#aopc

Storyteller Saturday!

Hey hey @timefire25! Thanks so much for the asks, friend!

I’m gonna tackle these fantastic questions in order: 

[H2H = Heart to Heart

FF = Fish Food

AOPC = All Our Painted Colors

TND = The Neither Days]

1.  What was the first thing you knew that /had to be/ included in your wips?

H2H: Lesbians. Happy, live-beyond-the-end-of-the-story lesbians who can do magic and are ridiculously wholesome. Also: a strong, loving community; social commentary; enough fluff to stuff a whole set of pillows; cool science stuff.

FF: Humor! Without it, this story would be super duper way too dark. Also, lots of social commentary on… *checks notes*

That. And legit depictions of mental health issues.

AOPC: A culture centered around ART. I love art. And stories.

TND: Okay so there’s this one scene coming up that’s super rad and I’m really excited about it. It’s been in my head since the beginning and it’s like, the second scene I thought up. I love the imagery and the symbolism and the feelings. It’s great.

2. What’s special about it?

H2H: Sometimes you need to read something that will make you feel warm and fuzzy inside. Fluff makes the world go ‘round, ya know? And lesbians gotta survive. Also, I’m passionate about found families, which is why the story has one at its very center. I love writing stories about people who don’t feel at home somewhere, so they find with other people who feel the same and call a new place theirs. It’s an important thing to learn: there’s always somewhere for you, and always someone out there who can catch your drift. 

FF: Stories like this one are ways to see the truth of reality. Okay, that sounded super intense. What I mean is that this is a story about a group of people who have been used coming together to fight back against a system that’s doing its best to tear them down. Including accurate and respectful depictions of mental health in this story is important to me, too. I feel like this genre is a great place to explore that. 

Also, I need to work on my humor writing so that’s pretty special, I guess. 

AOPC: I loved the idea of a culture based on art. What do they value? How to they keep records of events and their history? How do they share information? What do they hold dear? It’s sort of my own version of the Legato Conservatory, for those who listen to TAZ. I don’t know of any other fantasy cultures 100% centered on art, either. It’s a story about storytelling and all the ways you can use it. And I think that’s pretty special.

TND: The metaphor and the symbolism, with the context of the canon, is so full of feels it makes my heart clench. It’s an unexpected coming together, a reaching out of two hands that meet in the middle while the world spins off-kilter around them. It’s an oh and a gasp in the same breath. It’s a fall that feels like flying.

That’s about as poetic as I can get without spoilers.

3.  What is giving your motivation to work on your current projects?

Right now, not much, to be honest. It’s midterms time and I’m a grad student, so life is pretty much study hell right now. But my stories are my creative therapy, so I expect I’ll start writing again pretty soon after all my business chills out. 

But on the regular: I really want to tell everyone about the big giant spoilers and how they happen in H2H, and one of the big confrontation scenes in FF (seriously, it’s a huge twist I don’t think a lot of people will see coming - one of them anyway 😉), and I want to figure out what the hell happens next in AOPC, and in TND, I really want to get to the switched POV chapter because it’s full of mutual pining and it offers a lot of really good insight into one character’s head (it’s my motivation to finish this transition chapter too because it’s taking forever).

4.  What’s a neat worldbuilding thing you came up with?

H2H: The magic types I developed are pretty cool! Astromancy, Totem Magic, Sigilcrafting, and Pact Magic. There are a few others, but that’d be spoilers, my friend. Making these info posts was also very fun. I got to do nerdy research about magic and science! 

And something I haven’t mentioned yet: liminal spaces are very important in this story! The town of Linsay is a liminal space. Gemma’s house is a liminal space. The police station is a liminal space for Oz. The lake is a liminal space. This is important: transformation takes place at liminal places. Magic is strongest there. The old is left behind and the new is just ahead. And the fae inhabit liminal spaces.

FF: I made a WIP page that mimics the Coalition of Heroes’ database! It took forever and it was really hard but I did it! And I think it looks rad. 

In-world, hmm… I really like Lithium’s bar. It’s a place that’s like a hero-themed TGI Friday’s or Red Robin, and it’s also the hangout for off-duty heroes. They all chill there like it’s a cop bar for officers who are all undercover. It’s great. None of the civilians who go there know that they’re sitting next to high level super heroes. And Lithium thinks it’s hilarious.

AOPC: There are so many cool worldbuilding things in this story. One is the marriage ceremony I made up. The couple stands before the Namestone and the most senior Elder binds the bride’s left hand to the groom’s right. Then the men of the tribe line up behind the groom, and the women line up behind the bride. They’re ordered so the people closest to them, like family and lifelong friends, are first. One by one, the women dip their right hands in purple paint and mark the bride’s back with their hand print. The men do the same with green paint on the groom’s back.

After everyone’s marked the bride and groom, the Elder blesses the couple, holds their foreheads together, and then they turn around and press their backs together, mixing the paint and blending the colors together. The party starts as soon as their hands are unbound. 

TND: Since most of the worldbuilding for this has already been done by the canon, here are a few recurring story threads I’m working with: Crowley vs. ducks, liminal spaces being the most comfortable and calming, “a good shock to loosen the tongue,” and the kinds of miracles that don’t work. 

Thank you so much for these awesome questions!! 💜

I’ll add my tag lists since there’s a lot of information worth tagging about:

[Send me some flowers!]

💠 Your writing style is easy-to-read and accessible yet intellectually rigorous. How did you teach yourself to strike this balance?

OH GOODNESS thank you!! 💜💜💜

This is honestly one of my main goals with my style and I’m so happy that it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing.

With AOPC, it mostly comes from the voice. Since I wrote it from Teva’s point of view (and in first person), the prose mimics the way she talks. (Also, everything I’ve posted from AOPC so far has gone through like, at least 3 rounds of edits, so take all this with a grain of salt.)

Here’s where it gets super technical for me. 

(I’ll take it apart and then explain it, like the good little English major I am.)

Teva is a pretty blunt person, and I tried to make the writing reflect that. She’s training to be a storyteller, but she’s still new at it. She doesn’t use too many complex sentences. Her rhythm is straightforward. All the metaphors she uses are taken from her environment, her village, things she’s seen and things people have told her. In my mind, their language doesn’t use contractions very often, which gives the writing a bit of a Data-from-Star-Trek feel, like someone who is feeling out a language, or a culture, and is learning formality rules or is proper in ways that might contradict their actions.

I do all of that because I come from a linguistics background. A big ‘ole word nerd, that’s me. I pay attention to the niche style things that a lot of people use without analyzing it because that’s how I was taught to do it.

Now, with the creative writing background, I use a ton of contrasts and parallels. They’re my favorite, because once you get the hang of using them, they can elevate almost any piece of writing with a little bit of careful planning.

Like in this little section:

Elder Sanga said that I do not want to hear the Call. Sarevo told me to wait. Keema asked me why. What do I want? I want to be a part of my tribe, to belong to my people like I am supposed to. I want to stand beside my sister and be seen as her equal, not the sum of my potential. I want to breathe in the land and sea and sky and feel at home. I want to listen and be heard.

But still I hear nothing. I step away from the edge, keeping my eyes on the water. I don’t want to cry in front of Sarevo.

That’s like, 90% parallels and contrasts. The sentences are super simple, but the placement of them in the paragraph is what gives it that “literary” feel, you know? They say, they say, they say, I want, I want, I want, I want, but nothing, move away. It’s a build up and a drop. (It also has to do with sentence length, here in particular, and how it changes through the paragraph.)

As for teaching myself how to do this, I kinda didn’t. I had a lot of great teachers. One of them made sure to point out how important it is to edit at the sentence level, which is what all of this is. How do the sentences work together to say what you want to say? It might seem obvious, but it kinda isn’t. (Just like anything with linguistics: once it’s explained, then it seems like the most obvious thing in the world. But it’s not, really.)

This is why I love formatting. Putting things in the right place can do just as much as writing a super long fancy sentence (which I also love doing, in the right places).

Storyteller Saturday!

Hi there @igotablankpage! Thanks so much for the ask!

I talked about my favorite antagonists here, but I’m gonna get a little more in-depth with this one. Because I can’t pick just one. 

My WIPs:

In H2H, my favorite hero is home. It makes sense, I promise. All my characters left situations that hurt them and homes that didn’t make them feel welcome and safe. They found a home in Linsay and its residents, and that new home saved them. Home is the safe place in my story. It doesn’t matter if it’s where you’re from or where you end up - home is where you want it to be.

My favorite villain is impulsiveness. Some of my characters do dumb things because they jump to conclusions and assume and act before thinking. It makes for some interesting situations and some very interesting relationship dynamics. And all that self-doubt that those impulses bring out? Wonderful.

In AOPC, my favorite hero is acceptance. That’s right, it’s a concept. (#norules) Acceptance and understanding is what saves people in this world.

My favorite villain is The Wanderer. Because, well, is he really a villain? To the community, yes, totally. But why is he a villain? What made them think he’s so bad? His whole arc is so fun for me.

In Media:

I love heroes who fail and tragic heroes. Orpheus, Edward Elric, Captain America, Galavant, Odysseus, a lot of Shakespeare’s historical/tragedy heroes, y’know? Characters with a good hamartia (fancy vocab word for “fatal flaw”) are the best. Not just because it makes them more human and relatable, but because it deepens their development and aligns your heart with their journeys. And the catharsis that results from their adventure(s)? The best. 

[Here’s more info on tragic heroes! ]

My favorite villains are ones that, in another circumstance, you could see yourself rooting for. Not just charismatic villains, but smart ones. Villains that know the hero so well that they would consider them a friend if only they weren’t on opposite sides. Villains that just seem so reasonable. Their motives totally make sense for the character.

Let’s get a little more specific (while being totally vague at the same time). I’ll use The Codex Alera series as an example. No spoilers, I promise. I won’t even talk about heroes and villains because things change a lot in this series. 

Fidelius is one of my favorite complicated characters. The choices he makes and what he decides to do with himself throughout the story enthrall me every time. He’s fascinating. For those who’ve read the series, you know what I’m talkin’ about if I mention how his story ends. Like, what a choice. 

And the Aquitaines? Hoo boy, those are some twisty characters. And Lord Aquitaine’s history with the royal line? Dang. 

My other favorite is Araris. For many reasons, mostly because of how he handles his instructions. (Book readers know what’s up.)

What do all these characters have in common?

My knees shake under the weight of his gaze. I want him to let go. I want to tell him what I don’t like to think about. I want to talk to him and let him tell me that I’m safe and that everything will turn out alright.

Excerpt from Chapter 4 under the cut. 

(It’s one of my favorite scenes!)

WC: 976

Tagged by the lovely wonderful @writingonesdreams! Thanks!

Rules: Summarize your WIP in one (possibly teaser-y) question.

Heart to Heart: How did you know to do that?

All Our Painted Colors: What if I changed the story?

Untitled Tree Story: “Wait, what happens next?”

TV Show on the Back Burner: Is the climb worth the fall?

(I love being vague.)

Tagged by both @inexorableblob and @ren-c-leyn! Thanks, friends!

Since I’m mainly a short story writer, I’ll be looking through all my short stories. And there are many. Hoo boy.

Rules: Find the four words in your writings then choose four more words for people you tag to find. 

Puttin’ my tags up here because long post is long:

Bilbo Taggins: @quilloftheclouds, @cawolters, @waterfallwritings, @wasting-ink-not-youth, @mvcreates, @elisabethrosewrites, @dc-writes, @urbanteeth, @aslanwrites, and anyone else who thinks they can find my words:

I challenge you to find: haven, stick, door, and cling.

Alright, the indomitable @inexorableblob sent me on a scavenger hunt for walk, injury, grace, and tattoo.

Let’s see what we can find:

Walk | From All Our Painted Colors: 

“I can handle it, Keema. Honestly, I haven’t really noticed,” I say, but I am lying. People have started to follow me with their eyes when I walk through the village. Some of them even keep to one side of the path when I pass by, and not out of respect. I can tell they are uneasy around me now.

and a bonus from an abandoned draft of space goofs because it’s funny:

“Enough, already.” 

Eliza wasn’t working anymore. Her purple pencil was floating next to her head, where it had risen from being tucked away behind her ear as she whipped her head around to face him. The hem of her pants was dancing to the eighties music that came booming from the headphones bobbing around her neck. 

“We can have fun up here, too,” Hector said, upside down and trying to walk along what he called the ceiling. He stepped over one of Eliza’s mission logbooks and kicked a packet of water toward her. The cap came off halfway through its trajectory, spilling blobs of water into the air. “Hey, it’s almost like snow!”

“I said enough, Hector.  We have a job to do up here. We can’t goof off all day.” She slung a sheet of paper his way, spinning it like a throwing star. He caught it in his mouth.

Injury | From a story I won’t name because spoilers: 

“Because I will get mad again. And there won’t be a life-threatening injury to save you from another lecture.”

Grace | From “Aces High” (this one was super hard to find!):

Mike glances at the buttons on James’ backpack underneath the lunch table bench. There is one he recognizes: a coat of arms made with two crossed swords, a hammer straight between them, laid beneath a shield with an elaborate “L” stamped onto the metal. An emblem of honor and bravery in the face of evil, the crest of a prince fallen from grace, a medallion worn by the lost of the Eastern Kingdoms’ northern nation. You play Warcraft? Mike asks. James peers at him from the corner of his eye as he takes a small bite of the brownie.

Tattoo | From “Turning Tricks”:

Scanning the faces of the ten or so patrons who chose to be in such a place on a Saturday night, the man stopped short when he saw her. More accurately, when he saw the tattoo she had revealed with a casual scratch of her neck.

She gestured for him to sit down.

The lovely @ren-c-leyn has tasked me with discovering these words:  monster, wink, blade, and sky.

It seems I write about the sky a lot.

Monster | From "Up Down All Around:” (the only monster I was able to find out of all my writing, too! And in the story where I did my best not to use any pronouns - Quinn is a genderqueer kid):

As soon as Quinn’s hand wrapped around the cup, a mechanical hiss sounded from the beneath the counter as the marble began to vibrate. Quinn dropped the cup, sending it clattering to the floor, and shot a glance out the window above the sink. The sky was dark, the moon out of view and the stars swallowed by the black night. Monsters eat stars and moons and little boys and girls, and Quinn jumped, back impacting the cabinet door. Quinn yanked it open and pushed inside, folding knobby knees into the grip of sweaty hands, and let the hinges flex and swing the door shut, eyes squeezed closed.

Wink | from “The Tin Man DJs on Weekday Nights in Jersey:”

“Subtle.”

Andy tosses him an obvious wink, throwing her whole face into it.

“Is that how you get the boys to like you?”

“Don’t limit my options, Timothy.”

[Andy is pan-aro as hell]

Blade | From “Mile Marker 72:”

He walked around to the back of the truck and braced the longer plank against the ground before taking the saw in hand and cutting into the wood. The cutting was slow. Aldo stopped every few dips of the blade to check if the cut was straight and measure the depth with the side of the other plank.

Sky | I have a lot of these! Weird. From All Our Painted Colors: