i feel like people are skimming over the uk riots in a way that makes me want to tear my hair out. muslims in the uk are in active danger. immigrants in the uk are in active danger. refugees in the uk are in active danger. people of colour in the uk are in active danger. asian communities in the uk are in active danger. black communities in the uk are in active danger.
there are massive far right riots throughout the country right now and people like fucking elon musk and nigel farage are inciting it and still have a platform to speak. people have used three young girls deaths, people's genuine grief in southport, to try and gain traction for their own racist bullshit and it's working.
a lot of refugee charities have been forced to close leaving many people without support, homes, funding, food, etc. if you aren't able to donate please consider sending a message via the conversation over borders campaign! it will send a hopeful, welcoming letter to a refugee in the uk. there is also a guide to staying safe here.
please do your own research and donate to refugee charities, anti-islamophobia charities, mosques who are trying to rebuild after being destroyed, counter protesters, here are some i've heard positive things about but the list is extensive; southport strong together (support for the southport victims and their families), emergency unity fund, southport mosque rebuilding, riot repair fund, middlesbrough vulnerable residents, nasir mosque rebuilding, hull help for refugees, bristol welcomes migrants,
A lot of fiction these days reads as if—as I saw Peter Raleigh put it the other day, and as I’ve discussed it before—the author is trying to describe a video playing in their mind. Often there is little or no interiority. Scenes play out in “real time” without summary. First-person POV stories describe things the character can’t see, but a distant camera could. There’s an overemphasis on characters’ outfits and facial expressions, including my personal pet peeve: the “reaction shot round-up” in which we get a description of every character’s reaction to something as if a camera was cutting between sitcom actors.
When I talk with other creative writing professors, we all seem to agree that interiority is disappearing. Even in first-person POV stories, younger writers often skip describing their character’s hopes, dreams, fears, thoughts, memories, or reactions. This trend is hardly limited to young writers though. I was speaking to an editor yesterday who agreed interiority has largely vanished from commercial fiction, and I think you increasingly notice its absence even in works shelved as “literary fiction.” When interiority does appear on the page, it is often brief and redundant with the dialogue and action. All of this is a great shame. Interiority is perhaps the prime example of an advantage prose as a medium holds over other artforms.
fascinated by this article, "Turning Off the TV in Your Mind," about the influences of visual narratives on writing prose narratives. i def notice the two things i excerpted above in fanfic, which i guess makes even more sense as most of the fic i read is for tv and film. i will also be thinking about its discussion of time in prose - i think that's something i often struggle with and i will try to be more conscious of the differences between screen and page next time i'm writing.
autochthonous (adjective)
hello fellow non-Black tumblr users. welcome to my saw trap. if you'd like to leave, please name one (1) Black woman author who is not Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, bell hooks, Octavia Butler, or N.K. Jemisin. bonus points if she's published a book in the last five years.
And it will have to be enough
Hi, I love your blog!
Do you have any ideas for archaic words relating to sailors/ships/voyages/ocean?
Avast - a sea term, meaning stop, hold, enough. It always precedes some orders or conversation. Usually used by sailors.
Banyan day - a sea term for those days on which no meat is allowed to the sailors
Bat swain - a sailor
Breechmen - sailors
Calmewe - a kind of sea bird
Cobkey - a punishment by bastinado inflicted on offenders at sea
Doutremere - from beyond the sea
Fitty - a term applied to lands left by the sea
Landfeather - a bay of the sea
Laveer - to work a ship against the wind. An old sea term.
Loom - to appear larger than in reality, as things often do when at sea
Maryn - the sea coast
Nikir - a sea monster
Osprey - the sea eagle
Reeses - waves of the sea
Shamming Abraham - phrase common among soldiers and sailors, used when they counterfeit sickness or infirmity. It was probably derived from the Abraham men of Shakespeare's time, described in King Lear.
Se-stoerre - sea star
Sea nag - a ship
Shere - to run aground, as a ship does
Ship spy - a telescope used on the coast
Slug - a ship which sails badly
Soger - a sea insect that takes the possession of the shell of another fish
Swashway - a deep swampy place in large sands in the sea
Transfret - to pass over the sea
Viage - a voyage, or journey
Source ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Word Lists ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs
Hi, thank you so much! Hope this helps with your writing.
Hello! are you willing to help me get my insulin? I'm down to my last pen and its pretty much close to being empty.Nt asking for a much, only need $67 rn to save my blood sugar. please help me with a small donation or share,reblog any help can save my life. Thank you so much and be blessed.🙏 Donation link is available on my pinned post.
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Me in the shower: *plans the paragraphs, dialogues and words i'll write for my WIP as soon as i'm done bathing*
Me as soon as i get out:
Writing Tips
Descriptions in Between Dialogue
✧
⤠ how characters interact with the environment
⇝ moving something, picking something up, looking somewhere
⤠ how the environment interacts with the characters
⇝ weather, other character’s actions or movements
⤠ gestures
⇝ facial expressions, body language
⤠ shifts in position
⇝ standing, sitting, leaning, shifting weight, crossing arms/legs
⤠ physical reactions
⇝ body temperature, fidgeting, heart rate, character quirks
⤠ environmental descriptions
⇝ descriptions using the five senses, setting, character’s appearances
⤠ internal dialogue
⇝ emotional reaction to what was said, reflection of past experiences, connections to other characters/settings/actions
➵ I want to reiterate… descriptions using the five senses ; when in doubt, think of the five senses your character is experiencing and pick what best moves the story forward
Someone recently asked me for some fiction writing book recommendations, so here they are!
Some fiction writing teachers try to steer their students clear of books about writing. While it’s true that there’s a lot of bad or dubious writing advice out there, my philosophy is that more information is always better. Over the years, I’ve read voraciously about fiction writing–upwards of 50 books about the writing life, plot, fiction craft, dialogue, character development, you name it. While I got a little something from each one, here are the 5 star gems that are worth sharing. Enjoy!
It’s a classic for a reason. Lamott’s trademark humor makes for an effortless read as she shares her wisdom into the process of writing. Equal parts technical help, encouragement, and brutal honesty balance throughout the book, keeping the reader engaged and in good spirits from start to finish.
Butler’s ideas about the process of writing fiction are not necessarily unique, but I’ve found no other book that discusses the writing “trance” as thoroughly as this one. The exercises in this book teach how you to access the writing “dream state” that good stories often come from. The book can be a little esoteric at times, but it’s worth the patience it takes to understand what Butler is getting at here. Especially recommended for writers who have intrusive inner critics, and those who have strong ideas but find that their writing feels lackluster and flat.
This is a short read, so I’ll just provide a titillating quote and you can go pick it up for yourself: “One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now… Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.” -Annie Dillard
Hands down, this is the best craft book on the market. It’s written for beginning writers, but is layered and subtle enough to be useful for advanced writers as well. I’ve read and re-read this book at many different stages of my learning process and taken away something new each time. Unlike the cover suggests, this is not a book about grammar. It shows you how to edit for flow and syntax, to properly tag your dialogue, the basics of show-don’t-tell, as well as providing helpful exercises where you get to try your hand at editing once you’ve learned the techniques.
Make no mistake: Sol Stein is a pompous asshole. But he’s also super, duper smart. I consider this to be an advanced craft book, just because of the level of detail he goes into, but I think a beginner would get a lot out of it as well. Another classic, which means it’s almost always at the library.
Yes, this is a text book. Thick. Heavy. Teeny tiny print. But it’s good. And because it has a million editions, you can get an old version used on the internet for like $.04. Especially nice are the full-length short stories that are supplied as examples in the back of every chapter.
Chiarella doesn’t bog the reader down with his own set of hard rules about dialogue, instead he skillfully and humorously persuades the reader about what works and what doesn’t. Busting such myths as “dialogue sounds like real speech,” he gives dozens of creepy-writer-stalker tips like “crowding” and “jotting,” which is basically where you eavesdrop on people and write down what they’re saying. I now carry a notebook on my person at all times specifically for this purpose. I think this book might be out of print (yet 50 Shades of Gray makes millions… is there no justice in this world?), but you can still get it on the internet for a decent price. Do it now before it’s too late!
Stupid title, great book. Alderson talks about the idea of the “Universal Story,” which is the process of struggle (conflict) and transformation (climax and resolution) present in most stories. These “energy markers,” she says, are so inherent in our lives, and in the very idea of story itself, that they can be found in almost every plotted novel. She then proceeds to go into insane detail describing these markers and how to incorporate them into your own writing in order to make a plot that resonates with readers. From time to time she also drops some wisdom a la The Artist’s Way (which she calls, I believe, “The Writer’s Way”), helping writers to overcome the hurdles of writing a book. While Alderson is not a writer herself, she has been studying plot and assisting writers with plot struggles for over a decade, and her knowledge and credibility shine in this book. I came away with a much deeper understanding of the purpose of plot and how to wield it, and highly recommend this book.
The sensational subtitle (“The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence”) makes it sound like one of those smarmy write-a-novel-in-30-days books, but don’t be fooled. This the best book on plot I’ve read. It’s devoted to the idea of ‘story’–what makes a story, what people are ‘wired’ to look for and want in a story, and how to satisfy those cravings in your fiction. The 'brain science’ part is presented in a very accessible way, and Cron only gives us enough information to make her point, never overloading the reader with jargon. She talks a lot about the brain’s unconscious impulse to track patterns, make connections, and look for cause-and-effect, and how to translate that into good storytelling. Her definition of 'story’ alone is more valuable than 200 pages of most fiction craft books. There are endless gems in this book, and now my copy (that I purchased! with money! that’s saying a lot already) is completely marked up with pencil and sticky notes. I know this is a book I will refer to time and time again. Highly recommended.
If you’re looking for advice about craft, the finer points of good prose, or syntax, look elsewhere. But if you want help with your plot and structure, how to organize scenes, when to cut a scene, how to analyze your characters, keeping your story focused, and what order to do it all in, Ingermanson might just blow your mind. His “Snowflake Method” of plotting is loved by thousands, and is discussed in length all over the internet for free. If it resonates with you, you might want to do what I did and buy the book.
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@theliteraryarchitect is a writing advice blog run by me, Bucket Siler, a writer and developmental editor. For more writing help, download my Free Resource Library for Fiction Writers, join my email list, or check out my book The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers.
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