Finished #ThousandAutumns vol.3. story is great but writing isn't as great. Or maybe the translation isn't great? Lots of telling rather than showing (we know the characters is awesome, but show us don't tell us why), lots of repetitive paragraphs about plots as if the reader has the memory of a gerbil and forgets plot points by the next chapter. Prob has something to do with its webnovel structure. The editor in me wants to pick up my red pen and hack away 🤪
Still, I enjoyed it.
Displacement activity: A fancy word for unwitting #procrastination, when you are in the middle of writing something terrific, you're in the flow, and all your senses are over stimulated (#actuallyautistic) and you simply must go do something else. Sweeping the floor, maybe? Writing a mastodon post? Check!
fabula murina (mouse story) CL
Silvius mel e flore lonicerae libat (Silvius sips nectar from a honeysuckle flower). apes prope flores suaveolentes bombitant (bees buzz near the sweet-smelling flowers). mus et apes flores partiunt (mouse and bees share the flowers). #fabulamurina
@Minimus I love your little Latin posts, but today I looked at your hashtags. Mastodon is all about communication. I'd suggest adding the hashtags #language and #photo to your posts. Both are relevant. Your photos are a style of photography called product photography or more loosely still life and I'd suggest the hashtag #stilllife also (three Ls). If you're feeling bold, you can add #photography. Last, since you are writing little stories, I highly suggest adding #writingCommunity#writersOfMastodon and #fiction. Spero hoc utile est!
#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 9 Nbr 09 — What's the minimum time you can work on your writing? Do you need a long, clear period?
This isn't something I've ever measured, though I can recall having an idea of something to add and, because of the ease of bringing up my writing on any platform, spending a few furious minutes writing. Left to my druthers, I will spend hours. Once I spent 15 hours straight, but that was because of a deadline (Clarion critique the next morning) and a story (fantasy romance) where the characters demanded I live their story. 2 to 4 hours is average.
Were I to need to clear a long period to write, I'd never write.
More to the point for me, I really need to clear my mind. Anxiety tries to creep in. To the extent I push that aside and quiet the monkey voice in my head long enough to let the words fill the blank page, time simply does not matter.
As an #sf, #sciencefiction, or #military#fiction#writer, you need the gif image of Tonga exploding in an eruption that can be found in this article. The article is interesting, too.
Wintereyes (the MC) is great with beasts, magical, monstrous, and mundane. She /befriends/ them, which without revealing spoilers means they get along very well with her. Being friends with animals she may well eat does make for an interesting personal philosophy.
Caramello (the SC) has never had to get along with animals, but he does have some familiarity with dolphins as a sailor and birds as a Crab Islander. However, him wanting Wintereyes as a girlfriend, he is learning to tolerate them more than he would have ever imagined. Not only is she worth the effort, it may save his life.
INTERTWINED NARRATIVES OF MOTHERHOOD and madness weave a subtly unsettling spell in this little gem of a novel of psychological horror and suspense. B PLUS
#WordWeavers 2405.06 — Who is your most fun character?
Wintereyes.
She's a free spirit unlike any of my previous characters, but she's always kind. Despite being shy, she's incredibly courageous but doesn't understand how impressive that is. Having lived amongst wolves (she's human), she doesn't understand what it means to live amongst people, but is learning. She's sticking to her "friendly" principles when challenged with unerring innocence, integrity, and passion. It does make her more-than-occasionally NSFW, however...
The MC is employed by her main antagonist, who is an absolute ruler. Theoretically, the MC is second in command, but reality begs to differ. One of the reasons the MC accepted the troubleshooter job is that the MA informed her that her supposedly dead father is actually a political prisoner in a nearby country. In the back of her mind, the MC wonders whether she can use some of the MA's power to pay certain miscreant warlords a nasty visit...
This is a possible sequel I've set up in the current story by having the MC befriend a very talented up and coming military officer.
The main antagonist. This is the person she once considered as the person who ruined her life. She once worked for someone whose stated goal was assassinating her, and didn't care if they succeeded. For the last few months, the MC lived in a roommate situation that made them neighbors. Her roommate was being trained by the main antagonist, but also had a bad relationship with her. Their proximity was always a background tension in the story. In the current story, the MC is now working for the main antagonist and understands the MA's "evil" reasons better, but still dislikes her. The MC could ask for her own suite, free of charge, in the same building but is planning on taking her new salary to live elsewhere.
#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 9 Nbr 08 — When writing technical or scientific detail, how much is plausible versus imagined?
Everything in a story must come across as plausible, full stop. It doesn't matter whether it is imagined or factual. This is as true for writing technical or scientific detail as it is for writing about social interactions. Here's my secret sauce recipe:
If I don't or can't understand the details necessary for the story, I don't write it. I won't write a story about a convenience store clerk because I don't know what that is like, nor am I willing to commit the brain cells to learn. This is one of the reasons I write fantasy and not mainstream or historical stories.
If I understand in layman's terms, I rely on subject matter expert characters to relate what's necessary. For example, I wouldn't explain in a story how the combustion engine works any more than I would explain how the star drive works. I rely on my mechanic, who at the most technical says I replaced a part and here's the bill.
If I am making up the details—which can be how the magic works or the social details for a society that exists only in my head—I rely on consistency and limits to build plausibility.
If something minor occurs that I can't explain, I lampshade it—I hide the bare electric bulb with pretty fabric enough so that the characters in the story believe what happened is plausible. Generally, readers will accept this. See item 6.
If I end up researching something for the story, as I did to write a story about prizefighter, I present only the technical details I know and use items 2 and 4 otherwise. Yes, I learned how to punch a speed bag and train as a fighter, but I'm not one. Since the story involved "mixed magical martial arts," I made s**t up, also, which is item 3.
Most importantly, I work to not stretch the reader's credulity and base everything I can in the common reality the reader shares with me. This promotes plausibility.
Hey, neat! Thank you! It's an "imagination engine" - the original mod @Arotrios kbin.social wrote a detailed description here.
I never really fully got my head around it but it seems to be a combination of art, poetry, music, cinema, mythology, etc and a lot of the posts in it bounce off other posts in it.
Want to learn about the business side of writing your SF stories?
Can*Con is offering an online workshop. it runs for three weeks starting on May 14, every Tuesday and Thursday evening from 7 to 8:30 pm ET. It's a dedicated workshop with vetted experts who work in the field who’ll share wisdom, experience, and a way forward.
As a boy, the cartoonist Peter Kuper dreamed of studying bugs. He explains how he managed to combine his passion for drawing and his fascination with insects.
#Writer#story fuel: Think about these two paragraphs, read the article, then write a story. Or read Jean M Auel's The Mammoth Hunters.
Neanderthals disappeared roughly 40,000 years ago. But before they died out, some of them mated with early humans—which is why modern humans of non-African ancestry have between 1 and 4 percent Neanderthal DNA. The reconstruction of Shanidar Z makes it “perhaps easier to see how interbreeding occurred between our species,” says Emma Pomeroy, a palaeoanthropologist at the University of Cambridge who helped discover Shanidar Z, in a statement.
“The skulls of Neanderthals and humans look very different,” she says. “Neanderthal skulls have huge brow ridges and lack chins, with a projecting midface that results in more prominent noses. But the recreated face suggests those differences were not so stark in life.”
The winners of the 2024 Pulitzer Prizes have been announced. The New York Times took three: One for its coverage of the war in Gaza and others in the Features and Investigative categories. The Washington Post tied with wins in Commentary, Editorial Writing and National Reporting. The Fiction Pulitzer went to West Virginia writer Jayne Anne Phillips for her novel, "Night Watch," while the Nonfiction prize went to "A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy," by Nathan Thrall, which tells the story of a Palestinian father living under Israeli occupation of the West Bank. Here's the full list from NPR. This Poynter.org story has links to all the winning pieces of journalism.
death card not bad. the rune was Perth. it's too warm on this bus. somnambulific environmental conditioning whilst part of my mind a tiny part of a tiny mind is remembering not bothering to warn me by recalling feeling sleepy in the back of a packed truck to a gentle smell masking the carbon monoxide as the countryside outside slips away in black and white whilst in Denmark Mr Bodum is founding a glass company. The little individual cork coasters so fancy the plastic handles flimsy oh so chic the french press IKEA couple sophistication Japanese paper lantern light shade rattan matting Kung Fu shoes fuck you're just listing things now to stave off the return of dream with the window that wrapped around the whole floor and it was bed wall to wall all around and it was comfortable and casual and no problem where hands strayed and how it began and a condom and the rain started and the key still in my bike parked down at the end of the lawn. How to touch base with you feel like I said I would like to touch bases on this device and it will not be found on the beach in Denmark and it was a child with you to touch base. Happy new gear and the key still in my head was spinning around the worn lock tumbler strange icons suggestions for more res than nine by nine grid eh but where's the art in that check it out looks like a map of the world if you squint real hard. The Netscape world is spinning faster than the connection and I can deduce the speed from the handshake negotiation scream alone. DTE becomes DCE if you stand on the other side of the interface. memories striping down the screen like a nude through 33.6k.
#Editors of #fiction, you've heard about @AmyJSchneider's new book The Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction. Should you get it? Wonder no more! Longtime editing pro Adrienne Montgomerie says she even quotes passages of it to her university #editing students! https://tinyurl.com/y27jauz6
#WordWeavers 2405.04 — How does your SC deal with failure?
Try different ways to get what she wants until frustration sets in, followed by anger, followed by doing something stupid.
When all the hauling companies in her home prefecture blacklisted her not simply for being female, but for being female while being persistent, she may or may not have thrown a brick through some windows and turned over some vehicles. She ran from the constables. She got tricked in another city into thinking she could earn quick money hauling questionable things to start her own company. She got blackmailed into the mob. She's still saving, for that day she might escape.
STYLISH CALIFORNIA THRILLER keeps the energy high with action and hot romance. Vivid details and strong characterizations make this a glossy rollercoaster of a read. B PLUS
What some Lemmy communities that are dead or very low number of new posts that you would like to get more active?
My pick is /c/albumartporn