Lots of stories focus on young folks trying their best to save the world. This is, perhaps, another one of those--but it also explores just what happens when young people try everything to live up to the expectations that others have for them, and just how much of themselves they have to sacrifice in the end.
🔥❄️ Flame-Keeper; Frost-Daughter is a darker YA fantasy about:
✨ a girl raised to become her people's only hope
🌿 haunted swamps and deadly spirits
👑 a princess with secrets of her own
💀 monsters, ancient magic, and a dying kingdom
💕 a slow-burn sapphic romance
🖤 and a Chosen One story that asks what happens when destiny is more burden than blessing.
Tamarack leaves home believing she can save everyone if she just tries hard enough to be what her people need her to become.
Instead, in seeking answers to embrace her destiny, she finds a kingdom filled with monsters, impossible choices, and Princess Ryndine--another young woman who may understand the weight of expectations better than anyone.
Sometimes becoming the hero costs more than anyone is willing to admit.
If you love:
• Sweet & Bitter Magic
• Cinderella Is Dead
• stories rooted in other places than yet another Fantasy Europe
• queer romance
• interesting takes on the undead
• and characters who struggle to live up to the weight of expectations placed on their shoulders
...then you'll no doubt like this one. I really hope you do!
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anon in my inbox said fanfic writers who wrote about dark and taboo topics were not “real writers” because of what they wrote about.
reblog if you believe anon is wrong and writers are writers, no matter what they write about. no matter how they portray these taboo topics.
reblog if you believe art can be about topics that are controversial, taboo or outright disturbing, and artists who create controversial, taboo or outright disturbing art are as valid as artists who create art of conservative values.
you need to make more self-indulgent art btw. hyper-specific self-indulgent niche shit that appeals to You Specifically and maybe nobody else will get it or even like it but that's the point.
sometimes a theme recurs in your work without your permission. and sometimes it reaches a threshold where you're like. well now i think this is saying something about me against my will. don't know what though
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the thing with romance for me is that you need to convince me through behavior and dialogue that the characters enjoy spending time with each other and seek each other out. even with enemies to lovers a foundation of mutual respect goes a long way. you can be like "he's the youngest ever general of the dragon slaying guild and I'm secretly a dragon, but he's the best swordsman I've ever fought and our sparring matches are the only thing that make me feel alive ever since my family was killed." if he implies something similar then bam, you have a reason for the two of them to hang out even though one of them knows it's dangerous. you can't be like "he's a dragon slayer and he's mean to me all the time but the flex of his arms when he swings his sword is just too sexy." it does not matter how many times you have your protagonist say "I shouldn't be drawn to him... but I am" if you never show a real moment of connection between them that draws them together
Yeah, sure, seeing new things is helpful as a fantasy writer. But. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that exposure to new things is the same as traveling. You know what else exposes you to new things? The internet. Documentaries. Books. Freaking Youtube. So when you’re bored of cats and cooking tutorials, go on an adventure!
You wanna write create some fantasy creatures but don’t know where to start? Go check out some videos The Weird Creatures Earth has Had.
Want some inspiration for your Super Evil Villain’s Villanous Deeds?
Or maybe you want some weird locations to kick start your Fantasy World Terraforming?
Or maybe you need knowledge of bunches of historical places and cities and cultures?
But maybe you’re basing fantasy on the modern world?
Okay but lets say you want to start from the same inspiration as GRRM? (and part two!)
That’s just the stuff I could quickly grab. Things I’m subscribed to, that I know offhand. There is So. Much. Stuff. Online.
The best thing about the internet is that it means its not just the fortunate sons that get to learn, and explore and imagine and write. We get to see stories from all over the place, from all sorts of people, who bring All Kinds of New Ideas.
I think there's something that needs to be said about encouraging readers to leave feedback.
For me it's not about "tell me my writing is amazing and stroke my ego"
It's more about "please engage with me so that I can experience your joy secondhand and foster a connection with you"
I understand that not everyone wants this in their reading experience, some people are shy and a million other reasons why maybe someone wouldn't want to engage and that's perfectly fine!
But what I'm trying to steer away from is being a passive content creator with passive consumers. What I want to steer toward is fostering a community that is essential to fandom. I want to see your reactions because it makes me feel like I'm a part of something.
On encouraging reblogs —
I understand that not everyone is comfortable reblogging, especially explicit content. This is ok!
But just consider that the only reason you were able to enjoy a fic or fanart is because someone else shared it, and by not sharing it yourself you are potentially robbing someone else of the opportunity to enjoy it as much as you did.
As OPs our reach only goes so far and this website relies on reblogs in order for anything to truly get seen by a wider audience.
So that's really it! That's why I encourage these two things at the end of every story I post. Not because I'm trying to be demanding and "make people feel bad" if they don't do it.
I know most other social media sites encourage mindless content consumption and that's just the way of the world nowadays, but I am from a time when community was at the heart of fandom and I just don't want to lose that.
But what I'm trying to steer away from is being a passive content creator with passive consumers. What I want to steer toward is fostering a community that is essential to fandom. I want to see your reactions because it makes me feel like I'm a part of something.
thinking again about TvTropes and how it’s genuinely such an amazing resource for learning the mechanics of storytelling, honestly more so than a lot of formally taught literature classes
reasons for this:
basically TvTropes breaks down stories mechanically, using a perspective that’s not…ABOUT mechanics. Another way I like to put it, is that it’s an inductive, instead of deductive, approach to analyzing storytelling.
like in a literature or writing class you’re learning the elements that are part of the basic functioning of a story, so, character, plot, setting, et cetera. You’re learning the things that make a story a story, and why. Like, you learn what setting is, what defines it, and work from there to what makes it effective, and the range of ways it can be effective.
here’s the thing, though: everyone has some intuitive understanding of how stories work. if we didn’t, we couldn’t…understand stories.
TvTropes’s approach is bottom-up instead of top-down: instead of trying to exhaustively explore the broad, general elements of story, it identifies very small, specific elements, and explores the absolute shit out of how they fit, what they do, where they go, how they work.
Every TvTropes article is basically, “Here is a piece of a story that is part of many different stories. You have probably seen it before, but if not, here is a list of stories that use it, where it is, and what it’s doing in those stories. Here are some things it does. Here is why it is functionally different than other, similar story pieces. Here is some background on its origins and how audiences respond to it.”
all of this is BRILLIANT for a lot of reasons. one of the major ones is that the site has long lists of media that utilizes any given trope, ranging from classic literature to cartoons to video games to advertisements. the Iliad and Adventure Time ARE different things, but they are MADE OF the same stuff. And being able to study dozens of examples of a trope in action teaches you to see the common thread in what the trope does and why its specific characteristics let it do that
I love TvTropes because a great, renowned work of literature and a shitty, derivative YA novel will appear on the same list, because they’re Made Of The Same Stuff. And breaking down that mental barrier between them is good on its own for developing a mechanical understanding of storytelling.
But also? I think one of the biggest blessings of TvTropes’s commitment to cataloguing examples of tropes regardless of their “merit” or literary value or whatever…is that we get to see the full range of effectiveness or ineffectiveness of storytelling tools. Like, this is how you see what makes one book good and another book crappy. Tropes are Tools, and when you observe how a master craftsman uses a tool vs. a novice, you can break down not only what the tool is most effective for but how it is best used.
In fact? There are trope pages devoted to what happens when storytelling tools just unilaterally fail. e.g. Narm is when creators intend something to be frightening, but audiences find it hilarious instead.
On that note, TvTropes is also great in that its analysis of stories is very grounded in authors, audiences, and culture; it’s not solely focused on in-story elements. A lot of the trope pages are categories for audience responses to tropes, or for real-world occurrences that affected the storytelling, or just the human failings that creep into storytelling and affect it, like Early Installment Weirdness. There are categories for censorship-driven storytelling decisions. There are “lineages” of tropes that show how storytelling has changed over time, and how audience responses change as culture changes. Tropes like Draco in Leather Pants or Narm are catalogued because the audience reaction to a story is as much a part of that story—the story of that story?—as the “canon.”
like, storytelling is inextricable from context. it’s inextricable from how big the writers’ budget was, and how accepting of homophobia the audience was, and what was acceptable to be shown on film at the time. Tropes beget other tropes, one trope is exchanged for another, they are all linked. A Dead Horse Trope becomes an Undead Horse Trope, and sometimes it was a Dead Unicorn Trope all along. What was this work responding to? And all works are responding to something, whether they know it or not
An incomplete list of really useful or interesting reads from TvTropes.
please note that yes many of these are concepts that exist elsewhere and a few are even taught in fiction writing classes but TvTropes just does an amazing job at displaying the range of things that can be done with them
legitimately so much of the terminology I use to talk about storytelling, and even think about it in my own head, i learned about from TvTropes
Willing Suspension of Disbelief
Watsonian vs. Doylist
Trope Tropes, for all the ways tropes are used, deconstructed, subverted, and played with.
The Oldest Ones in the Book, which is basically my favorite thing on the entire Internet
Punk Punk, for -punk subgenres
Sliding Scale of Silliness vs. Seriousness, Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism
The Weird Al Effect is a fun one
Chekhov’s Gun, Chekhov’s Boomerang, Chekhov’s Skill, and further variations
Law of Conservation of Detail
Law of Conservation of Normality
Anthropic Principle
Word of God, Death of the Author
Sliding Scale of Fourth Wall Hardness
Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness
Genre Savvy
Flashbacks and Chronology breaks down all the ways you can handle chronology in storytelling
Show, Don’t Tell is a very good breakdown of what is showing, what is telling, and how both can be used effectively.
Lampshade Hanging
Noodle Incident is just fun imo
Genre Title Grab Bag
Fridge Horror
Rule of Cool, and also Cool of Rule
The Smurfette Principle
The Hays Code - not a trope but a very good breakdown of how the Hays Code affected storytelling in film
this is just a really short list of examples I encourage people who write or otherwise create stories to browse around on this site it’s so useful
Theory of Narrative Causality is one of my personal favorites, because it's kind of fun when a story acknowledges that things are happening in the story because that's what makes it a good story.
Also Applied Phlebotinum, because sometimes you don't need to know how something works, it just does, and that's all that matters for the purposes of the narrative.
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OKAY
I have been meaning to do this for MONTHS but hey, there’s no better time than the present so buckle up, here we go!
THESE BOOKS ARE A GODSEND.
I am ALWAYS on the lookout for writing aids that ACTUALLY HELP. If you’re like me, and occasionally venture out to buy books on, let’s say, showing vs telling - you will always get the same rehearsed speeches on what that means. -summons pretentious writer’s voice- You’ve got to shoooooow what’s happening in the scene, not teeeeeeell~~ BAH! What you NEVER get, however, is how to do it, or how do it better.
THESE BOOKS ARE THE STUFF OF DREAMS
Each of these is so freaking helpful, I can’t even convey. They all follow the same format as the pictures I’ve shown above, so you get one detailed page of descriptions followed by tons of more in-depth, thought provoking concepts.
I’ll do my best to lay out the five that I have and if you are interested, hop on over to Amazon and buy these suckers up because they are AMAZING; I have NEVER used a writing resource more than I use these.
Negative Trait Thesaurus & Positive Trait Thesaurus
-gives you a definition of said negative trait
-gives you similar flaws also found in the book
-gives you possible causes of WHY the character might have this trait
-gives you a list of other behaviors the chara might have
-gives you examples of the chara’s thought process
-gives associated emotions
-gives positive aspects of the trait, as well as negative
-gives examples of well known chara’s that have this trait
-talks about how the chara might overcome it
-gives traits that, when combined with this one, might cause conflict
How I use this information:
Chara building, or when I get stuck on what I want a character to do. Man, I just can’t decide what they WOULD do. Well, awesome, I have a little guide to help me think through the character’s possible motivations. Also, I get help building a potential backstory because I get a framework of which to think, why is the character this way?
Urban Setting Thesaurus & Rural Setting Thesaurus
-gives a whole lot of examples of sights, smells, tastes, and sounds
-gives examples of textures and sensations (ie at an ‘antique shop’ you may encounter chipped paint, distressed wood, etc)
-gives you possible sources of conflict (ie at a ‘hotel’ you might have noisy neighbors)
-gives list of people you might expect to find at said location
-gives related settings
-gives tips on this type of setting
-gives a setting description example
How I use this information: IMAGERY IMAGERY IMAGERY
Emotion Thesaurus (aka MY FAVORITE)
-gives a definition of the emotion
-gives physical signs and signals (ie chara may look pale, might fidget, etc)
-gives internal sensations (aka, blood pounding in the ears, dry throat, adrenaline rush)
-gives mental responses (ie fight or flight)
-gives cues of acute or long-term impacts of the emotion
-gives ‘may escalate to _______’ and directs you to other emotions
-gives cues of suppression (ie cues of suppressed rage)
-gives writer tips
How I use this information: I love this book so hardcore, it’s so helpful with internalizing. It’s great because I get to step outside of that box of using the same five responses to a certain emotion and start really thinking about, what can a character do instead to show that they are feeling this, rather than me using adverbs or his adrenaline pumped fifty gazillion times.
These books are all co-written by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi (bless their souls) and if this sounds of interest LOOK INTO IT!! I get such buyer’s regret after buying writing guides but these are legit the best ones I have found and I reference them so, so, so much.
Hope this helps anyone out there looking for something life-changing!!
When I was in college, my Creative Nonfiction professor would regularly have us do something she called "hotspotting" (she didn't know that this was already a term tbc) with our rough drafts. Basically, hotspotting is when you look at your draft and pick out your favorite sentence, or one of your favorite sentences--one that you're really proud of--and write it down in a blank sheet in a notebook. Not a new document, a physical notebook. (You are not allowed to use technology for hotspotting.) And then you set a timer for however long--like maybe ten to twenty minutes--and you elaborate. You treat that one sentence as if it's the opening sentence to a new draft, and you write from there, until the timer is up.
It sounds like a gimmick, but honestly, some of my best writing in that class came from hotspotting. Usually, the sentence you consider the "best" is the one that really gets to the heart of something you're trying to convey. In a rough draft, it tends to be that you're fumbling around a bit before you really hit on the heart of things. So with hotspotting, you're starting from a less fumbly place, which means you're able to dig into your subject in a much deeper and more precise way. It makes you feel like a surgeon, a little bit.
So I do recommend trying it, even just for fun, even if you think the rough draft you have is already good. You might surprise yourself with what you come up with! :)
AN: I'm writing a series of short stories featuring a character very dear to my heart, using an adapted Thoth tarot deck to give me "prompts," as they are. This is the first one. They aren't meant to be polished; they're meant to be productive play, helping me to rebuild my confidence in writing again--and to have fun! Still, I would appreciate constructive feedback if you have any to offer! I would love to use these as a learning opportunity. With that said, I hope you enjoy the scattered bits and bobs of the life of one Erin Yeates, a sort of "Dorothy at 40," if you will.
___________
Most people are pretty stubborn by nature, I reckon. Teenagers, especially—you tell them not to do something, and they're immediately putting their limited brainpower to use at figuring out how, exactly, they can. Well, and your old folks; they've gotten set in their ways, and God help anyone who tries to move them. Hell, even your average, every-day Joe settles into a routine, and getting them to deviate from it is like a farmer trying to move a river to water the fields: it just ain't gonna happen, unless nature forces it.
I think, perhaps, I might be an outlier even then. Most people are pretty stubborn, sure. I don't know how many are "hold on to a strange dream and insist it was real for thirty years, come hell and high water—and forced hospital stays" stubborn.
We like to believe in stories. Sometimes, they're everyday ordinary lies we tell ourselves to help us get through the day. Things like, "we can generally trust the government not to assault us for no reason," and "this store is definitely donating these charitable donations in whole to the charity they've identified on their little kiosks," or even "my wife absolutely still loves me even though we haven't really talked to each other like human beings for the past decade." Sometimes, they're the big stories we hear in myths and read in books. They're fun. A lot of times, stories hold us through the worst times in our lives in the ways that reality simply isn't able or willing to.
But damn if you don't get looked at like an absolute moron for insisting that some stories are actually more real than we'd like to think. Say it long enough and loud enough while causing enough trouble for people who don't want to deal with you, and you get hauled off to padded rooms and non-slip slipper socks and lots of medicine that keeps you calm and quiet until you learn to say "yes sir" and "no sir" and "you're definitely correct, the things I lived through were definitely all in my head."
The thing is.
If it really was all in my head.
How come I still have the scars?
Mama always did tell me I was like an old hound dog with a bone when it came to things I didn't understand. I would argue her in circles trying to get explanations for everything, growing up. She didn't know how to help me when I came back a year later for me, and eight hours for her, completely different and a little bit broken. She did her best. I still made it hell on earth for her. I don't blame her for calling in the cavalry. I still send her a Christmas card and Mother's Day flowers, when I remember. I don't mention the incident. I keep things light. We go to dinner together once a year, when we both have time.
I'm rambling, now, because I don't want to get to the point of all this. I've held onto this wound on my heart for thirty fuckin' years, now. I've read every fuckin' book on magic and the occult, and ninety percent of them are useless bullshit, and the last ten percent are a bitch and a half to get through for a high school dropout. None of them gave me anything that could really help me, but some of it sounded just familiar enough to keep me going, practicing meditation and trying to reclaim that feeling I had—because if I can just find the right hole in the world, I could fall through it again, and I could go back to a world where things made sense again. A world where I mattered.
But I can't. I'm willing to accept it now, I think. Sometimes, a story is just a story, and a dream is just a dream. I gave up my life—my whole entire fuckin' life—for something that was never real, and will never be real again. Tomorrow, I'm going to apply for a steady job, instead of just wandering around surviving off of handyman work and odd jobs I can pick up from neighbors and friends of "friends." I'm going to make a difference.
Except.
Look.
The thing is.
I just pulled the mail out of my shitty apartment box for the first time in awhile—been avoiding the bills—and…
Someone left me a key ring. You know, like the kind janitors and old jailors used to wear? Big, heavy—but not iron. Of course not, it wouldn't be iron. I think it's brass, with a nice patina built up over plenty of greasy hands over plenty of years. And there's one single key on it, looking like some old skeleton key from an old Victorian house. I've seen a few of them—well, replicas of them, for jewelry and such—before, but never quite like this. And when I picked it up, I felt…
I felt like I did, that one night that everything changed.
Easy enough to write off, though. Some idiot messed up and gave me the wrong mail, stuck the keys in the wrong box, right?
Well, that's what I thought, too. But one of the bills wasn't a bill. It was an actual, honest to God, handwritten letter.
"Miss Erin Yeates—
Sorry this has taken so long to get to you. You'll know what to do with it, I think.
Good hunting, Locksmith."
No signature. No nothing. That was it. But the paper smelled of a flower that only existed in a dream I had when I was eleven years old, and I would never forget it. How could I? I laid them all over my mentor's grave. Her house had been covered in them.
So. Sorry, mom. But I guess I'm gonna have to be stubborn a little while longer. I'll take a rain check on the respectable 9-to-5.
Looks like I'm a Locksmith, now, and I… I think I have a door to find.
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