Kun(s)t

Yeah, to put my money where my mouth is, here are some queer SFF writers from Asia and the Asian Diaspora in the Anglosphere that I really like and highly recommend:

Nghi Vo: probably doesn’t need an endorsement from me, hah, her The Empress of Salt and Fortune is one of the most perfect novellas I’ve ever read and well deserved its Hugo win. The whole Singing Hills cycle is great. It’s a fantasy world strongly inspired by Imperial China and Vietnam, and does clever things with fantasy, folklore, storytelling, and memory. Her novels are standalone historical fantasy set in 1920s-America-with-magic and are very much about Asian immigrant/diaspora experiences in the early 20th century US. With Magic.

Yoon Ha Lee: I love his Machineries of Empire. Would love to finish that trilogy someday. But seriously it’s creative, intense military sci-fi in a magic-science space empire and is very interested in what it takes to uphold such a system.

Simon Jimenez: The Vanished Birds is sooo heartbreakingly good and I need to read A Spear Cuts Through Water soon.

Isabel J. Kim: Short story writer. Runs the gamut of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and the weird stuff in between. Creative and vivid in really compelling ways. Her first novel is in the works and I am SUPER interested. She does funky and creative things with perspective and structure in her stories. Has several stories now that are about turning popular tropes or other iconic stories around like they’re in a kaleidoscope, but her first published story “Homecoming Is Just Another Word for the Sublimation of the Self” is probably still the most affecting to me.

Michelle Kan: Has a trilogy of novelettes called Tales of the Thread, self-described as “aromantic Chinese fairytales” that take a deliberately aro approach to fairytale retellings and fairytale style fantasy. I recommend them. (Also has a superhero novel I haven’t read.)

———

Haven’t read yet but they are on my TBR:

Aliette de Bodard: Her Xuya universe novellas, and the relationships between humans and AIs and spaceships, sound super up my alley.

Kai Cheng Thom: Author of Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir is a less traditionally sff entry but is a fabulist/surrealist take on the Trans Memoir… which I feel like I have to be in the right space for, but I do want to read it.

———

Also he’s not out as queer or anything but I can’t not recommend Ted Chiang because he writes some of the best short stories In The World and has THE most interesting and unique and compelling ideas.

———

Signalis (2022) [H.P. Lovecraft, The Festival] /Sagittarius A* / Kathy Acker, Pussy, King of the Pirates / Outer Wilds (2020) / Is There a God-Shaped Hole at the Heart of Mathematics? / Drain for overflowing water at Sambuco Dam, Lavizzara Valley / ? / Thomasin Frances, Hole Theory (15/10/2022) / Bryan’s Ground, a public garden in Herefordshire on the Welsh border. / odd, weird, strange and unusual / Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves / Evil (2019-2014) / Judas H., Overflowing With Empty / Illustration of the Annular Eclipse of 1836 from “A fourteen weeks course in descriptive astronomy”, Joel Dorman Steele (1836-1886) / @imdad_barbhuyan on Instagram / The moon’s Copernicus crater. Through magic glasses. 1890. / Kaveh Akbar / Dune (2021) / x / Dmitry Kochanovich, Epiphany (Russian,b. 1972) / The Silt Verses, Chapter 41: But As My Last Breath Splits My Throat / Yousif M. Qasmiyeh, The Camp is a Bait for Time / Darina Muravjeva, Hole / Hilde Heynen in Heterotopia and the City / x / Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers / x /  Louise Glück, from Descending Figure / Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet: An Essay. / Caitlyn Siehl, What We Buried; from “A Letter To Love” / Lara de Moor, Orb (2014) / Sam Sax, Pig / The National - Wake Up Your Saints / Aleksander Rostov / Sanna Wani, from “Princess Mononoke (1997)”, My Grief, the Sun / Gregory Orr, [i want to go back] / Thomas Ott / ? / Judas H., Overflowing With Empty / James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room / Massive sinkhole swallows house in Florida / Edna St Vincent Millay, in Letters (1952) /Silent Hill 4 (2004) / @/vren-diagram / Anne Boyer, What Resembles the Grave But Isn’t / Law of Holes / Scarlet Hollow (2021) / China Miéville, from Railsea

*

For coming up with character names:

Behind the name (my absolute fav)

Allows you to choose the origin of where you want the name to be from, whether you want a more feminine vs masculine vs androgenous name (as voted by users), random surname generator, and clicking on the name gives you important info like if there are any famous people with the same name, where it’s from, how common it is, and how people tend to see it, etc.

You can also search their name database by letter or meaning or origin, so if you know you want a character who has a name/surname that starts with an A from Ireland, there’s a whole list for you to choose from.

Census sites

Especially useful if you’re looking for a name from a specific place and/or time period. Just search “(country) census (year)” and you’ll find a database of real people who lived in that place at that time. No one can ever call your names unrealistic again.

For coming up with place names:

Fantasy name generator

This site can basically come up with any name for any person, place, or thing you might ever need. There are also specific generators for different fandoms if you’re looking to make an OC in an established world.

For finding that one word on the tip of your tongue:

One Look Thesaurus

This is my go-to. Not only can you find synonyms like a regular thesaurus, but you can also describe words like “unhappy smile” or “quiet laugh” to find the more specific word you’re looking for.

For coming up with ideas:

Word cloud

When I need to inspire a new idea, I write down all the things I’m interested in (hauntings, academia, lesbians, etc.) and put them into a word cloud to shuffle them next to each other. Sometimes seeing a concept in a new context can spark new ideas!

WWF Discord

This is my discord channel (shameless plug) for when you need to brainstorm off other people but don’t have anyone irl to talk to. We’re also happy to read and give feedback on writing, answer writing questions, or just chat!

For visualizing places and characters:

Pinterest

Pinterest can at times be a bit too sterile for my tastes, but if you use the right words, you can find more realistic photos of places. For example, adding “aesthetic” after basically any word will bring up a more broad collection of photos to help you flesh out places.

This is also a great way to find photos of people and fashion to help visualize characters. I’m bad at describing clothes, so I usually collect photos of outfits to help me know what my characters are wearing. Searching up “character inspiration” will collect more interesting photos and drawings of people who might not exactly be of our world.

(However, to make Pinterest not show you AI results, you have to go into your settings and check the “reduce AI” box. Luckily, it does mostly work.)

Death to Stock

Like pinterest but completely AI free (hooray!) Only drawback is that you have to pay a monthly subscription (about $20 CAD).

Cosmos

Very similar to pinterest but slightly more "artsy". I'm not super familiar with this one but I believe all the photos are human and you can save them and create collections with a free account.

Dupe Photos

Royalty-free stock image site with very Pinterest-core photos!

Minecraft

If you haven’t built your entire fictional city in Minecraft instead of writing, why not? It’s fun.

The Sims

This one is dual purpose because you can not only create your characters in Create a Sim, but you can design their houses. If you really want to go for it, you can bulldoze all the lots in your town and build your world from scratch.

For checking grammar:

Grammar Girl

Easy to follow definitions and examples, and if you learn better by listening, every article comes with a podcast to follow along with instead.

Grammar Monster

This one is my favourite for checking grammar rules because there’s tons of examples in graphics that helps for any situation.

Reedsy

Among other things, reedsy can connect you to professional editors within your budget.

For writing advice:

One Stop for Writers

This one was recommended from my discord channel and has all sorts of tutorials and resources for the writing craft.

My Blog Directory

Another shameless plug, but if you need writing advice on something specific, you can search through my directory to see if it’s there. If it isn’t, you can always send me an ask about it!

For an alternative to Google Docs:

Ellipsus

Think google docs but without AI. Yay!

Jinshi saves Maomao from her kidnapping, and she returns to working as the Verdigris House's Apothecary. With Jinshi's true status revealed, Maomao assumes she's never going to see him again

She thinks about this a lot, about how she's too low born for someone of his status to ever see her, and how he doesn't even need her help with his injury anyway, because Luoman is at the rear palace now. There's no logical reason for them to ever see each other again. And it itches at her

And so she starts her experiments again, harming herself. There doesn't seem to be a purpose for the concoctions she's making either, as if she's trying to treat something with no obvious cause. Something too deep for the failed medicines to reach

So she goes to cut off her finger. Specifically, her left pinky finger.

Again, there doesn't seem to be a purpose for this behavior at all- until you remember that her mother cut off the tip of her left pinky, out of anguish and rage at Lakan for abandoning her. Fengxian's love for Lakan is the reason her mother harmed her.

Maomao relates that particular finger of her's to romantic love, because of her parent's tragic love story and the trauma it caused her

Maomao knows how stupid love can make even the most intelligent of people, and has consciously and subconsciously avoided it, because she doesn't want to experience that same sort of attachment and hurt. She's heard her parent's story, heard stories of those seeking love at the Verdigris House, how courtesan's speak about love in hushed tones, and how it always ended in pain for everyone involved

But when she thinks she's never going to see Jinshi again, she goes to cut off her left pinky finger, as if on instinct. The finger she associates with romantic love. The same action Fengxian did, when she thought she'd been abandoned by Lakan.

Maomao is doing the exact same thing as her mother, for the exact same reasons.

It's only when Jinshi walks in through the door that Maomao unties her pinky and puts away the knife, and returns to her normal self.

It's one of those things where - I don't think even Maomao understands the reasons behind her actions here. Something was bothering her, something deep, and she went to the only solution she could think of to fix it- cutting off the piece of her that she associates with romantic love- but she stops feeling that subconscious itch as soon as Jinshi comes to see her. As soon as he's back in her life, things are right again, and she stops hurting herself

The Fates, in myth, weave threads of life. This performance gave the fates a red string. In Doubt Comes In, the moment Orpheus turned around, they cut the string and used the two halves to pull Eurydice back to Hades and to hold Orpheus back from going to her. And, more than that, Orpheus didn't sing her name. He screamed it.

V.E. Schwab's advice for creating memorable characters - works for both protagonists and villains

It also ties neatly into the simplest version of the formula for getting people emotionally engaged with your characters: or how to build the moment in which your character starts moving from their initial state to the state in which they'll start changing their own lives.

First, you figure out the one important thing the character believes that they're wrong about. There's usually a core misperception that they haven't examined. Once they're forced to engage with it, it'll start to change everything about their perception of the world they're inhabiting and/or the people in it.

Then, as V.E. says, you identify the character's great desire and their great fear: the thing that character wants more than anything, and the thing or situation that terrifies them, and that they'll go to any lengths to avoid.

And having identified these two objects or situations, you build a situation in which the two forces will be in close, direct opposition to one another... then drop the character down in between them, and squeeze. Those two opposing forces become the jaws of a vise... and you crank the vise more and more tightly closed until the character has no choice but to acknowledge those opposing forces, and start (even in a small way) to deal with the pressure being exerted and push their way through.

This does not have to be, initially, a great climactic moment. In fact, it works better if it's not. It's more effective if your character has a brief low-intensity brush with these conditions-in-conflict early on. That way, when your big resolution scene comes along about two-thirds or three-quarters of the way along through the story arc, you'll have set up a resonance between that earlier hint or intimation of what's to come, and the really big blowoff. Your readers will recognize the resonance—the throb of tension between the two occurrences, like the vibration of a plucked string—and will find satisfaction both in the true resolution having been partially telegraphed earlier, and in how it's now being experienced and resolved in full.

This approach also allows you to set up more minor resonances between the realization of the conflict and its final resolution. These can serve to bind the structure of the work more closely together: to make it look (and be) less like a series of loosely strung-together plot events, and more like a unified whole, in which ripples of story business flow backwards and forwards, interpenetrating and influencing one another, and hinting at the big one to come.

But none of this can happen until the paired and opposing what-do-they-most-desire, what-do-they-most-fear axes have been defined. So that's a subject it's smart to spend some while thinking about (and for all your characters, not just the major ones), to be sure you're getting it right.

I wrote a fic recently and the word count for the first draft came to about 40,000 words – roughly the length of a novella or ficlet. And that’s fine because I wasn’t striving for a novel or a 100K slow-burn coffee shop AU.

But coming to edit my first draft I realised something about myself. I am an underwriter. My fic could actually be at least 10k (maybe 20k) longer. Of course it’s not all about word count, it’s about the story, but in this case a smaller word count isn’t because I’m a fantastically efficient storyteller it’s because I’ve missed out a lot of stuff. Like, Important Stuff.

So as I set out to add muscle to the skin and bones I’ve already created in draft one I thought I’d share five tips for my fellow underwriters to help you flesh out your writing too.

1)     Make sure to describe the place and space in which the action happens.

There are quite a few places in my first draft where there’s no indication as to where things are taking place– or there is, but it’s the bare minimum and not really enough to build up a clear picture. This probably because as the writer I know exactly what the place looks like so I make the assumption that a bare minimum description will mean the reader knows too.

Now I’m not saying go into masses of detail about what your settings look like. In some cases it’s not useful to describe setting in a lot of detail (e.g. during really fast paced action sequences) but doing a verbal sketch of the space is essential for putting your characters in context and reader understanding.

I really is a fine balance (which is why beta readers are your friend!) But definitely go back to your setting descriptions if you’re an underwriter, they might need some work.

2)    Make sure to describe your character’s appearance.

Similar to the above point – you know what your characters look like, but unless you describe them, the reader won’t.

It’s fair to say that descriptions are open to reader interpretations, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t describe them in a healthy amount of detail. So you might try to nail down some of the interesting quirks about your characters to help the reader build a picture – not only will it help the readers understanding, it’ll boost your word count too!

Note: This one functions a little differently in a fic because the readers are probably familiar with how the character looks, but there is nothing wrong with adding your interpretation (or even reminding them, especially if the characters are from a book.)

3)   Include character reactions outside of what they say out loud.

Real life conversations aren’t just about the stuff that comes out of our mouths. So much of human interaction is about body language – so include it in your writing! Saying that the character covers their mouth with their hand when they talk suggests shyness. While another character crossing their arms shows they’re defensive -perhaps because they’re feeling threatened. In real life we don’t always say what we mean – but a lot of the time our actions give away what we’re really thinking. By including these actions around dialogue writers can influence how we as readers view characters and how we interpret interactions between characters. And it can boost your word count too.

The big stuff:

4)     Check your pacing.

When you write it feels like your scene is taking place over hours, days, weeks because when you’re writing it takes time. Reading, on the other hand, is much quicker. A seasoned reader can fly through a 100 page novel in a few hours – a seasoned writer can spend hours writing a 100 words.

When you read back your writing, make sure to check your pacing. You might just find that the Impossible Task you set for your characters at the start of the story is suddenly resolved within the next fifty pages. To boost your word count you might want to start by adding more obstacles between the character and their goal.

For example; your character has to find an object such as a precious jewel. Sounds relatively easy, right? But what if the jewel is lost in the mines of an ancient people, amongst thousands of other treasures that look very similar? What if no one has found this jewel because it’s guarded by a fire breathing dragon? What if the ancient mines and dragon are located in a mountain which is miles and miles away across dangerous lands? What if your characters need to enlist the help of someone with a very specific skill set?

You take one simple objective (finding the jewel) and you put into play a series of obstacles that must be overcome in order to complete the objective. Your underwriting tendencies, like mine, might just mean that there aren’t enough metaphorical (or real) dragons in your story!

5)    Sub-plots.

A sub-plot is a smaller scale plot - often involving the supporting characters - which runs secondary to the main plot. It can be directly linked to the main plot, i.e. the info provided in the subplot directly influences events in the main plot. Or it can simply be linked through place, time or themes of the overall story (e.g. Hermione’s elf rights campaign ‘S.P.E.W’ in Harry Potter and the OoTP is linked to the overall theme of oppression.)

Sub-plots are great because they can serve as some respite from a traumatic main plot; your character is fighting a war (main plot) but also fighting and failing (in hilarious ways) to win the affection of their love interest (sub-plot).

Plus, sub-plots can also help with characterisation, can cause your main character to have the moment of realisation which allows them to overcome the obstacles they face in the main plot and is generally a better reflection of real life! Sub-plots often centre on side-kicks and other characters – people who might not be as devoted to the end goal as the protagonist is. In fact, well written side characters seemingly live their own lives with their own goals. You might choose to showcase this in your sub-plot by letting the conflict of interest cause more problems for the protagonist to overcome.

Either way you could find your word count sky rockets as soon as you add in a few clever sub-plots.

I hope this helped!