point for me, because these days explicit d/s makes up most of what i write haha. turns out i'm just super into exploring power dynamics in fiction and using sex as a vehicle for said exploration. there are some things i'd write differently if i did it now... i wrote criminals during the era in which ~safe and communicative sex in fanfic~ was really being pushed online, so i made sure to include detailed discussions of boundaries. the fact that i wrote in the stoplight system makes me cringe a little now, but the saving grace that allows me to not care too much is that i do think it's in character for that version of gerry and michael. it's a very reasonable choice for a young man who's naive when it comes to both the supernatural and the sexual, and a more experienced dom with a protective streak. (these days, i'm firmly in the camp that no matter how insane the sex is, characters should not be negotiating their kinks onscreen unless it is in-character for them to both a) have the knowledge of kink required for such discussions in the first place, and b) initiate those discussions. obviously in REAL life these things should always be prioritized! but if i see a fanfic scene interrupted for two characters who are normally wildly emotionally stunted and non-communicative to go "wait, what's your safeword!!" it'll completely take me out of it... i also think this is just one aspect of a much broader issue with people being unwilling to make their characters (even morally gray/straight-up cruel characters) take actions that they view as unacceptable. i certainly struggled with this for a long time (more on that later) but thankfully i've gotten over it.

an unrelated detail for this one - the flesh monster gerry and michael encounter was inspired by the mindflayer in season 3 of stranger things :)

anddddd... yeah, there was supposed to be a sequel... technically there is, it's just that only ~75% of it exists. it features: workplace sex and edging, michael being a brat, collaring, new beholding abilities, and a new appreciation for degradation. i say this purely to be evil, because it's unlikely it'll ever get finished (oops). onto the pile of incomplete wips it goes, along with all the stranger things fics... i promise this pains me as much as it does you.

playing with matches: oh my darling magnolia verse, always on my mind. fun fact, the original title of this fic was "a journal of the plague year," one of the leitners referenced in tma. naturally, Certain Events Happened while i was writing the fic, and that title took on... new, unintended connotations!!! so i changed it (though i did keep referring to it as 'plague year' in my head for quite a while). i'm actually happy i changed it, though. obvious blase is such a great song for this gerry, and (if i ever FUCKING finish it!!) the agnes fic is titled after the very next lyric in the song, which is perfect for her + the fact that it tells much of the same story from her pov.

where to even start with this fic... there's so much going on. one of my lasting impressions was that it was a DEVIL to get gerry's characterization right... this is where i mention how i used to be really, really bad at letting my characters be bad people, haha. gerry thinks of himself as sooo prickly and mean in this fic but he really... isn't? very much at all? lmao. i literally had to go back in after the first draft and make him meaner and i STILL don't think i did enough. he was meant to be a lot sharper than he actually turned out to be. (Yet Another reason i hope i can return to the agnes fic eventually - we'll get to see more of a different side of gerry. honestly, with the way things unfolded, a lot of him being an asshole became just because he's stupid and inconsiderate rather than because he's mean. and i think that works, ultimately).

some scenes that came to me early and made me decide this fic needed to exist: gerry and agnes smoking on the roof, talking around jude. gerry laying in the road at night and stargazing. agnes burning woodchips. shaving agnes's head. the exchange between agnes and gerry leading up to "i'm tired of being angry" (this might have been the source of it all, though i can't quite remember now). breaking into chapman hall (this is something that my friend group actually did around the time i was writing the fic - i wasn't there, but i was so delighted by the photos that it ended up in the fic).

overall, a LOT of this fic was relishing in writing the first-year college experience after i had just gone through it. (well, more like 60% of it). i was writing it in my freshman year - spring 2020. the fall 2019 semester was honestly a highlight of my life that i'll always be nostalgic for... i found a family near-instantly and felt true joy and acceptance for possibly the first time, and then it was snatched away from me in the spring with covid evacuation. writing it out allowed me to kind of re-live it through the characters. magnolia university is a BLATANT copy of my own uni - to the point where multiple people from my school ended up reading the fic and commenting that they recognized it. zeeeero subtlety from me, lol. a lot of the physical settings and details are thinly-veiled adaptations from real life. the queer frat our gang attends parties at is, in fact, the one i was part of (with its name changed) - it may be a stretch characterization-wise, but it was too big a part of my college experience to leave out. (and yeah, the buzzcut queer who welcomes gerry in the first time he visits was a self-insert. just couldn't resist).

ex altiora, too, is heavily based on my own experience being in a band with my friends during college. i've been pretty upfront about that, haha. when they reference a song which is about "murder as a metaphor for internalized homophobia," that's a real song, it just has a different title and hasn't been released yet. should i have linked my irl music in my fic notes? mmm, maybe not, but i do like the idea that someone out there could enjoy my music after discovering it through my fic. if only we had more than 2 songs on spotify... the EP is about three years late now, but it SHOULD be out very early next year :')

anyway. as you may have guessed based on the scenes i highlighted earlier, agnes and gerry's relationship is reeeaally important to this fic (and the 'verse as a whole)... which is why i feel so damn bad that i've left what was really supposed to be a duology as just one fic!! the incomplete/unpublished agnes fic fills in so many gaps, it drives me crazy. i keep getting dragged into other hyperfixations and i really don't control what my ADHD lets me work on, but there is so, SO much more of this 'verse that hasn't seen the light of day. nearly every character has a ton of unpublished lore. melanie and georgie almost got their own fic. tim and sasha almost got their own fic. don't get me started on oliver - i get so mad at the gang when i think about him, he's got SO much going on that nobody ever notices just because he puts on a good front of being well put-together. obsessive perfectionism, borderline substance abuse, and situationship drama... (when he takes care of mike crew tripping balls at that one party? yeah, that's the start of something much bigger). julia and her relationship with her dad. the conflicts between julia and gerry because they're so upfront with the way they fight, but end up missing all the important underlying issues in the process. agnes. agnes. AGNES. HER INSANE RELIGIOUS TRAUMA. the undiagnosed autism and legitimate compulsive pyromania. her gender expression issues, her fucked relationship with jude... 15k of it in my google docs and that's not close to half the story.

i'm getting distracted as always being vague about what's not out there, so let me clarify some of what is. first and foremost, agnes's lighter is her coping mechanism. the first time gerry meets her, she's forced herself to go to a party because her parents demand her to be social, and gotten so drunk she threw up. humiliating. time to start a fire. when she goes to the first punk show with gerry and he tells her she looks like a catholic schoolgirl, it makes her want to scream. Unresolved Issues There. at that show, jude is rude to agnes, agnes nearly fights her in the pit, and jude is immediately enamored with her. the toxic yuri begins. their first hookup happens after the chapman hall break-in. jude is the one who shows her the rooftop spot where she later smokes witth gerry. she has very little sense of identity and jude gives her that, in the most destructive way possible. eventually, shaving her head is a desperate attempt to do something for herself instead of jude (she knows jude will hate it), but afterwards, she doesn't actually like it, and it feels like just another way that jude has driven everything in her life. jude cannot take responsibility for a damn thing, and she blames agnes's growing distance on the band, hence their later fight at band practice. after that, when julia follows agnes, agnes has her first real vulnerable conversation about it - which she's been trying to do with gerry for a while, but gerry's fucking awful at talking about feelings and has barely even picked up on it. this is what pisses julia off so bad, she feels like he's been a bad friend to agnes. agnes and julia get very close after this, especially over the summer. (agnes isn't mad at gerry at all, to be clear - julia is mostly projecting because she also wants more intimacy in her relationship with gerry, but he never gives it to her. around michael, he's warm and open and communicative... but he doesn't show the same growth with his friendships. rip julia).

ugh, they're all so REAL to me. thanks for giving me the excuse to rant, i always love to <3 feel free to ask me whatever you want or message me directly, i'm an open book!

[proseprotips]

Your job as a writer, no matter what else is happening, is to continue to produce work—whether you’re succeeding or failing. -Leigh Bardugo

After reading Ninth House, I'm reading every Leigh Bardugo interview I can find. It's no surprise that she has some great insights to share about the craft. 

[soliloquiemagazine]

hey guys !!! my name is gracie zhang, and i’m the founder & editor-in-chief of soliloquie magazine. we are accepting applications for writers, artists (including photographers), and editors ! applications are open until august 5th, three weeks from now. 

soliloquie magazine is an iconic place for young people and their creative freedom. that’s our slogan/motto/whatever you want to call it, but it’s something that’s very important to me & my staff !!! i’m a 16 year old who loves to write. one day, i was up at 3am just thinking about Life i guess. i was thinking about school and stress and how i love to write but i didn’t have time to write and i never felt validated as a writer. and Guess What i bet you didn’t predict this, but that was the origin story of soliloquie. 

it’s not just about giving young creators a place to Scream. it’s about giving them a community, and an opportunity to push themselves. it’s for anyone who wants to be heard. we are your soliloquie. 

idk how many other ways to market this. soliloquie is for you !!! it’s for anyone & everyone ! pls join !

soliloquie is published quarterly (or at least i hope so if not ignore that we’re published three times a year who knew). each issue has a theme. this theme isn’t meant to be restricting, it’s actually meant to start the creative process. i will never tell you that you can’t create something !!! literally never !!! it’s all up to and whatever you’re feeling !

for example, the theme for issue 003 is freedom. you don’t need a poem that’s titled ‘freedom’ and all it talks about is what freedom feels like to you. i mean you Can do that but you don’t have to do that lmao. you can write about bike rides, or take pictures of flowers or whatever freedom makes you think about. all it is is a starting point. you decide where you end. 

the magazine is published online, on issuu. i’m just a 16 year old kid i can’t afford mass printing i wish tho. check us out:

issue 002      instagram       tumblr         soundcloud         website           youtube                

we’re looking for writers, artists/photographers, and editors !!!

just a lil requirement for everyone: this entire magazine is run through emails, discord messages, and google drive submissions. i have no way of tracking you down in real life and telling you that you missed a deadline ! susan how could you ! that will never happen. because of that, i Need everyone to be responsive. communication is key to any relationship, just a protip. especially in this circumstance where i can’t even tell if you alive until you actually message me back. if you suck at communication please do not sign up. i’m really sorry but it stresses everyone out, and i am stress prone so i guarantee you that i will be more stressed than everyone. 

additionally, if you do not think you have the time to commit to this, Please Do Not Sign Up. it breaks my heart when i recruit an extremely talented staff member and they end up quitting. if something does come up during the process i am extremely lenient ! i give out deadline extensions like oprah gives out cars ! but if from the start you say you can do it when really, you know you cannot, it will again, stress me tf out. 

ok those are the disclaimers, aside from that, i promise you it’s really fun lmao !!! here are the individual roles:

writers: we’re looking to expand our content, so nonfiction writers are preferred, but not the only ones that we’re accepting ! prose ! poetry ! essays ! everything is accepted. any length ! anything i swear. you will be following the theme. accepting a max of like ?? 10-20.

editors: you will be providing constructive criticism for the writer. our editor to writer ratio is pretty bad, so we’re looking for a Lot of editors. you should be extremely good at communication, and you should also be willing to read multiple drafts of the same work over and over again. being able to talk to someone else without fear of insulting them / Not insulting them and giving them helpful advice is a pretty good quality for an editor. accepting a max of 20.

artists: you will be following the theme. any medium is welcome, but we’re looking specifically for more photographers and digital artists ! you can collaborate with a writer, create doodles for the entire magazine, or make your own article. accepting a max of 10-20.

writers: apply here.

editors: apply here.

artists: apply here.

we do everything through google drive. if you do not have a gmail, or you’re not comfortable using your personal email, i highly suggest you make a new email account w/ google. additionally, we use discord and i promise it’s not a sketchy gc app like kik or something !!! you will need to make an account for discord if you’re accepted. 

applications will be chosen on a rolling basis. if i read your application and i automatically love it, i will automatically email you ! applications are open until august 5th. everyone, everyone ! will receive an email by august 5th, regardless of whether or not you’re accepted.

if you have a question you can shoot me an ask through our tumblr account (here) or you can shoot me an email (soliloquieinfo@gmail.com). you can also track the tag #soliloquieask for any questions that we received !!! i can’t wait to see your applications :^)))

[hackersandslackers]

Dealing with Dirty Data

Adventures in Excel

In my last post, we discussed how what separates a true analyst (read: technical) from a project manager wearing the mask of an analyst like some Scott Snyder era Joker (I figure that there's a solid overlap between fans of comic books and fans of the real world application of data. Note that this is a study with an N = 1 so it bares no statistical significance, but I have a funny feeling...call it spidey sense). Full disclosure, this post comes mostly out of my inability to sleep in my hotel room in Chicago following a grueling day of doing the very things I discuss in this blog, and preceding a day where I'll have to literally explain my last post to the suits, but perhaps this is the best mindset to begin discussing the myriad ways in which you may encounter dirty data in the wild, and how a savvy analyst may pivot and match their way around it. However, if my prose isn't as on point as you have grown accustomed...blame it on the 4AM haze. Alas, let's begin by discussing the organizational structure of the majority of corporate entities that leverage data to some degree (note, this isn't all corporations...and what does that say about the state of business?) and how, at each step of abstraction in this process that you are from the data, the data gets dirtier and dirtier. Essentially, there's always going to be a group of about 5-10 fewer-than-necessary legitimately skilled data scientists and/or computer programmers/DBAs who are really solid at building and maintaining a database as well as and some sort of compiling language (nowadays, that's probably python, but not exclusively, nor does this matter). However, depending on your industry (unless of course your industry IS data), it's nearly impossible to recruit people who have these skills to the level necessary AND have some familiarity with why this data is needed, and/or the ability to explain how the internal products that they build can be used by an end user. As such, this team has their own project manager(s) who's sole job is to keep these guys from developing a sentient AI that's sole goal is the annihilation of unfolded laundry...when your industry is healthcare. This team should also have at least one analyst who will take the raw code base and do the first step of translation to a more user friendly form. This generally takes shape as either dashboards in a system like Tableau, or if your company has a group of particularly strong data/business analysts (or particularly weak programmers) an interface written in plain(enough) English on a Business Intelligence platform such as Microsoft BI/SAP Business Objects or whatever other system your company utilizes. As a fun little note, this team ALMOST ALWAYS is referred to by some sort of acronym such as QDAR! (Quality data and reporting!) or KMnR! (Knowledge management and reporting!) or Those Fucking Guys (who have something to do with data) (TFG(whstdwd)). On a less fun little note...neither you, nor seemingly ANYONE ELSE will have contact with this team. In light of this information, how do the reports that they build get chosen or who decides how these databases are built? The world may never know. So let's assume the first type of reporting: the Dataratti (which is how I will refer to the acronym defined team described above moving forward) produces dashboards utilizing a tool such as Tableau or Crystal Reports. You may be thinking to yourself: "hey, isn't my job taking the data and putting it in a form where people who are scared by more than two nested groups of parenthesis, and thus this renders my job unnecessary?" The answer to the question is twofold: Yes, and of course not! As mentioned previously, the decision to create these dashboards, the data contained therein, and how you want them to look is decided upon by a mythical creature who has full access and understanding of the data warehouse, AND has full access to and understanding of the stakeholders (AKA, Those Who Sit Above in Shadow ; that's a reference from a famous run of Thor comics that refers to to a mysterious cabal of gods who perpetuate the cycle of Ragnarok in order to subsist upon the energies created by this strife...which as I write this, is an almost disgustingly on-the-nose metaphor for upper management). Now, if you believe that you may be this mythical creature (as I do), I DARE you to apply for a job with this job description, and once you clinch it with the advice from this blog, rapidly realize that your job will involve either one of these job duties or the other. With that digression, even if somehow a useful dashboard for YOU is created, the limitations inherent in these dashboarding tools make one CRUCIAL issue omnipresent: one can only effectively illustrate up to 16 different variables at a time before the system breaks down (for example, Tableau's documentation specifically warns against this). So even if you have the nicest, most illustrative dashboards on the planet from the Dataratti, there is a nearly 100% chance that the information that you actually need will be scattered across 2-3 different dashboards...rendering the nice looking dashboards essentially useless for your purposes, and as previously stated, you have no contact with the Dataratti, nor do you have access to the underlying data from which these dashboards are created. So pop quiz hot shot, what DO you do? Well, mercifully, all of these dashboard tools allow an end user to download a "data dump" (our parlance for "a buncha numbers with headings"). Using Tableau as an example, one can download either a "crosstab" or a text file of the data represented by the dashboard (in both "summary" and "full data" format). Now, just to get the truly gifted in Tableau off my back, yes, the functionality does exist to build in the ability to download the data in the exact format necessary for your needs through a specific combination of custom web server views and Javascript, but... If the users of the dash are exclusively using this function, why do the dashboard at all? And... This forces the developers in the Dataratti to have decent web design skills on top of really high level Tableau skills, and it requires someone to anticipate exactly how the data will be used by the end user by the Dataratti (which is incredibly hard as it's impossible to speak to this department directly, and as previously stated, the lack of this knowledge on their end is the entire reason why my department exists). A few things to note before downloading data from Tableau: You must highlight at least one element of the dashboard before downloading a crosstab. Depending on what kind of dashboard you're working with, you may need to highlight the entirety of one column in order to capture the entirety of your data (click the first element in any column and then scroll down to the bottom of the report...which may be enormously long, hit shift and click the last element in the report) before downloading either the data or the crosstab. If you are downloading a crosstab, be wary, Tableau web server caps how many rows you can download in this method at a time, this can be avoided by downloading the text version of the data (by clicking data as opposed to crosstab). HOWEVER... If you are going the data route, it defaults to summary view. Look over all the headings, and ensure that this covers everything you need, otherwise click "full data" . Interestingly, this still isn't actually the entirety of your data, and continue to check to make sure all of your headings are covered, otherwise, click the display all columns box, and then download all the rows as a text file. Now, repeat these steps until all of the data that you need in your report is contained across these text files (.csv, AKA the Comma Separated Value file type). With all that lunacy completed, you now have several sheets with some common columns, but all with different information; only some of which you need, so what do you think you do? Simple, you use the tools given to you in the previous posts: you lookup on the common factors across the sheets and return the data that you want until you have all the data you need, in the correct order, on one sheet, and then depending on the ask, you may want to pivot that data out in order to summarize the whole mess of data. THIS IS YOUR FINAL PRODUCT well done. Another protip: if you want to reposition data that you've obtained via a lookup, highlight the whole column, hit control+C to copy the data and then hit control+V pause a second (press NOTHING else) and then press control FOLLOWED by V . This takes the values generated by a formula and replaces them with the values obtained. Functionally, this looks exactly the same, but now you can move the data around without affecting or being affected by other data. As explaining only one possible dirty data scenario took over 1500 words, next time, we'll discuss the other most common form of taking the dirty data from the Dataratti and making it useful to you: using business intelligence portals as opposed to dashboards in order to grab the data that you need. Also, if I don't get roasted on a spit for being half asleep for tomorrow's (today's?) meeting, I'll try and write up a companion post with an example of how this works out in practice. In summary, in this post we've learned: How data is generally siloed and sequestered within the corporate environment, leading to a bevy of unnecessary steps on behalf of the analyst in order to distill a functional report for the powers-that-be Two major methods in which data comes from the data team (henceforth known as the Dataratti) to your team: Dashboards and Business Intelligence interfaces, and... Assuming you get data in the form of dashboards, how to take these dashboards, download the underlying data, recombine and manipulate the data, and package it in a way acceptable for your needs. Congrats, you've just learned the crucial skill of the Slice n' Dice ! Quite sleepily, -Snacks

- Max Mileaf

[cookinguptales]

queenofthefaces said: once my mom asked me to edit a paper her friend was writing, and there was this random semicolon, and i could not, for the life of me, figure out what the hell it meant. I was wondering if there was a verb missing or SOMETHING as i just STARED at this semicolon before i realized my mother had just added in a random semicolon as if it were a comma

Yeah... I feel like the semicolon is one of the most widely misunderstood things in grammar, and I’m not sure why. I think a lot of people just think of them as ~smart commas~. That’s why you get a lot of pretentious people misusing them. They see people who actually are smart, who know how to write complex, interesting sentences, and see them using semicolons. They just associate the semicolons with looking intelligent. Kind of like the people who throw around “whom” without knowing what it actually means.

Another protip: if you use “who” when you should have used “whom”, you can just say you were aiming for modern, casual prose bc “whom” isn’t in wide usage in American English anymore. You’ll really just annoy grammar pedants like my father. BUT if you use “whom” when you should have used “who”, you’ll just look ignorant and kind of pretentious. Even people who don’t know the difference tend to be able to tell (without knowing why) when someone uses it incorrectly. It’ll just sound wrong to them and confuse everyone. Then you’re gonna have a grammar fight and who needs that? So just err on the side of “who”.

[thesrhughes]

Progress Blog: Random Writing Advice

New Post has been published on http://thesrhughes.com/progress-blog-random-writing-advice/

Progress Blog: Random Writing Advice

Is it time for another progress blog?  You bet!  Today, I’m going to give everyone some unsolicited random writing advice!  What will we cover?  All the stupid basics!

Writing Advice is Silly

Rule #1 of writing advice: shrug it all off.  Every writer seems to have different and often contradictory ‘rules’ about writing.  People generally agree that every author should have a copy of Strunk & White’s Elements of Style but beyond that, well, it’s just experience and opinion.  Some experience and opinion is valued more highly than others, of course.  For instance, most writers I’ve met (especially genre writers) have a copy of Stephen Kings advice/memoir book On Writing.  I’m personally a huge fan of Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several Short Sentences About Writing.

But if we’re all being completely honest, if writing were a science, computers would already be doing it.

Thankfully, current AI only seems able to generate acclaim-worthy work with about 80% of the heavy lifting being done by humans.  So the work of the writer remains unmechanized for now.  Though anyone working in print should murder the hope of any sort of retirement, if they haven’t already.

Point being: this isn’t science.  It isn’t math.  And considering the ever-evolving state of slang, colloquialism, and grammar, particularly in the fast-paced American language, maybe we should be careful about marrying any specific rules set, especially early in the game.  But anyway,

Never Ban Words

Almost every writing-advice listicle I read includes a list of words to avoid.  Commonly, “don’t use adverbs” (see what I did there?)  Injunctions against filler words, filter words, and frilly words follow.  Passive voice?  Cut it.  Too many syllables?  Cut it.  Does it end in -ly?  You should be ashamed.

A sentence should be short, no?  Sure.  That makes sense.  But a sentence should also flow, describe, evoke, and build.  It should sound nice.  It should look nice, too.  There should be rhythm!

Arranging words is similar to arranging music.

Don’t limit yourself or box yourself in.  Step 1: write.  Sometimes you’ll use adverbs.  Sometimes there’s an aesthetic pleasure to multi-syllabic verbs and adjectives.  Even passive voice has its place.  There’s an old adage somewhere about moderation but who can ever remember it?

If you bind yourself too tightly with banned words and grammatical restrictions, you’ll shrink your toolbox.  You’ll narrow your knowledge.  Try, instead, to expand your toolbox.  Use fuckin’ everything.

But don’t bother showing anyone your first draft, because it’s probably awful.

Instead, after you’ve got it down, focus on

Editing, Editing, Editing…

Did you think writing was about writing?

Oh you poor, sweet summer child…

Writing is rewriting, as the saying goes.  Rewriting and rewriting and rewriting again, and then, once that’s done, revising and revising and revising.  Whether you’re self-published, indie-published, trad-published, or if you’re selling handbound chap books on the subway platform, it doesn’t matter.  If you’re selling your first draft, or even your second draft, you’re probably selling shit.

More than half of your first draft is garbage, I hate to say.  I usually start my second draft from scratch, from a pure-blank page, just to avoid using the same garbage prose of my first draft.  The first draft anyone besides yourself should see is your second draft.  More realistically, your second draft after a couple rounds of polish and revision.

That’s because you probably have a ton of stuff to fix.

A List of Questions, or: Fixing Your Terrible First Draft

Approach your first draft as you would approach a vile, pulsing heap of red-green biomatter squirming on your kitchen floor–that is: with revulsion, disgust, and a weapon.

If a small part of you doesn’t hate your first draft as soon as you’re done with it, I advise shelving it for a while and continuing to hone your craft by reading/writing more and more for a few months.  By the time 4-5 months have passed, you’ll have read/written enough more to be properly revolted by your earlier work.

Now it’s time to pick it up, examine it, and make with the stabbing.

I’ve prepared a list of questions for you to ask yourself as you stab.  It’s a list of questions I mutter to myself while editing and sometimes while I sleep.

Are these words necessary?  (for instance, “he saw the biomass pulse, its veins throbbing with red-black fluid” likely doesn’t require “he saw,” and it can probably be rearranged to excise the redundant ‘pulse’ and ‘throb’ verbiage.)

Does the sentence sound good?  (reading a manuscript aloud will help track down and gut all sorts of hiccups and arrhythmia in the prose.)

What is the sentence doing?  (are we learning about the character, action, setting, plot, etc?  What do these words contribute to the work?  If they don’t contribute, kill them.  Think of editing like a sci-fi dystopian world where non-contributors are casually slaughtered.)

 Is the meaning clear?  (an over-clutter of words, uncertain punctuation, or unclear noun/adjective/verb pairings can all confuse readers and destroy prose quality.)

Is this shit boring?  (as Elmore Leonard put it, “Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.”  As a director friend once put it: “The audience will forgive you almost anything, as long as you’re not boring.” — protip: if it was boring to write, it’ll be doubly boring to read.)

Is this repetitive?  (Does every sentence begin the same way?  Have you used the same word too many times in a page, or, heaven forbid, in a paragraph?)

Is there a volume issue?  (Does the lurid text border on purple?  Does the simplicity threaten austerity?  Are the words too much, too little?  This is the most subjective measurement, but very important.)

Why?  (Admittedly, I mutter this question to myself all the time, usually as a hollow whisper, a mournful murmur.  “Why?” I ask, about everything, about everything all at once, from one horizon to the other.  It’s also an important question about writing, though.  There should be a ‘why’ behind just about every word, sentence, and paragraph on a page.)

I think that’s a fine list to start with–though the more one writes, the longer and more complex the list becomes.  I do believe that covers all the basics, however, and some of the intermediate steps.

Don’t Stop

Write several times a week.  Read at least a little bit every day.  Take classes when available, if affordable.  Show your second and third drafts to people and don’t shout down their criticisms (it’s very important, when asking for criticism, to listen to it.)  Probably truer than any other piece of advice, “practice makes perfect.”

Read great writers.  For quality of prose, I adore Cassandra Khaw, T. E. Grau, and Leni Zumas.  For tight pacing, humor, and pulp craft, Raymond Chandler and Charlie Huston.  Victor LaValle mastered the art of music and aesthetic long ago.  A thousand other authors await your eyes, if you go looking.

Read voraciously and write viciously.  Edit with unparalleled self-loathing.  Brainstorm with fervor and madness, outline with enthusiasm, and write like a toothless speed freak.  Review your work like an IRS auditor.  Study the craft as if there’ll be a test on it any day now and you’ll be killed if you fail it.

That’s my advice.  To hell with banned words and meditation.  To hell with a thousand articles condemning adverbs and POV-filters and purple prose.  To hell with anything that constrains your toolbox.  Those tools are there for a reason, we just have to learn when and how to use them.

[evanfuller]

Prose Protip #111

Find a good resource, inspiration piece, or writing prompt? Bookmark it now so you can come back to it later. 

Because you know that if you don’t, you’ll spend 30 minutes Googling for it.

[proseprotips]

We don’t need a list of rights and wrongs, tables of dos and don'ts: we need books, time, and silence. “Thou shalt not” is soon forgotten, but “Once upon a time” lasts forever. -Philip Pullman

[proseprotips]

Write the story you want to read.

[proseprotips]

Always start with character. Once you know your characters and their motives, the plot will often reveal itself.

[proseprotips]

Find a partner (in-person or online) and write a short story, trading off every paragraph.

[proseprotips]

Too many distractions in your home environment? Escape! Libraries, coffee shops, and public parks are all great alternatives.

[proseprotips]

I just finished Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo and I'm still picking my jaw up off the floor. Countless books have been marketed as "grownup Harry Potter," but Ninth House finally makes good on that pitch, using its magical premise to examine gender, class, and power in the Ivy League. It's very much an adult book (cw for several instances of sexual violence), but its ugly themes are handled with empathy and grace. I can't recommend it enough.

[proseprotips]

Hard work is important, but don't forget to rest! Your story will benefit from your self-care.