winterandwoe

body language masterlist

a translator that doesn’t eat ass like google translate does

a reverse dictionary for when ur brain freezes

550 words to say instead of fuckin said

638 character traits for when ur brain freezes again

Why shouldn’t they be?

“Why does this character have to be a woman?”

Why shouldn’t she be?

“Why does this character have to be gay?”

Why shouldn’t they be?

“Why does this character have to be trans?”

Why shouldn’t they be?

“Why does this character have to be disabled?”

Why shouldn’t they be?

“Why does this character have to be fat?”

Showing vs Telling

Do you have any narrative summary, or are you bouncing from scene to scene without pausing for breath?

Characterization & Exposition

What information do your readers need in order to understand your story? At what point in the story do they need to know it?

How are you getting this info across to your readers? Is it all at once through a writer-to-reader lecture?

If exposition comes out through dialogue, is it through dialogue your characters would actually speak even if your readers didn’t have to know the information? In other words, does the dialogue exist only to put the information across?

Point of View

Look at your descriptions. Can you tell how your viewpoint character feels about what you’re describing?

Proportion

Look at descriptions. Are the details you give the ones your viewpoint character would notice?

Reread your first fifty pages, paying attention to what you spend your time on. Are the characters you develop most fully important to the ending? Do you use the locations you develop in detail later in the story? Do any of the characters play a surprising role in the ending? Could readers guess this from the amount of time you spend on them?

Dialogue

Can you get rid of some of your speaker attributions entirely? Try replacing some with beats. 

How often have you paragrapher your dialogue?Try paragraphing a little more often. 

See How it Sounds

Read your dialogue aloud. At some point, read aloud every word you write.

Be on the lookout for places where you are tempted to change the wording. 

How well do your characters understand each other? Do they ever mislead on another? Any outright lies? 

Interior Monologue

First, how much interior monologue do you have? If you seem to have a lot, check to see whether some is actually dialogue description in disguise. Are you using interior monologue to show things that should be told?

Do you have thinker attributions you should get rid of (by  recasting into 3rd person, by setting the interior monologue off in its own paragraph or in italics, or by simply dropping the attribution)

Do your mechanics match your narrative distance?(Thinker attributions, italics, first person when your narrative is in third?)

Easy Beats

How many beats do you have? How often do you interrupt your dialogue?

What are your beats describing? Familiar every day actions, such as dialling a telephone or buying groceries? How often do you repeat a beat? Are your characters always looking out of windows or lighting cigarettes? 

Do your beats help illuminate your characters? Are they individual or general actions anyone might do under just about any circumstances?

Do your beats fit the rhythm of your dialogue? Read it aloud and find out

Breaking up is easy to do

Look for white space. How much is there? Do you have paragraphs that go on as much as a page in length? 

Do you have scenes with NO longer paragraphs? Remember what you’re after is the right balance. 

Have your characters made little speeches to one another? 

If you’re writing a novel, are all your scenes or chapters exactly the same length? -> brief scenes or chapters can give you more control over your story. They can add to your story’s tension. Longer chapters can give it a more leisurely feels. If scene or chapter length remains steady while the tension of the story varies considerably, your are passing up the chance to reinforce the tension. 

Once is usually enough

Reread your manuscript, keeping in mind what you are trying to do with each paragraph–what character point you’re trying to establish, what sort of mood you’re trying to create, what background you’re trying to suggest. In how many different ways are you accomplishing each of these ends?

If more than one way, try reading the passage without the weakest approach and see if it itsn’t more effective. 

How about on a chapter level? Do you have more than one chapter that accomplishes the same thing?

Is there a plot device or stylistic effect you are particularly pleased with? How often do you use it?

Keep on the lookout for unintentional word repeats. The more striking a word or phrase is, the more jarring it will be if repeated 

Sophistication 

How many -ing and as phrases do you write? The only ones that count are the ones that place a bit of action in a subordinate clause

How about -ly adverbs?

(Take note that I'm Black African so there's no arguing or disagreeing on this topic. It won't be the first or the last time I see sexualization of my race). And this has been rotting in my drafts for a while.

Imagine a world where fantasy authors don't sexualize Black people, Arab people, Indigenous people, or any POC/ethnic group that they deemed as ✨exotic✨ or ✨wild✨ but actually see them as a human being.

Notice that I said imagine because that will never happen unfortunately.

I really don't understand what is so tantalizing about people of color to white authors. I'm going to assume it's the stereotypes. It's even worse when an author writes about a male love interest who is apparently "a person of color" when in reality, they're just tanned or Mediterranean.

Rebecca Yarros in that one interview about how Xaden won't be White in the TV show yet doesn't even say what he actually is. Mind you, the crowd clapped at that. The thing is if it's vague in a book, you can say or announce what the character is based on in real life. You can say that a character is a certain race IRL and boom, all done. This ideology of wanting to tame the vicious, angry, and violent man (Black or Brown) and reform him into being gentle and kind is disturbing. I know it's out there but I'm lucky not to stumble on it.

Because of this, the fans get so upset on fancasting. "Xaden isn't White but he isn't Black either!" What the fuck is he then? You can't say he's Mediterranean because where in the region is he from? You can't say he's Middle Eastern where in the region of the Middle East is he from? Skin colors can range from the lightest to the darkest. Unrelated (if you consider it unrelated) but authors need to let the Gaelic language go.

DON'T WRITE ABOUT A LANGUAGE OR A CULTURE YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! DO YOUR RESEARCH, LEARN PRONUICATION, OR MAKE IT UP! Take from old languages, not languages that are at risk of disappearing/dying. It's even worse to take a real life culture and base your made-up one on it if you're just going to be stereotypical about it. No, that culture is NOTHING like the one in your book (Cough, Illyria, cough). Ilyria had a queen regnant who's name is Teuta;

Queen Teuta of the Illyrians was a badass Classical Age warrior queen who oversaw a fleet of hardcore pirates, antagonized the Spartans in their own backyard, led armies and navies that conquered cities and islands along the Adriatic coast, told the Romans to go fuck themselves, and then went out in a blaze of glory by hurling herself off a mountain after reportedly burying 6,000 pounds of gold in a secret location at a place called Devil’s Island. (Queen Teuta of Illyria)

And the Illyrians written by SJM are misogynistic and practically despise women. Something that the creator said is "Sexual attraction, fetishization does not equal allyship. It's just another form of dehumanization." This is what I'm taking about. Do you actually care? Or do you only care about what gets you hot and bothered?

(Original video here: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8S9b2PY/)

Bonus points if there's a character who generalizes and hates their entire race/species.

TLDR: STOP FETISHIZING MEN OF COLOR!

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.

• they've started detaining students liberally. if you're going to the protest or coming from it they're very likely to detain you (the police has spread it check points all across central delhi). you'll be denied entry by auto or even walk, they'll either try to scare you away or detain you. if you're coming from other state especially by railway you'll be asked what are you here for & be asked to prove it.

• the government has blocked 18 metro stations surrounding jantar mantar. for some reason they're also covering up janpath & other nearby metro stations. all entrances to jantar mantar have been closed off & a complete internet shutdown near jantar mantar.

• they are denying lawyers contact with their clients. they've also been denied entry in police station to speak to their clients, that inspector has apologized as of now & an internal investigation for his behaviour is said to have started.

• they're also making sure that the protesters have no access to food, water or electricity. last night electricity supply to janpath was cut off ++ the police are now stopping delivery men at check points & seizing food ordered by supporters from all across the country. they're also threatening restaurant owners against delivering food to the protest site.

• cafes & shops in connaught place have been given a legal notice to shut down by 6 (since many of them were providing free water & washroom services to protesters). even nearby hotels have denied room booking to doctors.

• many creators have been offered money to speak against the protest & start a hate campaign.

• we are under complete state surveillance. the police is using meta ai glasses to record the protesters, and is later running a facial recognition check on them.