Bats In The Shadows

Yes, I was tearing through books constantly, and talking to this teacher at least weekly. Because even though I always loved reading as a kid, literature was always a very weak subject for me in terms of a teaching-to-standardized-test school setting (I just do awful on "what color were the curtains" type multiple choice questions. Those details don't stick in my memory THEY JUST DON'T). But that didn't matter for this class. I could just read my way out of any bad test score. I have always had fond memories of how I "fudged" my way through that class and "abused' the extra credit policy.

normalize fans being reminded that boundaries between fandom and creators exist for a reason.

normalize fans recognizing their own creative potential without seeking canon validation

normalize the idea that fandom is a hobby, not an identity to threaten and fight and harass people over

normalize a healthy understanding of the boundaries between fiction and reality

The proper response of the creative person shouldn't be "please respect my story/vision" it should be "please respect me and my position as the paid professional in this relationship."

New fans don't know this - and I entirely blame the immediacy of communication of socmedia - but creators of media tended to keep the fans at arm's length because of a very real legal risk that listening to the headcanons, etc could result in.

I'm going to try it.

First, let me preface this with something very important: you can treat all of this advice as SECOND-DRAFT ADVICE. It is so much easier to rewrite this kind of stuff once you have words on the page. Telling yourself the first draft is totally appropriate and acceptable.

What we’re talking about here are FILTER WORDS (and to some degree verbs of being). Yes, “thought” words are included. But so are “heard, saw, looked, tasted, smelled” etc.—most words having to do with the senses.

This isn’t black and white advice; sometimes you’ll use these words and that’s okay. They’re not WRONG. They’re just weaker. And they’re weaker because they create distance between the reader and the experience of the character.*

If you want your reader to feel like they’re experiencing the story right alongside the character, you want to cut down on filter words.

*This is particularly important with first person and close third POVs. The reader always knows whose eyes they’re seeing through and thoughts they’re privy to. So you don’t need to tell them “I saw X.” Or “I heard X.” Or “I thought Y.” You can just jump into the action/observation as it’s happening.

This is also where you want to pay attention to verbs of being.

you want to pay attention

to verbs of being.

That means that when you read a line like

John saw that the curtains were open.

It immediately takes you OUT of the character's perspective and instead tells you what they experience as a secondhand observation.

You don't have to get fancy or purple with how you rephrase things like this. Not everything needs a ton of breathing room.

You wanna know what's perfectly impactful while keeping a tight POV?

The curtains were open.

Some of this, yes, is about POV distance--but some of it is also about the information being conveyed by the sentence. If you are using a sentence like "John saw that the windows were open" it should be because the information you are seeking to convey is that John saw it.

Maybe this matters because the next time John looks back they are closed, and so he's doubting what he saw. Maybe it matters because he later has to recount information about the room he was in, and it's notable that he specifically saw that the windows were open. The fact and method of his observation is part of the point of the sentence, rather than simply the observation itself.

When we are using sense verbs, it should be because part of the point is the sense. Same with "thought", "felt", etc.: "Mary thought that Susan looked a little thin" is telling us a different piece of information than "Susan looked a little thin."

Contrarily, at least in my opinion, simple telling phrasing like "It was rainy" can sometimes bring us more into a character's head than something showing like "The rain howled like an injured animal." I have read books when a relatively plain-spoken/plain-thinking character suddenly starts having elaborate descriptions of things like scenery or weather, and it is abundantly clear that the author wanted to spruce up their writing and avoid "telling." The problem is that it drags me as the reader out of the character's head and shows me where all of the strings are. I'm suddenly thinking about how the author is worried about being yelled at for "telling" instead of just reading the story.

Humans have vastly better spatial memory. This is due to the fact that they are unable to sense it in all directions, like an Eridian can. So if a sudden noise or event removes an Eridian’s ability to hear, it will not have any idea what the makeup of the room is unless it put conscious effort into memorizing it in advance. While a human knows exactly what the room is like behind him, and could even find their way around in the dark.

Eridians are far better at multitasking. They can do multiple completely unrelated things at the same time. They could assemble a model boat with two limbs while doing complex calculus with the other. This is owing to their omnidirectional nature.

Humans are much better at focus. It takes a serious amount of concentration for an Eridian to continue on a single task for a long time. It is unpleasant for them – like doing a thousand arithmetic problems would be for a human. Boredom and mental fatigue set in.

Humans are much stronger at hand-eye coordination. Eridians are quite adept with their limbs, but human hands are simply better. Eridians would never be able to juggle or throw objects accurately like a human can.

Eridians are better at precise memorization. They are much faster than humans at rudimentary math tasks because they have memorized most of the answers. When a human needs to know what 102 x 27 is, they will have to work it out. While an Eridian will just remember the answer as easily as a human would remember the answer to 2 + 2.