Reading & Writing

Me, trying to explain my WIP to my friends;

Don’t worry that your story isn’t original Or that a troupe has been done too many times before Do you know how many soulmate fics I have read?? So many And every time I see a new one I’m just YES MY THING GIMME Or how many boarding school books I’ve bought?? What about fanfiction Some fandoms have hundreds of thousands of fic

There’s thousands of fic on how the same ship will kiss

About the same world. And the same characters. Just with a slightly different spin

Write whatever the heck you want Someone, somewhere, will want to read that self indulgent piece of art, no matter how many times its been done before. 

Being rejected sucks. But don’t post about it in anger. Never put an agent or publication on blast. Social media presence matters and complaining about rejections now, especially if you mention names, may cause more in the future.

On the subject of pain, reading a description of pain can bring you in to the story on a deeper level or completely pull you out of the moment.

I’ve had one or two experiences in my life with various types of pain. Here’s some real happenings/differences between various types of wounds.

Scratches- a tear in the skin is usually at the surface level. Bleeding is minimal, A few minutes at worst. Is usually a sharp stinging sensation. If the scratch is made by a dirty object (barbwire or metal covered in mud) it may burn for a short time. When it heals the skin puckers with scabbing and tends to leave tiny, fine scars. These scars tend to fade in a few weeks to few months.

Stab/puncture- depending on how it happens most any type of puncture is a deeper wound, going past the first layer of skin into fats/muscle/possibly bone depending the depth . If it happens with force it will almost always bruise under the actual opening and aches around the wound. If it’s a quick in and out motion perhaps it won’t bruise but it will burn. These wounds bleed freely and require pressure/sutures/medical care to stop. Depending the severity/damage done to surrounding tissue, this will take a week-2 weeks to knit skin together however the tissue inside may continue to ache for weeks because muscle injuries don’t repair easily with/ without medical intervention.

Broken bones- when a bone breaks there’s usually a pop that’s felt and/or possibly a cracking sound. If there isn’t a sound, that doesn’t mean it’s not broken. A break is a severe pain, sharp, tingling, a hot/cold flush from the area. And I hate to break it to my friends in the writing field, when an arm or leg is truly broken (not a splinter/sprain) , people don’t continue to use it afterward, fighting the pain. It’s broken, it literally doesn’t work. Adrenaline might delay the sensory overload of intial pain but usual it’s pretty clear by lumping/swelling/weird angle/lack of support to attached limbs that it’s the real deal. The first outset of pain is intense, the most striking, deepest pain imagaineable. Some people say it burns like an iron. Others have said it feels cold, like a numbing ice that’s burns. Healing from a break itches! Like tear skin off to reach it itchy. Breaks take 2 months to heal, and that’s only if the person doesn’t have any outlying issues like infections / muscle damage etc. physical recovery takes a while after as you teach the muscles around the break to be effective again, muscle atrophy after a break is a real thing.

Shock - going into shock is a serious ordeal for the body that of course depends on the seriousness of the injury that caused it. People say they remember feeling cold afterward usually. Mostly during shock a person is disconnected from what’s happened, borderline catatonic in some cases. They may not be aware of their injuries or seem to care about them. Some cases people faint because they overwhelmed and their brain just shuts down for a time. The time frame is different for everyone. An active warrior type who might be used to blood/gore/pain might shake off shock quickly, a few minutes or so. A regular person not used to pain or intense danger might be in shock for 20 minutes plus or even go into latent shock later after the danger has passed when their brain catches them up to what they survived. Usually this is accompanied by being a little emotional /hysterical , shivering, hyperventilating and not being able to hear/understand other because the part of them used to process new information is preoccupied by this survival instinct.

Happy tat to all. Hope this helps my writer community.

Just a bit from one of my fav books of the moment, A darker shade of magic (book 1). I’m trying some new stuff, decided to do this one with a more stylised approach. Always thought ADSOM would make a great animated series 

What is post Inspiration Burnout?

We’ve all been there. The muses hit us hard, and we spend days, weeks if we’re lucky, churning out thousands of words a day. Our stories are on fire, it’s all we can think about, and if we’re not writing, something feels wrong. 

And then it ends, as inspiration always does. 

This is normal! Inspiration isn’t a personality trait, it’s a temporary state of being. When that fire burns out, we’re usually left feeling tired and uncreative. So how do we recover? 

Why are you slowing down? 

First things first, figure out the why. Take a good, hard look not just at your writing, but your life around it. Maybe you don’t know what happens next in the story, and you’re stuck. Maybe you’ve been working a lot of hours and staying up late writing, and you’re physically exhausted. Maybe something emotional happened in your life, like a breakup, or a fight with a friend or loved one. Sometimes it might just be the natural cycle of the muses, but before you chalk it up to that, really look at all the other options. 

Some of those causes, like writers block, can be solved by going back to outlines or using brainstorming techniques. Others, like a fight, can only be solved by time. Which brings us to our next question….

Do you need a break? 

I always say, if it’s a problem inside your story, you can write around it, write through it, or write about it, but you can’t solve it by not writing. If it’s a problem outside of your story? Then you need to take a honest look at what’s going on in your life to see if you can benefit from a break.

Not everyone needs one in the post-inspiration burnout phase, but plenty do. Let it be an option! Take some time to explore another hobby, another writing project, or to just lay on the couch and watch netflix. Whatever you know is going to help you recover those creative juices.

 It helps to choose a start and end date to your break, whether that’s a day or a week or a month, so you can mindfully take time off from your project. 

Can you recreate your inspiration? 

While you’re reflecting on the reasons you slowed down, and if you should take a break or not, there’s one more thing you should try to figure out: was there something that prompted your inspiration, and if so, can it be recreated? Maybe you moved to a new writing place, and it awakened something. Great! Find another new spot, and see if that helps. Maybe it was a song you listened to over and over and over again until you wrung out all the inspirational juices from it. If it’s on spotify, go to that song’s radio to find other similar jams, or listen to other songs by that artist. 

There’s not always a rhyme or reason to inspiration, but if you can find a source, take advantage of that! 

Reread for fun

If you find yourself slowing down, give yourself a nice time by rereading all the fevered words you just furiously typed on the page. It’s a good way to spot check yourself to make sure you didn’t just throw out half your outline in a muse-induced haze, and it can bring back some of the excitement you felt when you were writing it. Besides, there’s something about reading words that were written joyously that is just so much fun. Let yourself have a moment. 

Don’t hold yourself to the same standard

Were you writing for five hours a night? Were you writing 6k words a day? That’s great, but that’s done now. Don’t expect yourself to be able to sprint forever. Writing is a marathon sport, and there is no shame in physically and mentally slowing it down. If you work well off goals, that’s great, but choose a more realistic word count or time goal for your lifestyle, something that you could conceivably achieve every day, not just when inspiration lights a fire under your ass. 

Be proud of what you achieved

Whether your inspiration lasted a day, a week, or months, it’s not something to mourn the loss of; it’s something to celebrate the existence of. Whatever you achieved during this time, be proud of it! Chances are, you wrote words you never would have gotten down without these moments, and had ideas that are going to serve you for much longer than any temporary period of inspiration could ever last. Throw a party! 

So listen up y’all, nothing drives me crazier as both a writer and a scientist than seeing alien diseases that make no fuckin’ sense in a human body. 

If you’re talking about alien diseases in a non-human character, you can ignore all this.

But as far as alien diseases in humans go, please remember:

DISEASE SYMPTOMS ARE AN IMMUNE RESPONSE.

Fever? A response to help your immune cells function faster and more efficiently to destroy invaders.

Sore/scratchy throat? An immune response. Diseases that latch onto the epithelium of the throat (the common cold, the flu) replicate there, and your body is like “uh no fuckin’ thanks” and starts to slough off those cells in order to stop the replication of new virus in its tracks. So when it feels like your throat is dying? guess what it literally is. And the white spots you see with more severe bacterial infections are pus accumulation, which is basically dead white blood cells, and the pus is a nice and disgusting way of getting that shit outta here.

(No one really knows why soreness and malaise happens, but some scientists guess that it’s a byproduct of immune response, and others suspect that it’s your body’s way of telling you to take it easy)

headache? usually sinus pressure (or dehydration, which isn’t an immune response but causes headaches by reducing blood volume and causing a general ruckus in your body, can be an unfortunate side effect of a fever) caused by mucous which is an immune response to flush that nasty viral shit outta your face.

Rashes? an inflammatory response. Your lymphocytes see a thing they don’t like and they’re like “hEY NOW” and release a bunch of chemicals that tell the cells that are supposed to kill it to come do that. Those chemicals cause inflammation, which causes redness, heat, and swelling. They itch because histamine is a bitch.

fatigue? your body is doing a lot–give it a break!

here is a fact:

during the Spanish 1918 Plague, a very strange age group succumbed to the illness. The very young and very old were fine, but people who were seemingly healthy and in the prime of life (young adults) did not survive. This is because that virus triggered an immune response called a cytokine storm, which basically killed everything in sight and caused horrific symptoms like tissue death, vasodilation and bleeding–basically a MASSIVE inflammatory response that lead to organ damage and death. Those with the strongest immune systems took the worst beating by their own immune responses, while those with weaker immune systems were fine.

So when you’re thinking of an alien disease, think through the immune response.

Where does this virus attack? Look up viruses that also attack there and understand what the immune system would do about it. 

Understand symptoms that usually travel together–joint pain and fever, for example.

So please, please: no purple and green spotted diseases. No diseases that cause glamorous fainting spells and nothing else. No mystical eye-color/hair-color changing diseases. If you want these things to happen, use magic or some shit or alien physiology, but when it’s humans, it doesn’t make any fuckin’ sense. 

Some bacteria have physical effects on the body that cause symptoms (EHEC varitype of E. coli ruptures cells at the site of infection, which is usually the large intestine, hence, you have bloody stools from it). If your alien or “made-up” bacteria or virus causes a certain symptom, find a real bacteria or virus that causes the same symptom. They need to behave in a similar fashion and have similar physical traits. Bacteria and viruses do not evolve functions because they’re cool. They evolve them because they’re useful.

There are also dietary issues, medications and chronic diseases that cause physical changes–copper toxicity can cause an orange ring around the iris, an eyelash lengthening “medicine” causes darkening and/or color change of the iris, hemochromatosis (sometimes known as “Bronze Diabetes”) causes darkening of the skin etc. If you want to use this sort of thing, again, find something real that causes it and work through things logically. 

I’d like to add that the same goes for parasitic infections, more or less. If you want a certain trait for a diseases, cross reference with existing parasites to see what’s happening, and also make sure you check what happens if you put a parasite in a host it’s not meant for. We can sensibly assume that alien parasites that encounter a human would be ‘wtf’ and potentially cause complications that would never happen in the native species. Maybe in the native species it causes a cold like reaction at worst, but in a human the parasites may attempt to nest in a totally different tissue. Maybe that causes widespread tissue damage by the parasite itself as it tries to borrow in? Again, check existing cases to see what horrific things could happen.

While we’re on it, also check how your disease is communicated. One of the things that annoy me so much with zombie movies is that ‘biting’ is supposed to be a very effective way to spread it. It’s not. Anything that requires such intimate contact is actually kind of hard to communicate. Airborne things? Now there we are at potential ‘oh shit’ territory. So if you want your disease to sweep the country/planet/ship, pick something that’s easily communicable. 

Also consider the incubation period. How long until someone shows symptoms? Are they already infectious to other people before showing symptoms or still after they stopped? As mentioned above, illness symptoms are in most part immune responses and the immune system needs time to get up and run. Give it that time.

Nothing makes me groan harder than a made-up plague which gives anyone X diseases within seconds to MINUTES. I’m looking at you, most zombie movies. And if your alien/synthetic/sci-fi pathogen is at all like a virus (read: no metabolism of its own, just genetic material of some kind which it uses to reprogram host cells), then the rate at which it mupltiplies is limited to what normal human cells can do. Now, viruses can multiply pretty damn fast. But give you symptoms within MINUTES? Nope.

So long as we’re on the subject of epidemiology, and speed:

 "Oh no, patient died less than a day after being infected! We’re all doomed!“ Wrong. While that SOUNDS scary, a plague that kills that quickly would not actually be that dangerous, and would be unlikely to have evolved to begin with. A disease needs to pass itself on to at least one other person, on average, before it kills its host, or it’s doomed to extinction. Any virus that kills its host before it has a decent chance of being passed on will basically quarantine itself. (Of course, you CAN do this if you handwave its origins as being made in a lab or whatever, just know it won’t realistically pose a truly terrifying threat on a population level.)

Mmore ideas for a realistically scary made-up plague:

- Long incubation period (say, a couple of weeks), making quarantine much more difficult, disruptive to everyday life, and unlikely to succeed. - Infectious period != symptomatic period, i.e. someone can spread the disease before they appear sick. (Note: if this condition is met, then dying very rapidly after *manifesting symptoms* becomes plausible again, more plausible than dying quickly after being infected.)

- The possibility or relative prevalence of healthy carriers - think Typhoid Mary. I.e. rare people who skip the symptoms part entirely but are still infectious.

- The disease is transmitted through an animal that is hard to keep out, the definition of “hard to keep out” would depend on the setting here. Poor water sanitation means waterborne bacteria and microscopic parasites would be a huge danger. Insect or arachnid (e.g. tick) bites could be a danger in almost any setting..

- As an alternative to above point: the bacterial/viral/parasite/whatever can form spores that are fucking EVERYWHERE. (Read: the reason for both tetanus and botulinum poisoning.)

- The pathogen is both dangerous and impossible to fully exterminate through vaccination because it has a huge population of reservoir hosts. (Reservoir hosts are entire SPECIES that can carry and propagate the disease without being affected much by it.) Same way the Black Plague is still out there because a shitton of rodent species passively carry it.

It’s here again, the day when we try to remember all the names of the people who have touched us with their words and creations and usually end up forgetting someone and feel terrible about it. I know it can’t just be me, right? ;)

So here’s to you, all of you.

Whether you write long fic, short fic, one-shots, poetry, reams of backstory for a character whose story may never actually be written; whether you play out a story in your head and never share it, or blurt out everything that comes to mind to everyone who listens; whether you dominate your fandom with content, or have never shared a single word of your writing; whether you write for canon characters or original characters; whether you agree with canon or Marie Kondo it … you are a writer.

You hold within you entire worlds, quest lines, precious moments with characters that the media will never show us. You may be just starting out, or you may be an old hand at it. Being a new hand does not make your work inferior; being an old hand does not make you an authority on your fandom. At heart, fanfiction is collaborative. Even if you work alone and never show your writing to anyone, you’re still a part of this community, and you’re still deeply appreciated.

When our favorite stories are over, fan creators are what keep them going. Fanfiction writers are a huge part of that. You share your knowledge, your interpretation, of canon characters outside the situations we have seen them in thus far, and through you, we get to know them better, love them better. When you work with artists to create something uniquely fan-made, we get a precious glimpse of the wonders inside not just your mind, but the artist’s mind too.

We live in a world where fanfiction is slowly beginning to be recognized as a genre of its own, but where many of us still feel ashamed to acknowledge our part in it outside the online fandom communities that make us feel at home. Even online, where we should feel safe in our expression, there is a vocal contingent of people trying to shame us for what we write, simply because they don’t like it.

They are wrong.

Archive of Our Own being acknowledged and rewarded with a Hugo is an enormous step forward; the growing number of professional authors who proudly state that they started with fanfiction is wonderful to see.

But at it’s heart, fanfiction is a very personal endeavor.

It isn’t just an expression of love for characters or setting. It isn’t just dressed up pornography, as some people would have the world believe. Fanfiction is a reflection of the people who write it. Speaking for myself, writing fanfiction has helped me through so many dark periods of my life. Being able to express myself through the characters I love, through characters I have created, in situations and settings that may not necessarily be my own … it’s a gift. Fanfiction is a valid tool to cope with trauma and upset - not just for the writer, but for the reader as well. By writing out our traumas and our triumphs, we may be offering a hand to someone who thought they were alone in their struggles, and that is a beautiful thing.

We are a community, regardless of our differing fandoms. Without fanfiction, and the community built into it, I probably wouldn’t be here to write this letter to you all. Fanfiction writers have pulled me out of my deepest, darkest places; have let me know that I am not alone, and that there is no shame in my struggles. I hope that, as a writer myself, I can do the same for others.

So, in spite of the block, the plot bunnies, the ever-increasing army of OCs, the unsolicited criticism from cowards hiding behind anonymous … here I am. And I am saying this out loud.

You are a writer. You are precious to me, and to your fandom and community. You are deeply appreciated, even if it doesn’t always feel that way. Your words would be missed if you stopped.

Happy Fanfic Writers Appreciation, all writers out there.

- make sure you know how each character feels going into the scene, and how that progresses throughout

-understand what each character wants out of the scene

-understand why you are including this scene in the first place

So, you’re working on a book, or maybe you’ve finished it. But you know something just isn’t right, or the first readers didn’t like it. What could be the problem?

1. Story not plot

The issue could be that you have written a story and not a plot.

A story is a string of events occurring one after the other. It’s basically: this and then that and then that etc.

Plot is a series of events/occurrences that are interlinked in a cause-and-effect manner. A happened because of X, which resulted in Y.

Oftentimes, the idea for a new WIP comes to us as snippets of happenings that are random. However, that does not a book make.

A book needs plot. Your events need to follow some pattern or logical consequence of cause and effect. One plot point must give rise to another in a structure that makes sense and ensures maximum interest.

There’s a reason there are so many pre-determined plot structures out there.

If your book is just story and not plot, try to outline the events in a more organised way. Maybe you can consult guides like the 3-Act arc or Save the Cat if you need help.

2. Pacing

Maybe you have a structured plot, where each occurrence is logically and entertainingly linked to the rest, but you don’t pace out those events correctly.

Apart from good structure, the most important aspect of plot is pacing. 

There is an art to writing good stories, and a lot of that involves good timing. You should not litter big event after big event with no space to breathe. You also shouldn’t write 500 pages of nothing.

It’s a difficult balance, but plotting aids could once again help.

I also have a post on conquering pacing, if you want to check that out.

3. Weak characters

This is a fatal mistake.

If you have flat, one-dimensional characters that do not interest your readers, no amount of plotting will save the book.

I know this comes across as harsh, but it really is true. Character is key.

So, if you have no problems with your plot per se, but something still isn’t working, you might want to review your characters.

Are they three-dimensional enough? Do they have strong, identifiable motivations? Do they have interesting combinations of traits and interests? Are they diverse?

You can check out my post on designing a simple character arc if you feel really stuck.

I would also recommend creating character sheets in which you flesh out each character. Personality tests such as MBTI and Enneagram are also great ways to create complicated characters.

4. Too many overused tropes

Everything has been done before. I’m sorry to break it to you. However, not all variations/combinations of things have been done.

It’s okay for your book to feature a cliche or a popular trope. What might be damaging is using a bunch of overused ideas in one book.

There are some elements, like the “wise old wizard” or “the chosen one” or “the answer was inside you all along” that have become distinctly predictable. This is because most people have seen them a thousand times.

This means that your readers won’t be interested in reading further, since they’ll feel like they already know how things will play out. It’s old and boring. The market for these types of stories is also saturated.

So, make sure that you combine elements of storytelling in a somewhat unique and surprising way. No, you don’t have to set out to write something absolutely revolutionary. There should just be some originality - even if it’s just in your writing style.

5. Messy prose

Sometimes the premise, plot and characters of a book are amazing. But you just can’t enjoy reading it. Why? Because the writing is terrible.

Writing inundated with spelling errors, run-on sentences, boring word-choice etc. is very difficult to find entertaining.

Do not allow your good story to be discarded because of messy prose and grammatical errors.

Grammar, spelling and syntax exist for a reason. They facilitate ease of reading.

So, before you put writing out there, use ProWriting Aid or Grammarly, at the very least. If you’re putting it out in a professional capacity, hire a qualified editor.

You don’t want to be labelled a bad writer because of something that is easy to fix.

There are probably many more reasons something could feel off, but these are some of the main ones. Keep in mind that these problems can be fixed.