So Are You Trying To Kill Me (derogatory) Or Are You Trying To Kill Me (romantic)

how do you be a writer, they ask. how???? easy. every morning i get to the keyboard and unleash unspeakable violence on people that i made up

"does it have to be queer"

yes, next question, unless the next question is "why", in which case I am pulling the lever

their relationship is literally impossible to define but if there's one thing we know for sure it's that they've got something gay going on

"But let me give you the dark side of writing groups. One really dark side of writing groups is, particularly newer writers, don't know how to workshop.

"And one of the things they'll try to do is they'll try to make your story into the story they would write, instead of a better version of the story you want to write.

"And that is the single worst thing that can happen in feedback, is someone who is not appreciating the story you want to make, and they want to turn it into something else.

"New workshoppers are really bad at doing this. In other words, they're really good at doing a bad thing, and they're doing it from the goodness of their heart. They want you to be a better writer. They want to help you. The only way they know is to tell you how they would do it, which can be completely wrong for your story."

—Brandon Sanderson, Lecture #1 Introduction, Writing Science Fiction And Fantasy

loved being like 12 years old and making an OC and saying “yeah they’re a hardened criminal. they’re deeply involved in crime. they’re in a gang” and then never elaborating on that because i didn’t know how crime worked. this is still my approach

I know everyone says adverbs are the devil but “said softly” is an ENTIRELY different thing than “whispered” and I will DIE on this hill

Do other writers ever get this like, hyper-specific dialogue exchange drop into their brains and you know exactly where these character are standing and what they’re doing and how they’re saying these words but that’s all you get. You don’t have much other context and this specific moment that exists only at this time in your headspace??

did it hurt? when the little people inside your head refused to follow your carefully-plotted novel outline?

Jules–Elie Delaunay (1828 - 1891)

Young Woman with a Sword

late 19th century